What is causing the degradation of law enforcement?

I see a lot of combat mentality in different departments and different areas of the country.

Rural areas with few violent crimes against officers have less problem officers.

Most of the areas with problem officers have gangs and major drug problems.
also they tend to have high numbers of illegals.

For the most part areas with high danger to officers are also the same areas where you have high officer abuse.

This seems to be a form of combat stress that builds in officers that is never addressed by there departments.

PTSD?????????

[edit on 31-5-2009 by ANNED]

The entire prison industrial complex including police, courts & DOC has become the biggest money making corporation in America today. They are bankrupting our state budgets and creating criminals out of nearly everyone.

Just go look at your state budgets and you'll see we spend more on law enforcement & Corrections than anything else in most states and their unions have the state hamstrung with staffing levels and wages that can't be adjusted, so instead they layoff teachers and close schools to make more prisons.

The corporation doesn't want the old style cops that are part of the community and care about people who police for the common good. They want cops who don't live where they work, who didn't grow up where they work so they will have nothing in common with the people they police.

The training seems to be militarized and like an enemy in combat they are trained that we are all the bad guys first.

In the past when there was an event that happened police would act as mediators and diffuse situations then go on their way. Now when the police get involved more often than not fines have to be levied and somebody has to go to jail and be subject to further fines, fees and harassment.

I'm not sure why police are killing so many more people - it seems it is more polices and procedures that bring them to killing people rather than bad cops. Instead of working for us they work for themselves and therefor it is more important to protect themselves thus they shoot first in situations that they wouldn't have done so in the past. They don't put their lives on the line anymore there are not many hero's left in law enforcement.

Most of all though it seems they are the revenue collectors perhaps like the tax collectors of old. Really though it's just the government that's out of control bloated and corrupt beyond repair - the bad policing is just symptom.

[edit on 31-5-2009 by verylowfrequency]

Originally posted by PhoenixDemon
reply to post by Amaterasu

 

Amaterasu, I would caution you to not blur the "war on drugs" issue with the issue of degrading quality of police. While I agree the so called war on drugs is partially to blame. However, I can tell you from experience that most of the people involved in drugs are involved in other crimes against persons that they probably would not be in had it not been for the involvment of drugs into the situation. Believe me, I am not an "anti drug" person per se. I take a liberterian aproach. If someone wants to do something to themself without hurting anyone else, more power to them. But the minute it affects innocent people then that's when someone has to step in.

i argue that innocence is gained with time and experience, until then your an unprogrammed robot in a world of eyes and skin, with a cognitive level of some kind. yet still ego and youth meld into trouble making and curiosities of life. I must digress on the belief that we are ever truly innocent, any of us, whether we follow human reactionary invention (law) or not.

Its always been this way, but today we are just hearing about it more. Police by definition have to be murderers, who have no remorse for any of there victims, and there are countless victims, of the police just killing for fun. Do not even say there is not.

The profiling needed to join the police, means you have to be a serial killer type. Thats a fact.

Answered your question.

reply to post by andy1033


Andy, I'm going to try real hard not to be derogatory towards you...But you're very off track with your opinion about police needing to be "serial killers"...And you really need to learn the definition of "murderer" before you say police need to be murderers. You say you have countless victims of police "killing for fun"...really...give me some examples that are documented. Hell, I'll settle for first hand knowledge of this occurring. Fact it police officers do not kill for fun. To assert that they do is idiotic.

I have known police officers (MY FRIENDS) who have been involved in shootings in which someone (not them) was killed. Sure they try to move forward with life (the shooting were all in self defense) but none of them felt good about the shooting. They felt good about their performance, in that they survived an attack on their life, but felt bad about the taking of another life.

reply to post by PhoenixDemon


The problem that I have with cops is "the Blue Wall".

There is no such thing as a good cop, if the "good cops" cover for the bad ones based on their status as law enforcement officers.

The same applies to the F.O.P., Freemasonry, etc.

reply to post by Symbiote


But the issue is that when the good cops stand up:

1.) Do you ever hear about it?

2.) They are promptly shat upon, forced out, and are effectively blackballed from ever being an officer again.

Andy Griffith is gone folks. We no longer have peace officers, we have law enforcement officers. The former helped you out when they could, and only arrested those who were doing harm to others. The latter looks for a reason to get in your pocket, and any excuse will do. And they have millions of excuses. Having spent a night in jail for flipping someone the bird (it wasn’t even the cop) I can attest to the fact that if a cop wants you in jail, you’re going. You may beat the rap but you won’t beat the ride. It’s tyranny, and it’s here now. Police state USA, with our very own secret police and Stasi harassment brigade. I hope these filth are enjoying their fleeting little power trip, because their eternity will be most unpleasant indeed.

You never read about good cops only bad ones. To those who don't appreciate what they do, don't call on them when you have a crisis. The only time a cop is appreciated is when someone needs something. I have to disagree with the guilty until proven innocent quote. An officer can have a clear cut case only to get it thrown out by something minor. If you have never done the job, its easy to criticize. How many people go to work each day knowing they have a very real possibility of getting killed? Be thankful instead of critical of the military and those in law enforcement. They do what they do so you don't have to

There were no quotas were I worked and the only quota I ever saw was the state troopers, They had to make six contacts a day. That means if they give a warning or just speak to someone while on offical duty. thats it.

Federal funding to these agencies has nothing to do with how many people they arrest, it is based on the population size of the city, county or state. They could also request grants from the government other things they need and again nothing to do with arrests.

It would seem there isn't much in between in the forum. People seem to either be really anti-police or be a supporter. For the people that are simply "cop haters" with only anecdotal comments about the injustices cops have done, I put little weight in your statements. I still have a respect for your opinion that police are not performing as you want them too. However, the question remains…What do you expect of them. I mean really, what is it that you expect police to do different? And how do you propose change? I tend to agree with Imonlyhuman when he (or she) posted that this is a societal problem. But even so, how do we as a society stop law enforcement from further degrading?
At the rate its going the “jack booted thug” model is going to take over. Maybe a question is how do we support the good cops that are still out there. Let’s remember, you seem to be asking them to be human, yet be above reproach and corruption which puts them much more into the human range.

I'm sorry if I came across like I hated the entire Police Force because I don't. I understand the need for law enforcement in society and I'm only speaking from a personal stand point, which should have stated before also.
I have gotten on quite well with female police officers because they carry themselves differently. They don't seem to have that retarded threatening look on their face when talking to me like the male officers do either. Not that Im in trouble alot, I just seem to attract them. Maybe its the long hair.

nobody wants a cop around until they need one.

policing has been a part of society for a very long time. most have come to accept it as a 'necessary evil'. perhaps it has always been this way.

cops from 30-40 years ago aren't exactly a shining example. sure, granted 'they don't make 'em like they used to', but those guys didn't exactly come out of the civil rights movement / vietnam era smelling like roses. the decline we see now may have began with publicized racial violence. all white groups of cops turning firehoses and dogs on all black groups of citizens... splashed across the headlines and brought to your living room via the new color tv set... it leaves a strong impression. even today. and even on those of us that weren't there, we still see it as a matter of record, and hear from our parents or grandparents what it was like.

and now we see the police being used as security escorts for hate groups so that they too can have their free speech. it would seem that a double standard is being upheld. not saying that is the case, but it is what it is.

let's not even go into how policing in the US began. born of institutionalized corruption. it was just as rough and tumble then as it is now.

i wouldn't say that most cops are remorseless as there is a high suicide rate among the law enforcement community.

citizens do not trust the police. speaking from personal experience, i have had more unpleasant encounters with LEO's than not. and i'm not a troublemaker. i have first hand experienced police corruption. it leaves a bad long lasting aftertaste. a lifetime of such experience leads one to the conclusion that they are not to be trusted. also a police force is an extension of the ruling body, it's long arm so to speak. the federal, state and local government has fallen far from the grace of the people in the last three or four decades, so have cops by association.

it was touched on before, but recruiting standards have been lowered as well. Also, INFILTRATION happens as a result. gangsters join the police force too. they also join the military, they become lawyers, you see where this is going...

so i'm not so sure that it has recently become this way, it's just that we are more aware of it. Thanks LAPD!

real heroes tend to go unsung. thats why we don't hear about good cops.

i thought of one other contributing factor but forgot to mention it. in regards to lowered recruiting standards. where i live cops no longer need a two year college degree (associates?) to join the force. they are desparate to have feet on the ground. there is probably a much higher turn over rate these days.

once a couple of sheriff's deputies showed up at my house looking for a fugitive. first off they invited themselves in, which i let it slide to show that i was willing to cooperate and have nothing to hide. the guy they were looking for once lived there but was long gone before i ever moved in. they still made themselves at home and took the liberty of poking around in my closets and asking me personal questions that had absolutely nothing to do with their investigation.

anyway to get to the point: after talking with them for a few minutes i realized that i recognize the deputies. they both went to my high school, and they both were complete tools. they were two of the biggest bullies around. i was dumbstruck at the fact that they made it through selection.

if these are the types that have what it takes to be today's LEO then it is no wonder the public has such distrust.

I would argue that the advent of people and video cameras has a lot to do with things. Before people started filming the cops, you'd never know what they got up to. the police brutality in london that was dished out to the middles classes at the g20 probably happens all the time to black kids on londons streets.

Phoenix, I feel your pain.

I am not law enforcement, never have been, but I do have one criminal conviction for shooting someone once. So I have been through the police, justice, and prison system, and know how it all works..
I must say the police handled that very professionally, and I have no complaint.

It is not just law enforcement, but the whole of society and government that is going down the moral crapper.

Everything, military, the intelligence service, politics, society, the whole lot is disintegrating before our very eyes.

I do not know what the answer is, but it is certainly not something fundamentally caused by police officers. They are just reacting to the wall of hate and violence directed at them by the broader public.

I guess society gets the government, politicians, judiciary and law enforcement it deserves, After all, we are all just people trying to live our own lives, and do a job as well as we can.

If we all acted like cops do towards our customers and employees where we worked, we all would be fired just for looking at someone the wrong way. How many of us could grab those we work for by the neck and tell them to shut up without getting fired?

I have to say, from my observation, most cops are bullies. They were the kids that use to beat other up for their lunch money in the playground when they were children. Most the bullies I went to school with went on to become cops, murderers in the military, or gang bangers. Sorry, but from my years of observation, 9 out of 10 cops ARE PIGS, while the other 1 in 10 are quite nice regular people.

So, what has changed? NOTHING .. except for the fact that most people walking around today have video cameras, in their cell phones, in their PDAs, etc., and because of THAT, more cops are being caught acting like the swine so many of them are.