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robertsnj · 56-60, M
sorry for the long ramble but..
Nothing is black-and-white and for US (not other countries) law enforcement it is more complicated than most things. I had a friend who entertained going into law enforcement and then declined the career path because he felt at the state level, (I feel is focusing on state not federal) police are victims of their environment and policies.
The environment being how dangerous or safe a community was that the officer worked in. The policies that probably hurt the community the most are three fold
Town of Castle Rock vs Gonzales (see footnotes at the end) I am just going to put the case in the footnotes, but the Supreme Court (for non -Americans are top court) ruled that police do not have a duty to protect the public. The implication of it has when put with point 2 (see below) is that they can (and do ) often chose not to prioritize community welfare A book that really dives into the implication of that decision is Dial 911 and Die by a lawyer named Richard W Stevens where he walks through each state and shows legal cases where this officer chose not to protect “civilians” while still being aligned with their overall duties in law enforcement.
You can combine that with a concept called taxation by citation. It is the idea that using monetary penalties to discourage behavior but a lot of agencies, directed from the top down and combined with asset forfeiture to seize money for their municipalities with no concern for public safety and welfare of the community at large. Some towns in the south have since been forbidden from collecting more revenue per year from citations than city taxes, as in many places did and do, make more or much of their annual budgets from citations and probably even put into their business projections (though in secret)
The last piece is the idea of us-and-them which is culturally hammered into their ranks. Even their word choice like civilians, perps, blue wall of silence and show a strong us and them mentality. A guy on Quora once put in a really concise way. Paraphrased he said a lot of the guys come back from Iraq and Afghanistan where they saw everyone as the enemy policed them all day and come back to the USA, get a job as a cop and keep that same mentality. Obviously not all of them are ex-soldiers but once someone put it in writing it was really clear to me the comparison between the two.
I don’t think anyone goes into that career thinking I want to be a bully and see everyone who is not in blue or red (fire fighters) as an enemy but their policies and the realization from the public that if they are on law enforcements vector they are about to part ways with large sums of money, creates an environment where police are culturally isolated from the rest of us (aka not part of the community) and start down a dark path of enforcing policies that don’t benefit the community at large and have almost nothing to do with public safety.
I put footnotes at the bottom but you can grab key words vs reading a lot
https://www.oyez.org/cases/2004/04-278 Town of Castle Rock
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/581000 Dial 911 and die
https://www.aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/taxation-by-citation taxation by citation
https://www.aclu.org/issues/criminal-law-reform/reforming-police/asset-forfeiture-abuse asset forfeiture
https://mtinnocenceproject.org/the-blue-wall-of-silence-perpetuates-racist-policing-wrongful-convictions/ blue wall of silence
Us vs them in policing 1 / https://amuedge.com/us-versus-them-in-policing-what-causes-warrior-cops/
Us vs them in policing 2 / https://www.hrmonline.com.au/culture/us-and-them-reimagining-police-culture/
Nothing is black-and-white and for US (not other countries) law enforcement it is more complicated than most things. I had a friend who entertained going into law enforcement and then declined the career path because he felt at the state level, (I feel is focusing on state not federal) police are victims of their environment and policies.
The environment being how dangerous or safe a community was that the officer worked in. The policies that probably hurt the community the most are three fold
Town of Castle Rock vs Gonzales (see footnotes at the end) I am just going to put the case in the footnotes, but the Supreme Court (for non -Americans are top court) ruled that police do not have a duty to protect the public. The implication of it has when put with point 2 (see below) is that they can (and do ) often chose not to prioritize community welfare A book that really dives into the implication of that decision is Dial 911 and Die by a lawyer named Richard W Stevens where he walks through each state and shows legal cases where this officer chose not to protect “civilians” while still being aligned with their overall duties in law enforcement.
You can combine that with a concept called taxation by citation. It is the idea that using monetary penalties to discourage behavior but a lot of agencies, directed from the top down and combined with asset forfeiture to seize money for their municipalities with no concern for public safety and welfare of the community at large. Some towns in the south have since been forbidden from collecting more revenue per year from citations than city taxes, as in many places did and do, make more or much of their annual budgets from citations and probably even put into their business projections (though in secret)
The last piece is the idea of us-and-them which is culturally hammered into their ranks. Even their word choice like civilians, perps, blue wall of silence and show a strong us and them mentality. A guy on Quora once put in a really concise way. Paraphrased he said a lot of the guys come back from Iraq and Afghanistan where they saw everyone as the enemy policed them all day and come back to the USA, get a job as a cop and keep that same mentality. Obviously not all of them are ex-soldiers but once someone put it in writing it was really clear to me the comparison between the two.
I don’t think anyone goes into that career thinking I want to be a bully and see everyone who is not in blue or red (fire fighters) as an enemy but their policies and the realization from the public that if they are on law enforcements vector they are about to part ways with large sums of money, creates an environment where police are culturally isolated from the rest of us (aka not part of the community) and start down a dark path of enforcing policies that don’t benefit the community at large and have almost nothing to do with public safety.
I put footnotes at the bottom but you can grab key words vs reading a lot
https://www.oyez.org/cases/2004/04-278 Town of Castle Rock
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/581000 Dial 911 and die
https://www.aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/taxation-by-citation taxation by citation
https://www.aclu.org/issues/criminal-law-reform/reforming-police/asset-forfeiture-abuse asset forfeiture
https://mtinnocenceproject.org/the-blue-wall-of-silence-perpetuates-racist-policing-wrongful-convictions/ blue wall of silence
Us vs them in policing 1 / https://amuedge.com/us-versus-them-in-policing-what-causes-warrior-cops/
Us vs them in policing 2 / https://www.hrmonline.com.au/culture/us-and-them-reimagining-police-culture/