WHAT’S WRONG WITH POLICE DEPARTMENTS

 

 

On the anniversary of Gorge Floyd’s death people are asking questions about the competence of police departments in their hiring and supervision of officers.   

 

I spent two years in military police and I was a voluntary diver for the Clay County Sheriff Department in Florida.     

 

It is my perception that the best and the brightest are not necessarily attracted to a career in policing.   Policing, to a large extent, attracts people who are enamored with the authority of the badge and a gun – and in some cases, people insecure in their own identity. 

   

Notice the lead-lined sap gloves the officer is wearing while confronting the public, his right hand grasping his firearm.

There is an intrinsic problem with authority that has never been addressed with police policy and training:

In 1973 the psychology department of Sanford University conducted and experiment concerning prison guards and prisoners.  Random volunteers were taken from the University student body.   To ensure randomness, the assignment of prisoner or guard were alternately picked: prisoner-guard-prisoner-guard…   Prisoners were placed in confinement and guards were given free rein to control the prisoners.  The experiment was scheduled to last two weeks, but had to be terminated after six days because of the aggression of the guards.  

 

This same domineering authority syndrome identified in the Sanford study permeates police departments.   Police, to a large extent, do not act to assist civilians, but to dominate them.  They feel a power to intimidate, and they become aggressive when their authority is questioned.  Being authorized to wield deadly force inflates the ego of many officers; and when multiple officers back-up a call there is a tendency for individual officers to become more aggressive.

 

The structure of police departments is at fault.    Instead of armed authority, it should be public safety and assistance.  It is an attitudinal change that is needed; a change from ‘policing’ to service.

 

I am not anti-police.  I have worked and associated with many policemen and they are basically good people; but their attitude toward the public-in-general is uniformly negative, and they carry a feeling of empowerment and authority.  Many do not have the temperament to be trusted with weapons of deadly force when dealing with volatile situations, and their demeanor escalates the problem rather than subduing it.  

 

 

We should set the record straight.   Supporters of the status-quo of policing seem to feel that criticizing the police is tantamount blasphemy.      They always remind us of how dangerous the job is.  I have heard the comment, “when a cop leaves his house in the morning his wife doesn’t know if he will come back safely.”   There is a misconception about the danger of policing.  

 

A study of the most dangerous jobs in America, places police twenty-second: 

JOB RELATED DEATHS CORRELATED FROM 2018:

1.    Loggers

2.    Aircraft pilots and flight engineers

3.    Derrick operators in oil and gas and mining

4.    Roofers

5.    Garbage collectors

6.    Iron workers

7.    Delivery drivers

8.    Farmers

9.    Fire fighters

10.                       Power linemen

11.                       Agriculture workers

12.                       Crossing guards

13.                       Crane operators

14.                       Construction helpers

15.                       Landscape supervisors

16.                       Highway maintenance workers

17.                       Cement masons

18.                       Small engine mechanics

19.                       Supervisors of mechanics

20.                       Heavy vehicle maintenance

21.                       Ground maintenance workers

22.                       Police officers

23.                       Maintenance workers

24.                       Construction workers

25.                       Mining machine operators

 

There are numerous restrictions and requirements in the Policing Bill now in Congress aimed at holding police officers and police departments more accountable; but this bill will not bring about a culture change in police departments.

 

The answer seems simple to me:

THE OL’BUZZARD’S POLICE REFORM RECOMMENDATION

 

ONE: Increase the educational qualification for police applicants.  It should require beyond a high-school education, and an intense psychological evaluation.

 

TWO: Do not defund the police – de-arm the police.   Police on duty and off duty should be unarmed.   Weapons can be kept locked but available in the patrol cars, and permission from the watch commander needed to access a firearm.    Ninety-nine-plus percent of police interaction with the community doesn’t require carrying a firearm.  Unarmed officers would deal less aggressively with civilians, and in the heat of a confrontation the first instinct would not be to shoot to kill.

 

THREE AND FINALLY:  Any officer killing another human being in the line of duty, regardless of the circumstances, should be removed from public policing and be placed in a support position of equal pay, but never authorized to carry a firearm again.

 

I support police, and the job they do; but there are psychological pressures and tendencies associated with the job that need to be addressed in selection, training and supervision of officers.

 

The culture of policing should be reformed – but this will never happen in today’s social and political climate. 

the Ol’Buzzard

 

 

 

 

 

  

THE OL’BUZZARDS INCOHERENT RAMBLINGS ON POLICE

Nan’s blog, ALL THE GOOD NAMES WERE TAKEN, recently put out a blog post about police overreach – definitely food for thought.

I spent two years as military base-police where I worked with civilian police, and one year I volunteered as a diver for body retrieval with the Clay County Sheriff's Department in Florida.   From this experience I can tell you that more than a few of the cops, who I have known, were insignificant and insecure until they put on a badge and gun, then they view themselves as alpha dogs.   These are the cops you need to be afraid of - and there are a lot of them. 

Police work, like the military, attracts people without a lot of professional options.   The job especially appeals to people who desire to be vested with the authority that a badge and a gun provide for their own self-aggrandizement.    

Cops have absolute power and absolute power corrupts.  Then add militarization of police departments and you have cops out of control - cops who feed their ego by abuse of citizens.

Just like racism, you cannot get the cowboys out of policing until a whole generation of police have been replaced.    There has to be a transition of better qualified and better educated people into the police departments, and the present contingent out. 

This is my solution to the problem:

·       Raise the pay drastically.

·       Require a minimum of an associate’s degree in law enforcement to be considered for employment.

·       Require applicants to pass a general knowledge achievement test, comparable to the high school exit, exam with a C or higher.

·       Require applicants to undergo psychological testing

·       Have a twelve-week training course for accepted applicants that focuses at least 50% of the time on community and demographic understanding.

·       Require that every office spend 10% of his or her duty time (four hours a week) in community involvement.  

·       Have a standing policy that any officer that fires a weapon resulting in the loss of life, regardless of the circumstances, will be permanently transferred to an administration police, state or civil service position of equal pay and benefits where he or she will not be armed.

·       Have all police forces placed under and regulated by the Department of Justice.    

·       Demilitarize the rank and file police force.  

·       Have a special military trained SWAT (not members of the rank and file) whose only job is deployment for hostage and terrorist situations – never used for crowd control.  

·       Have an independent civilian oversight board that aggressively investigates all accusations of police corruption and police abuse of power.  This board should have the authority to suspend from duty and to recommend indictment of any officer so charged.

·       Offer early retirement to all officers within five years of vested retirement. 

The answer to police reform is not to change the attitudes of business as usual for the existing police departments – that can never be done – the existing force must have more stringent oversight from the department of justice, and the goal should be, over time, to replace the existing force with better educated more qualified career officers. 

I have heard cops brag about the number of speeding tickets they have issued in a day, and brag about ticketing cars for five miles over the limit.   These cops are not serving and protecting; they are harassing the community.   An Ideal police officer would stop a car driving over the limit, warn the driver about the need for speed limits, and only issue a ticket if the driver was blatantly driving at excessive speed: in other words, serving the community. 

This is all bullshit of course, because it would take aggressive action of Congress to enact and enforce this type of change; and politicians will never take on a difficult, controversial issues that could piss off the police lobby and affect their own tenure.

the Ol’Buzzard