this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2024
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I know several cops and they are all great people. I live in Europe though, and hating all cops isn't luckily considered normal here.
You're just being foolish to trust them.. I'm Canadian and always heard how our cops weren't as bad as American cops, then we had protests in my city and the Canadian police proved they can be every bit as sadistic and psychotic as American cops. So can European cops. Don't let your guards down
I know several ex-cops because they saw everyone around them was a bastard, they are great people.
I live in Canada and also know several cops who are great people;however, even they would not raise a finger to expose fellow cops who are indeed bastards
That's the problem, it's not a few bad apples, it's a shit ton of them and the few remaining good apples are too afraid or just not care to do anything about the rest
The whole point of "a few bad apples" is that they spoil the bunch. The idiom is "A few bad apples spoils the bunch". Just like keeping bad apples in a basket with good ones ruins them, so too are your "great people" ruined by putting up with the assholes they work with.
Guess what? If you see someone abusing people with their power and you say nothing about it, then you're not a good person. Neutral at best.
I question your definition of "great people."
The whole "a few bad apples" excuse ignores the rest of the saying. In its entirety it says "A few bad apples spoil the whole bushel."
(This is because as apples rot they release ethylene gas, which causes the rest of the apples to ripen more quickly and then start rotting.)
It probably helps that in most European countries police training is in the thousands of hours and in America it's under 6 months.
https://www.trainingreform.org/not-enough-training
No, they aren't. Even if they are kind and friendly to you, they are still cops. They are still the state sanctioned users of violence whose primary job is to keep the status quo in which the rich own everything, and the workers don't. Where people live on the streets and children go hungry.
basically a system that makes crime necessary to survive only due to unaccounted crimes of the rich so that cops can claim they would "solve problems" but aren't because they mainly accompanied the rich causing them?
Just a few days ago in my country cops arrested several rich bastards for corruption. They took the Mayor of a big city, member of currently most supported (and populist) political party, in handcuffs. At least those I know believe they are making world better and safer, and I think that by catching criminals they are. That's their actual job, and that's what they do. And I'm glad that if I got robbed, I can call those "bad people" and they will try to find whoever robbed me. And they are not "state sanctioned user of violence". If a cop shoots a person here, they are heavily investigated, even if the person was a criminal.
But every single rich bastard is corrupt and commits crimes against the people daily. The fact that very occasionally cops arrest a couple of them and then once in a blue moon maybe one of them sees an actual punishment doesn't change the fact that the status quo is for those rich bastards and all their rich bastard buddies to live in luxury on the backs of the unfairly compensated workers and that the job of the cops is to enforce that status quo through violence.
If I tackled you to the ground, bound you hand and foot, shoved you into my car, drove you to my headquarters and locked you in a cage, you wouldn't consider that violence? What exactly would it be then?
I get a different vibe from cops in Europe, and I wonder if it has to do with countries where they have mandatory military conscription / civil service.
I sometimes wonder if in the US, we had some kind of system where everyone was forced to serve as a police officer, say between the ages of 18 and 21, we would have an entirely different system. Instead of attracting power hungry psycho killers, you would have normal people who understood they were performing a required service for their community and society in general. You might then get more mutual respect between cops and civilians since everybody will have been on both sides.
Also, it’s almost as if anyone who wants to be a cop should be immediately disqualified. Same with politicians.
No, no. Many European countries don't even have mandatory service. The real difference is we don't have a gun fetish and we don't view cops as warriors that need to be armed to the teeth with military surplus to be able to stand a chance against ~~civilians~~ criminals. We also don't teach courses on how it's us vs. them and how you should always have killing on your mind in encounters with the public.
Our training is fucked.
Maybe so. But I still like my idea too.
Retail customer service. Every American should serve mandatory minimum of five years in retail customer service.
Let's arm and load power onto every 18-21 year old in the country! Genius idea!!
You wouldn't arm them necessarily.
They might serve unarmed to enforce traffic laws, write tickets, deal with non violent offenders, operate 911 call centers, etc.
We already "arm and load power" onto 18-21 year old kids by signing them up for the military and sending them overseas.
Do you not trust those same kids in your own neighborhood?
I do not. I don't trust those same kids when they are deployed in other countries, either.
Ok fair enough. Then I think I made some bad assumptions about where you were coming from. Sorry about that.
Here in Vic Australia too. They're mostly legends
The only people I know who hate cops here hate them because they either didn't solve their issue, or they are generally known to act like asses.
It probably also helps that nobody carries guns here so they can operate on a shoot last, ask questions first policy
Believe it or not, it's possible to act on a shoot last, ask questions first policy even here in gun crazy Florida. Literally everyone other than police officers do it every day.
Well. You could become a cop and change the culture
There are shootings constantly in the US though.
Here in Australia, I wanted to join the police but ultimately chose not to due to the bad working hours. In the US, I feel like I wouldn't feel safe doing so though personally unless gun laws were refined with better gun control like in other countries
Here in Australia they barely even need to carry a gun
You can not just become a cop, and change the culture. This shows a lack of understanding of the situation. When cops come in, and do things that would change things, they get pushed out. The DA decides they aren't gonna put up with corrupt cop bullshit? Cops simply won't work with them on any cases. Throw them in jail for contempt over it? A superior court will have that over-turned. External forces will need to change it at a systemic level. The law needs to change, the structure of that system needs to be changed, and society needs to apply that by force.
Well. You can start by becoming a cop. .
That's always the problem. There's people with strong convictions about being a good cop which is great. But none of them want to actually do the job... So the jobs get taken by shitty people.
You need to start by getting good people to become cops for starters. But yes, better laws. You guys need to start with gun control. Here in Australia, cops know they'll be going home after they do their job
Are you part of the legal system at all? If not, that's part of the problem. Real change needs serious people. Are you doing anything to help the community and improve mental health to at least make it safer?
It's easy to write long complaints about the police, but ultimately, it won't change anything.
I was a data analyst for the corrections/justice industry. I have an intimate knowledge of how it works. I worked with, and trained, thousands of police, from a significant portion of the country. I have spent time corresponding with DAs, Judges, State officials, Local officials, police union reps, wardens, sheriffs, COs, etc. The whole deal. The entire system is designed to be what it is, and part of that design is to identify, and reject, anyone not in compliance. As soon as a cop begins discussing holding cops/officials accountable, or a chief begins instituting policies that reign in this behavior, they get pushed out. If they fight getting pushed out, then end up in jail, or they end up dead.
You are ignorant of what is happening. I don't blame you, most people don't want to believe things are this way, and you aren't even from here. However you truly misjudge just how, absolutely, fucked the current system is. In 1967 the USSC made a ruling that gave government officials immunity to actions in the line of duty. In 1982 they came up with a set of parameters that made this immunity so solid it is almost impossible to lose. This has been a shield for the vast majority of all rights abuse/deprivation in the US. It is why the USSC has recently been shown to be outright doing illegal things and there is, likely, nothing going to happen about it. I mean fuck, numerous police departments have been busted running, CIA-esque, black sites. You know what happened about it? The lowest man on the totem pole got a slap on the wrist, and the rest had to retire, or quit and get that job in another municipality. In the Baton Rouge case, it's starting look like it might end up being deemed a "civil" infraction, rather than a criminal one...
On top of this, there are many, many, profit motives to arrest, fine, jail, and prosecute, as many people as possible. The immunity allows them to do it in direct violation of the law, and in the case that you have the resources to sue the government, no one will suffer personal consequences, so they do not care. Most people do not have these resources, so that is already a great filter for them. I could go on about the problems with the US legal industry, because it is a profit driven industry, not a justice system, for hours, if not days.
That's exactly the problem we have over here. You can't become a cop and change the culture. The culture is mandatory. They seek it out and train it it, and the ones who won't at least turn a blind eye to it aren't allowed to stay.
It's important to also point out that a huge portion of the population carries guns. There's no reason to assume that someone armed is a threat at all, and statistics bear that out. In the south of the US even most liberals don't think twice about the number of guns they encounter every day. The reason why police are a unique situation is , obviously, partially because they deal with criminals, and partially because of their confrontational and aggressive approach to most situations. It's not so much that you got to deal with a good or bad cop. It's more that you got to deal with a cop in a good or bad mood. They way they choose to interact with you has very little to do with things you can control.
We're hardly immune to bad policing
Victorian police shoot two people after being repeatedly told by club staff that there was no threat.
Victorian police beat climate protestors at mining conference
Victorian police kettle and pepper spray BLM protestors in Melbourne train station - I haven't been able to find this one again but lots of references to Vic Pol using kettling as standard operating procedure.
Same. I'm in the US, and every cop I've personally interacted with has been reasonable and professional. But I'm pretty mainstream (not a minority, dress conservatively, etc), so generally not a target for police enforcement. So it's hard for me to know whether my local police are better than average, or if our heavy demographic skew is the main contributor to our low crime rate (i.e. they could still be targeting minorities unfairly, it just wouldn't be clear from general stats).
Regardless, even my local police have far too much power, so I'm absolutely in favor of ending qualified immunity and splitting the force into armed and unarmed officers. We've had some local incidents of police overstepping their bounds (e.g. I'm in Utah and remember this incident very clearly, though that was in another jurisdiction).
I agree, the police has a lot of issues and there's definitely a need for changes. But still, saying ACAB is just hateful extremism and I'm shocked that some people in this thread act like every single cop is a villain who only wants to beat minorities.
It's pretty normal in say, Italy and Spain (or at least populated/Catalonian parts of Spain). Everyone immediately brings up Genoa G8 when a police do stuff.
I'm curious in which European country. At least here in Germany ACAB definitely applies
No they aren't.
Yes they are.
No. They're people who signed up to enforce unjust laws in a system in which people are exploited. They are fundamentally bad.
They signed up to fight crime and protect people. And that's what they are doing. There are definitely bastards in the police, but this logic is insanely dumb. Are kids who dream about being cops and saving people bastards?
Some very naive people sign up under the mistaken idea that that is what they will be doing. Those naive people are quickly disabused of this notion, and they either quit, are fired, or join in on the corrupt bastardry. There is no such thing as a good cop. What they do is enforce unjust laws, regardless of what they thought they were going to do.
Keep in mind that if you've got 3 bastards in a police department and 17 "good guys" who don't stop those bastards, you have 20 bastards in that department.