So over thanksgiving my brother-in-law was talking about how he’s currently going through the training to become a cop (being fast tracked for reason below) and I’m not quite sure how I feel about that. On one hand, I’m firmly in the ACAB camp. On the other hand, if somebody is going to be hired a cop, he seems like the kind of person that would do the least harm.
Frist off, he is an MP in the army and has been for several years so he already has more and better training/dicipline than most cops out there. He has actual training in conflict deescalation and proper restraint methods that don’t kill people. Unlike most cops he actually has real firearm training so he can be trusted not to shoot at falling acorns or blow an infants head off in an altercation. He has actual medical training, which most cops aren’t required to have.
Outside of training he also does seem like a decent guy. He’s not an agressive macho shitbag like most cops and he does what he can to help people. He does strike me as leaning slightly conservative but he also lives in a rural area of a red state so that’s to be expected. I don’t think he’s a trump supporter but if he is then he’s smart enough to keep his mouth completely shut about it even after the election (which trump supporters usually aren’t).
So I’m kind of torn on this one. On one hand, our current policing system is rotten to the core and he’s someone looking to be a part of that. On the other hand, even though the current system needs to be burned down and rebuilt, we do need some form of police force and he seems like someone who would do the least harm in that roll.
So yeah, I’m not sure how I feel about that. I would be interested to hear what y’all think though. Have any other lemmings experienced similar or have family members who are cops?
The fundamental reason that people say ACAB is because the people that are trying to do good things still enable the shitty ones. That is, they fail to act when they see shitty cops; the ‘good’ cops don’t police the bad cops, and that makes them, in turn, bad cops themselves, because it allows bad behavior to be normalized. The relatively few cops that won’t go along to get along quickly find themselves left high and dry; the get the worst duties, don’t get backup in a timely manner when they need it, don’t get promoted or end up being demoted, rack up a long list of bullshit infraction of departmental rules, and so on, until they get forced out.
People talk about reforming the system from within, but it’s a top-down problem, and the police unions are either directly involved or, at the absolute minimum, are complicit by working to protect cops that the union knows are corrupt.
How can it be fixed top-down when it’s all cops?
All. That’s the first word in the initialism.
It’s a powerfully dismissive generalization that inhibits differentiation. That’s what we often accuse them of doing.
The serious answer is that you need to have outside control over the process. Cops need to be accountable to someone other than themselves. Civilian review boards are a good first step, but you need to make sure that the civilian review boards have real teeth, and that they don’t get captured by the police (e.g., the people on the review board all being family members of cops). Note that police unions and officers have long opposed civilian oversight boards, because that removes part of their power.
You also need to ensure that prosecution is always handled by an independent agency. A local DA will need to continue to work with police, so it’s against their interest–and hopefully also in the public interest–to create a hostile environment where the police think that the DA is ‘against’ them.
You also need a way to limit the power of the police union. A police union does serve a real purpose, in that it should insulate cops from acting as directly political agents. OTOH, it also protects the worst cops out there, and makes it nearly impossible to quickly get rid of someone that’s clearly unfit for public service of any kind. I don’t know how to do the latter without also undercutting protections against the former.
… are targeted by screeching tinfoil-hat types as being ‘in cahoots’ with cops, the same as ACAB people claim prosecutors are in cahoots to keep bad cops doing wrong with impunity.
In this case, our IIO fills an important investigative role, as a Public organization created 12 years ago to investigate cops’ actions during bad incidents, and then where applicable forward charges onto the same crown counsel who charges and prosecutes civilian criminal behaviour.
But, you see, the IIO and CC and Cops, they’re all in cahoots. They talk to one another; they’re friends. And they’re all agents of the evil government we elected to manage our shared and collected resources as per our goals. They’re agents of The Man - nevermind the Man is agents of us - and thus all evil, etc, etc.
In short, civilian oversight is neat, but it’s not the automatic win; or even something the crunchies even respect any more than the cops they’re investigating.