# At what point do "bad apples" irrepairably taint an entire group? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 19, 2009, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-do-bad-apples-irrepairably-taint-an-entire-group/521829 "2009-12-19T03:50:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2009, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-do-bad-apples-irrepairably-taint-an-entire-group/521829/21 "2009-12-19T20:39:38Z")
> [@](#): > > I’d like to see cites for why people believe in this, ‘inaction’. Sure we have some evidence with Catholic Priests who merely get moved to positions where they are not dealing with young kids, but do we have evidence that this is actually rampant with cops? There are internal mechanisms to deal with these things. Sure, people look the other way when a cop turns on their lights to blow through a red light, but that doesn’t mean a cop is gonna look the other way when a boy in blue murders someone. > > The problem here is that we are accepting that the core assumptions are de facto ‘true’ when that’s not so obvious. Keep in mind we’re talking about the Chicago Police Department in the 1930’s. I can’t cite specific statistics but I feel it’s believable that there may have been a lot of corruption and no recognized process to address that corruption in that department. Things like Internal Affairs offices and whistleblower protection procedures came along decades later. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2009, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-do-bad-apples-irrepairably-taint-an-entire-group/521829/22 "2009-12-19T20:50:28Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Keep in mind we’re talking about the Chicago Police Department in the 1930’s. I can’t cite specific statistics but I feel it’s believable that there may have been a lot of corruption and no recognized process to address that corruption in that department. Things like Internal Affairs offices and whistleblower protection procedures came along decades later. Sure but they exist now. Do you think that in the past when someone was a particularly bad seed they never got taken out behind the woodshed by their peers? ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2009, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-do-bad-apples-irrepairably-taint-an-entire-group/521829/23 "2009-12-19T22:59:10Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Well it’s exponential. The first apple infects the adjacent apples, who in turn affect the adjacent apples. _One bad apple don’t spoil the whole bunch, girl. Oh, I don’t care what they say, I don’t care what you heard._ ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2009, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-do-bad-apples-irrepairably-taint-an-entire-group/521829/24 "2009-12-19T23:00:24Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > _One bad apple don’t spoil the whole bunch, girl. > Oh, I don’t care what they say, > I don’t care what you heard._ Whoever thought you of all people was an anti-vaxxer? ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2009, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-do-bad-apples-irrepairably-taint-an-entire-group/521829/25 "2009-12-20T00:19:33Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Whoever thought you of all people was an anti-vaxxer? No, those are eggs they raise them in. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Krebbs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5fc32e/32.png) [@Mr.Krebbs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Krebbs)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2009, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-do-bad-apples-irrepairably-taint-an-entire-group/521829/26 "2009-12-20T00:25:59Z")
I think that people who accept training in manipulating and lying to other people (who may or may not be suspected of being criminals) are bad apples. So no, I don’t think it unreasonable to treat each and every cop like a pig. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2009, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-do-bad-apples-irrepairably-taint-an-entire-group/521829/27 "2009-12-20T00:29:16Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > No, those are eggs they raise them in. Touche. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2009, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-do-bad-apples-irrepairably-taint-an-entire-group/521829/28 "2009-12-20T07:17:51Z")
Strongly suspect I have more experience with police officers than most here. I’ve dealt with them as adversaries in criminal cases, and as allies in domestic cases. That experience leads me to believe that the vast majority of them are honest, hard working professionals doing dangerous and often thankless jobs. There are a few assholes, same as in any other group of people. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2009, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-do-bad-apples-irrepairably-taint-an-entire-group/521829/29 "2009-12-20T14:18:52Z")
> [@Mr.Krebbs](#): > > I think that people who accept training in manipulating and lying to other people (who may or may not be suspected of being criminals) are bad apples. So no, I don’t think it unreasonable to treat each and every cop like a pig. And thus you give them a reason to treat you badly, too. Which then gives you more reason to treat them badly, and so on. It’d be a continuous cycle, but the cop has more power and is going to win. * * * The idea that cops outing bad cops have no place to go is fallacious too. They could come to the hick towns around here, do a lot less work, and get payed a whole lot less. They also know that their superiors, being as amoral as they are, aren’t above lying to make their miserable if they leave. Sure, they might be moving to a less corrupt place, but the corrupt cop is going to taint their record horribly. So why don’t they secretly try to prove their superiors are doing illegal things, so that they can’t taint them? Perhaps because they know that they will be stopped before they get far enough to accomplish anything. And then they get tainted anyways. I could get into priests, too, but suffice it to say that I know a lot of priests who would have turned in the pedophiles if they knew. On the other hand, I know they would really have preferred the Church itself dealt with it properly. They are more likely to believe that those who moved the bad priests around thought they were doing the right thing. OP: The fallacy is somehow creating some system of cops thoughout the country, rather than realizing they are separate organizations. There organizations that are corrupt, and those that aren’t. The bad apples analogy doesn’t work if the apples are not in the same container. ---
**Author:** ![Eternal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecb155/32.png) [@Eternal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eternal)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2009, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-do-bad-apples-irrepairably-taint-an-entire-group/521829/30 "2009-12-21T15:53:55Z")
If you want to toss out the whole bunch, you’ll have to burn the orchard as well. The honest-to-god pyschopaths generally do get kicked out eventually (albeit rarely charged) because they can’t control themselves. But most cops are regular folk, spending their days sitting on their butts avoiding work, putting on a respectable appearance for any observors, bitching about customers (citizens) behind their back, grumbling about the cops who are trying to make them look bad by taking the work so seriously, perhaps pinching some money from a tip cup or stealing office supplies because they feel they deserve it somehow, etc. And also like almost everyone dealing with people in stressful situations they will occasionally flip out. The biggest difference here is that they have an arsenal of violent tricks they are free to employ. People worry about accountability and oversight and true enough there is little but what is the alternative? Who can expect a comrade to snitch on a comrade, or a union to not put on a good show of sticking up for a member, or department to make itself look bad, or a government to want to put up with the hassle at all when the public that believes it shouldn’t be accountable for its own safety can’t accept the notion that the people it shirks that responsibility onto aren’t interested? ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2009, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-do-bad-apples-irrepairably-taint-an-entire-group/521829/31 "2009-12-21T16:13:58Z")
> [@Eternal](#): > > People worry about accountability and oversight and true enough there is little but what is the alternative? Who can expect a comrade to snitch on a comrade, or a union to not put on a good show of sticking up for a member, or department to make itself look bad, or a government to want to put up with the hassle at all when the public that believes it shouldn’t be accountable for its own safety can’t accept the notion that the people it shirks that responsibility onto aren’t interested? All fine, but as you point out, the police are exceptional in that they have plenty of opportunity for making your life miserable even without resorting to violence. When the police gets out of hand the consequences can be far worse than when - for example - the postman doesn’t like you. As a side note, I’m always amazed that there seem to be so many average/law-abiding people in the US who not only do not trust the police but are actually _scared to have any contact at all with them_. I’m not sure that over here the police is less corrupt (we have a tendency to assume our civil servants are at most apathetic instead of actively malicious, which doesn’t always turns out to be the case) but the police over here are generally complaining about a “lack of respect”; while in the US the people seem to be complaining that the police can and will do just about anything to anybody whose face they don’t like. ---
**Author:** ![Eternal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecb155/32.png) [@Eternal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eternal)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2009, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-do-bad-apples-irrepairably-taint-an-entire-group/521829/32 "2009-12-21T16:47:07Z")
I’m sure there are too many factors to hope to have a satisfying reason. When someone complains about respect I assume they’re just a spoiled brat. God know there are plenty of those in the rest of the West though, so it might be uniquely American that the brat makes the leap to putting the offending punk in a chokehold. ---
**Author:** ![What\_the](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f4b2a3/32.png) [@What\_the](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_the)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-do-bad-apples-irrepairably-taint-an-entire-group/521829/33 "2009-12-22T14:54:16Z")
I think the answer is “immediately” since its human nature to prejudge a group of people based in the actions of a few. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-point-do-bad-apples-irrepairably-taint-an-entire-group/521829.md?page=1)