In a yearlong investigation of sexual misconduct by U.S. law enforcement, The Associated Press uncovered about 1,000 officers who lost their badges in a six-year period for rape, sodomy and other sexual assault; sex crimes that included possession of child pornography; or sexual misconduct such as propositioning citizens or having consensual but prohibited on-duty intercourse.
I would really like to see the numbers excluding that last category, which seems rather different than the rest.
Ogged- working his way through trolling everyone individually instead of the blog in general (Sifu- self driving cars; Al- heroin; Gswift- #notallcops; Neb, any time Ogged breathes)
I'm not sure why they'd even include that in the results - maybe it's that the category didn't differentiate between that and other things? I suspect one of the reasons to have that category mentioned though is that "prohibited on-duty intercourse" could cover a lot of "well we can't prove it was rape and no one is willing to testify but..." cases as well.
As well as a lot of things that would be sort of unambiguously professional misconduct/sexual harassment even if actually not rape. Like, there's "sneaked away from work to go have sex with his girlfriend", which has nothing to do with being a police officer other than unexcused absenteeism. And then there's having sex with, e.g., suspects, or crime victims, or arrestees, or witnesses, under circumstances where even if it's not rape, the officer's professional role enters into it improperly.
Nothing to do with being a police officer until they use the cuffs.
I'm surprised that the officers said the quoted lines at a deposition. Isn't that self-incrimination? Or do they just have no fear of ever being prosecuted?
Let's all post our SAT scores and the best way to troll us. (Actually the latter seems potentially fun, unlike SAT scores, although I am tempted to post my lowest recorded score to see if someone can beat it for lowth. It was lowly.)
I got an F for a half-course GCSE in art (although since I hadn't submitted any coursework I'm still confused as to how I didn't get a U.)
But are SATs more like A-levels?
Is an Iranian actually talking about the rapey tendencies of another group? Don't fly that magic carpet too close to the sun my friend.
But, yeah, it's hard to weed out completely. There's a lot of power in the job and of course that attracts some number of screwballs who are likely to abuse that power. Definitely an area where universal bodycams will make a difference.
6: As is the norm, a reporter with no relevant experience in, well, anything, talks right out of his ass. Multiple cops went in on that guy who was swinging a knife around. Another cop fired a taser at knife guy over the other cop's shoulder. The wire touched the guy who's testifying and he got a jolt. He's focused on the knife and thinks that jolt is him getting hit with the knife that's being swung around. And this isn't crazy, a lot of stabbing victims describe it like a blow. So this cops thinks he took one from the knife, calls it out, and the other guys shoot the suspect. In hindsight we know he misinterpreted a shock from the wire of another cop's taser. The cop here is being honest and recounting that in the moment he thought he'd been stabbed but he didn't actually see the knife making contact. Not that it matters. If he was faking a report it wouldn't go this way. His reward for telling the truth is some ignorant fuck at the Post getting his moment on Twitter calling him a liar.
But, yeah, it's hard to weed out completely. There's a lot of power in the job and of course that attracts some number of screwballs who are likely to abuse that power. Definitely an area where universal bodycams will make a difference.
I think these sentences, read together, are fascinating. First, there's an echo of the post title: "There are some bad apples in every batch. Whatareyougonnado?" Then, there's a near-admission of a structural rather than an idiosyncratic problem: "Because of the state's monopoly on violence, and an embrace of order at the expense of liberty, police are granted what amounts to unfettered power in some instances. That kind of thing is a flame for sociopathic moths." And then, finally, there's a dose of techno-utopianism: "We'll solve the problem of power corrupting with more surveillance."
I'm not even sure I disagree with any of this. But the deeper issues sure seem intractable to me, especially when they're articulated by a decent guy who's been forced to defend a profession exposed as obviously rotten -- not that I'm saying other professions are exempt from rot. "Oh, hello, Professors McGinn and Yoo. Lovely to see you at the faculty club."
But the deeper issues sure seem intractable to me,
Well, intractable in the sense that they'll never be completely solved, sure. But then you could say the same for things like "banks tend to attract employees who will defraud depositors or the banks themselves" or "academia tends to attract people who fake their results" or "parenthood tends to attract people who eventually end up abusing and murdering their own children". What you're aiming at is "incidents of abuse are rare and are dealt with promptly when they occur", and you can achieve that while still having the deeper and ineluctable structural problems in place that ensure abuse will never actually go away completely.
and you can achieve that
Do tell, Commissioner Gordon.
I'd want to hear more about what you mean, I suppose, as there seems to be, at first blush, more dividing than uniting the cases. For example -- and I'm not sure how one would prove this -- doctors seem genuinely to have imbibed the basic injunction, "First, do no harm." It seems that "Serve and protect" doesn't rise to anything like the same level for police -- meaning, it can be cast aside rather quickly when police tell themselves they're in danger, which is often, at which point they protect themselves and forget about serving their community. But that might be a facile point on my part, since I think you're probably intimating that there are procedures that can be implemented that will effect real change. Or maybe not.
And of course there are a lot of great cops out there. But now we're back to the idiosyncratic versus structural question, for which I have no answers. Actually, I have no answers at all for anything at all, which is probably why I'm up at 5 am.
I was, of course, referring to the 1997 film featuring Meryl Streep, which should be read as a primer on the virtues of key elements of Halfordismo.
I suppose the point would be that in medicine (and in other professions too, like civil engineering and aviation) there are explicit codes of conduct which are backed not only by legal and professional sanction but also by peer pressure, and this ensures that - even though there are still structural factors which act as incentives for abuse - abuse is kept at a very low level, in terms of isolated incidents rather than a systemic problem. The deeper issues are still there, just because of the nature of the job - you can't have a police force (or a banking industry, or a medical profession, or an army, or etc) of any kind which doesn't contain the possibility for abuse.
15: in the sense that a key element of Halfordismo is the destruction by fire of Meryl Streep films?
17: paleo cures all. That I even have to explain this suggests that your back will be among the first against the wall. I bet you're eating a bagel right now, aren't you?
If Halfordismo means having to watch Meryl Streep films, then I will refuse the blindfold and gladly drench with my heart's blood the bagel of rebellion.
it can be cast aside rather quickly when police tell themselves they're in danger, which is often
If doctors were more frequently corners by crazies with automatic weapons while strolling across to the hospital canteen, they might do more harm than they do now. Which isn't to say that I disagree with your conclusion- I can't comment on that because I don't even know which film you're referring to.
I am very much less sanguine about what doctors will do if they are not policed quite strictly. It's not just the individual psychopaths like Karadjic or Shipman but the way the profession as a whole has gone along with torture, the castration of "undesirables", lobotomies, a remorselessly upbeat attitude towards pain relief, and so on.
19: Does drenching a bagel in human blood make it acceptable in a paleo diet? We need a ruling.
I am very much less sanguine about what doctors will do if they are not policed quite strictly.
I tend to agree, though I'm still willing to stand (or maybe lounge) by what I said above: I think first principles in the medical community, whether because of strict policing, a common culture, or the shadow of Hitler, operate more consistently than among cops. That said, the more interesting question, in my mind at least, is how, given the current culture of fear in the United States -- both among cops and the population at large -- to police the police.
22: use the blood of Christian children and you've got a delicious, leavened matzoh. That's the best I can do.
I am very much less sanguine about what doctors will do if they are not policed quite strictly.
But my point is that they are policed quite strictly: by the police, by their own professional authorities like the GMC, and by their own professional norms.
If doctors were more frequently corners by crazies with automatic weapons while strolling across to the hospital canteen, they might do more harm than they do now
But this basically never happens to policemen either.
25: they are now, yes. But this is something that has mostly come up in the last 30-50 years. Their professional norms, and in some cases their professional associations, sanctioned some dreadful things in the past.
28: yes. That's sort of what I'm saying? I'm countering (slightly) VW's point in 10, by arguing that even if the structural factors that lead to abuse can't be changed, strong professional norms etc can still reduce abuse to a low level of isolated incidents which are generally rapidly detected and dealt with.
Comity! But I don't know how to get there with the cops.
My starting point is that they are, most of them, better people than the system allows them to be.