> they should be willing to put themselves at risk in order to 'serve and protect' the public, including suspects
By and large, they are. They'd be a lot more so, except for a press and a public ever ready to rip them to pieces for doing their jobs in a way that doesn't make sense to well-meaning people who really don't understand what they're looking at.
I've never been a police officer, but I've had some in the family. Their job is a lot like that of a systems administrator, in one specific way that's of import here: you don't get credit for your successes, because they're mostly only visible to people in your profession, but your failures are obvious to everyone.
First of all, the statistics for police violence in America are so incredibly awful compared to the rest of the world that we have to wonder what's going on here. It's not the press reports that is killing innocent people, it's the police.
Secondly, my personal experience doesn't support the idea that most police are bending over backwards for the people. My scorecard:
- Really great help with a flat tire and a missing jack.
- Decent, professional interactions in a handful of traffic tickets and that kind of thing.
But on the other hand:
- I watched a friend get roughed up (not exactly beaten, but rough physical treatment) for no reason at all.
- Been cursed at and had my IDs thrown around by annoyed cop (I understand why he was annoyed, but it was the result of him misinterpreting the situation)
- I've had false evidence entered against me over a speeding ticket (to be fair, I was guilty, but the actual evidence offered was fabricated)
- At about 13 y.o., in a market with a friend, and some bigger kids were physically bullying us. We turned to a police officer saying "those kids are trying to hurt us". The reply from the cop was, "better watch out, they'll probably hit you again".
It's impossible to quantify, but my experience shows me that there's a really large proportion of bad cops.
I also have police officers in my family and I have anecdotal evidence from them that there are bad cops and everybody in a department knows who they are and what the issues are with those officers.
The expectations of performance are different between a police officer and a sys admin. It may happen that a sys admin makes a mistake causing systems to go down. Coworkers might be involved in the cleanup and pull an all nighter to recover the systems. Immediately after the incident there will be changes to process and responsibilities to minimize the likelihood of a similar event from happening. Sometimes people are fired. Sometimes people are demoted. Sometimes management is held responsible. Sometimes there is retraining.
Policing does not take any such corrective actions. Individual officers have the protection of powerful unions which hold all officers equal regardless of their performance and efficacy. Sergeants and captains can't correct the actions of the officers under their responsibility without facing repercussions from union representatives. Management becomes damage control and officers regress to the lowest mean because that is what makes their job easiest.
I think there is a lot of blame to go around. I blame our society for allowing this to continue for so long without demanding change from public representatives. I blame our elected officials for not changing laws to reflect our current reality. I blame police unions for protecting bad officers. I blame police department management for not attempting to deal with bad officers and enabling poor policing. Lastly I blame individual officers who should know better but most likely are not incentivized to change their behavior.
"I've never been a police officer, but I've had some in the family. Their job is a lot like that of a systems administrator, in one specific way that's of import here: you don't get credit for your successes, because they're mostly only visible to people in your profession, but your failures are obvious to everyone."
Excellent point. It's why I always qualify these reports with "some police departments, officers, etc" or "the corrupt cops." I make sure to differentiate between the lethal ones and those doing anywhere from non-lethal abuse (eg overticketing) to those doing a good job. Let's show some gratitude that the good ones are good and the bad ones are usually not that bad.
I'm not sure it is very useful to frame the matter in terms of gratitude; I might say rather that, in rightly condemning the actions of those officers who do abuse their office, we must take great care not to overreact at the expense of supporting those who faithfully discharge their oaths to serve the communities we all share.
By and large, they are. They'd be a lot more so, except for a press and a public ever ready to rip them to pieces for doing their jobs in a way that doesn't make sense to well-meaning people who really don't understand what they're looking at.
I've never been a police officer, but I've had some in the family. Their job is a lot like that of a systems administrator, in one specific way that's of import here: you don't get credit for your successes, because they're mostly only visible to people in your profession, but your failures are obvious to everyone.