We train police to be warriors -- and then send them out to be social workers

[Nevilledog]

https://www.vox.com/2020/7/31/21334190/what-police-do-defund-abolish-police-reform-training

Richard Nixon called police forces “the real front-line soldiers in the war on crime.” Bill Clinton, in his signing ceremony for the 1994 crime bill, called them “the brave men and women who put their lives on the line for us every day.” In 2018, Donald Trump described their job as follows: “Every day, our police officers race into darkened alleys and deserted streets, and onto the doorsteps of the most hardened criminals … the worst of humanity.”

For decades, the warrior cop has been the popular image of police in America, reinforced by TV shows, movies, media, police recruitment videos, police leaders, and public officials.

This image is largely misleading. Police do fight crime, to be sure — but they are mainly called upon to be social workers, conflict mediators, traffic directors, mental health counselors, detailed report writers, neighborhood patrollers, and low-level law enforcers, sometimes all in the span of a single shift. In fact, the overwhelming majority of officers spend only a small fraction of their time responding to violent crime.

However, the institution of policing in America does not reflect that reality. We prepare police officers for a job we imagine them to have rather than the role they actually perform. Police are hired disproportionately from the military, trained in military-style academies that focus largely on the deployment of force and law, and equipped with lethal weapons at all times, and they operate within a culture that takes pride in warriorship, combat, and violence.

*snip*

[wcast]

1. K&R

Very good article that articulates why we need to look at policing in a new light. The culture reflected in the quote below makes it what it is and it won't change without strong intervention.


“Cops are very equipped to be the hammer and enforce the law,” says Arthur Rizer, a former police officer and 21-year veteran of the US Army who heads the criminal justice program at the center-right R Street Institute. “They know how to use those tools forcefully and effectively; for everything else, they are lacking. Of course that’s going to end badly. What excites police is action, and that means ultimately applying violence,” says Rizer. “The people attracted to police work want that type of action — they are giddy about it. The people who don’t want that type of action either never make it in the first place or are ridiculed for it if they do.”

[crickets]

2. Standard police training so overemphasizes armed conflict, it produces exactly

what is usually not needed during the majority of the job's activities. If police training is adjusted to reflect the reality the job entails, one wonders how the population volunteering for policing might change. Where will the prior gung-ho cop set end up if they don't want to stay with a police force so fundamentally different from the ones we currently have?

[Caliman73]

3. Media and popular culture also celebrate the idea of the "lone badass cop"

So many movies, especially the "Dirty Harry" movies, Lethal Weapon, the Die Hard franchise, Bad Boys, SWAT, the 48 Hours movies, Point Break, etc... All of these movies and more celebrate the use of force, being rogue and not playing by the rules, and general conduct by police that is actually criminal.