Are police-community relations collapsing?

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True, but just because there are bad cops doesn’t mean we should get rid of cops or that there are bad relations with cops. I would feel a lot safer if a cop was pointing a gun at me than if anyone else was.
 
Yes, I appreciate that when you have a routinely armed citizenry it’s going to be difficult not to have a routinely armed police. But I do think that it must impact how people perceive the police. Like I say, as a child, the impression I formed of the Spanish police was that they were people to be afraid of because I realised that they were capable of killing people. In Britain, a policeman was not somebody to be afraid of; he wasn’t somebody who was capable of doing you any harm (and back then we had even fewer armed officers than we have today). In fact, our police are always struggling to recruit armed officers because most officers simply don’t want to carry weapons, still less use them. I can see that it would now be very difficult to take guns away from police officers in America, but I still think it must influence how they are perceived.
 
EZweber said:
True, but I would be a lot more worried without cops. They are generally more law abiding than the average person.
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Nope, not according to this lengthy DOJ study:

Police Integrity Lost: A Study of Law Enforcement Officers Arrested

Its findings are basically this. Crime committed by the police is about the same as the average individual. However the most disturbing finding is that their crime tends to be more opportunity on the job crime. This is not a direct knock against the police. But it’s not surprising that when you give someone substantial situational authority some people are bound to abuse it.

As for feeling more comfortable with cops around, this is not a universal sentiment. There are statistics enough to provide support this.
Londoner said:
I think in the UK we have a very different relationship with the police because they are not routinely armed.
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I completely agree with you. I was once involved in a accident in Swindon…yanks and driving on the “wrong side” of the road (ironically the Magic Roundabout was no issue for me). The police officer that responded became annoyed with me when I played the usual “I admit no wrong doing” game necessary in the US. The officer was like, let’s be honest we know what happened and it’s obvious to everyone you were the cause. The way he expressed this was incredibly different than my other experiences with US cops in this case and it put me at ease admitting so.
phil19034 said:
I don’t but this for two main reasons
  1. in many big cities, police officers MUST live in the city limits and are not allowed to live in the suburbs - so they live in the community
  2. police departments do their best to place ethnic police officers in ethnic communities.
To me, the main issue is that when you resist arrest - don’t be surprised if you get beat up.

Cops are human and their first goal is to make sure they come home to their families. If they feel threatened, they are going to react because no cop wants to hesitate and then die because they hesitated.
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  1. You are correct in this statement. However, my spouse has served as a pastor in a community where police, who serve the major city next to me, live. I can tell you first hand that these are not (at least in the major city next to me) at all the community they serve in. The attitudes expressed by many members was not in line with the the people in the communities served.
  2. No, I’ve lived in “ethnically diverse” communities and I’ve seen many white cops assigned. As best I can tell, these are the less desirable assignments so we end up with relatively less experienced cops patrolling more complex neighborhoods.
I absolutely understand that any person would want to come home alive to their family. But if that person can’t perform a job with integrity and principle, then they need to find another line of work. That holds true for anyone.
 
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Police do make this country a safer place to be. I would say that the average person is much safer when near a police officer.
 
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EZweber said:
Police do make this country a safer place to be.
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Again, this is in the eye of the beholder. I’m making no accusation against you personally, but such a statement is most often made by white people, especially males. There are some pretty compelling reasons to support this.
 
PJH_74 said:
such a statement is most often made by white people, especially males.
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LEL WHITE MALES :DD
Our porcine friends are far from perfect, but could you please stop being a far right caricature of a liberal?
 
Still, I think it’s pretty hard to say that it would be safer without law enforcement.
 
Who finds, captures, and guards murderers and rapists? Who does the same to robbers? Who makes sure our traffic laws are obeyed?
 
Like most issues, surly there’s a position between no police and abusive unaccountable police force?
 
At first cops were like 😆
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But then😰
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Sure, I would support extra deterrent for police officers to commit crime. I would also support being careful about just who we let join the force. But, the police force is very necessary for any society which takes human imperfections into account. We need to give them powers to protect.
 
EZweber said:
Who finds, captures, and guards murderers and rapists?
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A gutted police force, Its not that having a police force is wrong its that the current government is evil. I hate neocons and democrats so I hate the people that carry out their laws. Kinda like not only hating Satan, but his minions as well.
 
Wanting to reform law enforcement is in no way tantamount to wanting to get rid of it.
EZweber said:
I would also support being careful about just who we let join the force.
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Vetting officers is one needed reform, yes. What concerns me is the cronyism that foments cover-ups and corruption. Here’s how things are in some Florida precincts.

 
Sure, I support police reform, but the general effect of the police now is positive.
 
Then can we agree that there’s a massive conflict of interest needing to be addressed? Prosecutors work with cops to put away criminals. Having them prosecute bad cops is clearly against their interest.
 
I would agree that I have heard of problems here, and if your rationale is correct, they need to be addressed. I would advocate a stricter justice system for policemen since more depends on them.
 
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