RE: Marc
Sir, I think that the first step is a developing consensus that something is wrong with law enforcement as it’s currently practiced. Once you accept that something is wrong, it’s a lot easier to analyze the problem and come up with some answers.
Of course that’s going to require a level of public outrage that will more than counterbalance one political truth that is of overriding concern to politicians in big cities and that’s this: The cops tend to be members of public employee unions and the one thing that they hate is whenever somebody calls their current practice into question and wants to change it. They’ll fight tooth and nail just like a teachers union will. And politicians tend to be rather solicitous of what they regard as cohesive political blocks.
Once we’ve gotten past that point, it gets easier. From where I sit, law enforcement as currently practiced in this country is a failure. You engage in fear based training, and then you put them in a police car that is a bubble that separates them from the people that they serve. That cop car is a reality filter for the guys who are wearing badges and carrying guns.
And it doesn’t help one bit that we’re selecting for the type of person who becomes threatened and outraged when questioned either.
Back when I was a kid, guys who joined the police force generally tended to be average guys who liked a little action and wanted to get paid for it. And from observation, they did a fine job, but unfortunately the clipboard tickers got ahold of the process of personnel selection and it’s been going downhill ever since.
It’s instructive that these days you can go to a bookstore and get study guides on how to sharpshoot the written tests, oral boards and the psychiatric interview. And reading them gives you a pretty good idea of who and what they’re selecting for. And frankly that’s frightening. It’s also a case of inintended consequences.
The tests are largely imposed by the Feds. To get funding your department has to meet certain specifications as far as training of both line officers and their supervisors are concerned. And there are also some mandates on personnel selection.
And that’s why you see guys on the command track in Law Enforcement always showing coursework at the FBI Academy at Quantico for example.
Now the thing that fascinates me the most is a question that usually shows up in the written and the psychological evaluation. They’re asked, “why do you want to become a cop”. The correct answer, according to the shrinks and the tests is, “because I want to help people.” Sounds innocuous doesn’t it? Actually it’s anything but.
Why? Consider the nature of the question. They’re looking for an altruistic type of person and those come in two flavors. The first and fortunately rarest, is an individual who’s pretty much committing slow motion suicide, and fortunately that tends to be rather self correcting.
Then there’s the second one. The guy who wants to be the helper. And what’s wrong with that? Consider the nature of the relationship between the person helping and the person being helped for a moment. The person accepting assistance, must place himself in a subordinate role to the person giving the assistance. The helper is in charge!
And when we use that as a filter for hiring decisions, what we’re selecting for is somebody who wants to be in charge– who by virtue of his position wants power over others. And that’s not necessarily a good thing either.
When you look at some of the outraged outbursts from some of the police who are posting, you begin to see a connection between their desire to be in charge and their desire to not be questioned by the peasants that they regard as below them. Notice the pattern to my comments and their responses. It’s not a coincidence.
And it’s been my observation that the earlier one becomes involved with law enforcement, the worse that attitude is. Some of the snottiest kids I’ve ever met are Police Explorers and they’re learning that outrage and sarcasm from professionals. And the thought of them growing up to be commissioned police officers frightens me. I’d love to see some figures correlating participation in those programs to problem behavior and diciplinary problems later on. Unfortunately, I suspect that nobody’s keeping score on that one.
And when you take those individual behaviors and allow those people to create a self selecting elite, what you get are a bunch of people who tend towards paranoia due to the social disconnect they suffer from the rest of society at large. And they become infected with a bunker mentality and they are outraged at anybody who questions it.
And I think that the reason that we’re having that problem is largely a question of personnel selection.
We’re taking one type of person and concentrating them in an organization that wields a great deal of power. And that can’t be a good thing.
So, we’ve got to start with two things, admitting that we have a problem and changing the personnel selection policies so that we don’t have a bunch of Type II Altruists more interested in power and perquisites than on getting the job done that we pay them for.
Remember that comment from “Wearing a Vest” that their primary goal was surviving to the end of their shift? That says volumes about a number of things– all bad.
And trying to get them to try something new, is about as much fun and as successful as getting a shark to take up being a vegetarian! Remember a few years ago, when Community Oriented Policing was a new thing? Most cops hated it. Most of them still do. And from the reactions, you’d have thought that we were asking them to go on patrol wearing pink fuzzy bunny suits or something.
And one of the big reasons that this particular initiative has generally been a failure is that the cops don’t respect the people that they work for. Getting out and getting to know “little people” must be a real drag for them. Then again, it only underscores my assertion that you can’t effectively police a population that you hold in contempt.
And until we can fix those things, the problems with the police will both continue to be insoluable and it will continue to get worse.
