I don’t do much crim law so I wouldn’t claim to have too much experience of this subject. However from what I’ve seen:
in any given situation, cops are trying to achieve some sort of end goal. Whether it’s getting evidence for a conviction, or moving people away from somewhere, or whatever
they see achieving that goal as an end that justifies minorly illicit means
they care about laws they see as important, but regard laws designed to curb cop excesses as just “getting in the way”
IME they usually do know the laws they are ignoring or lying about. For example, many times I have been in a situation where a cop has lied to my client about their rights, and when I have stepped in the and pointed out the correct position, the cop hasn’t argued with me but has just shrugged and moved on ie they know I’m right so they don’t try to argue, they were just “trying it on” and they knew that
sometimes cops are ignorant of the law, particularly if it’s a bit obscure.
Sometimes it’s not either - I encountered many people during my working days who claimed they were arrested for not having ID. Maybe they even thought they were arrested for not having ID - but they weren’t. They were arrested for one of the many, many offenses ( such as shoplifting or theft of services) that can be handled in two different ways - one way is being handcuffed, fingerprinted and held in custody until being taken in front of a judge. The other way is being given a desk appearance ticket at some point in that process to appear in court on a certain date (which is still technically an arrest) There are certain requirements for the DAT to be issued - one of which is having valid ID so that someone arrested for shoplifting who doesn’t have ID will go through the whole booking process but the arrest is for the shoplifting.
The police aren’t there to protect, or to serve, or to enforce the laws. Their purposes are, in order:
Protect their own physical safety
Protect their employment
Protect capital
Create a perception of controlled order
This last bit is the key part to understand. The reason police exist is to arrest enough suspects to convince the public that wrongdoing is punished. Their motivation for doing this is to remain employed, while reducing the amount of work involved in their employment.
This is why ordinary citizens rarely report getting any justice when they call the police. The police aren’t there to help you, but rather to scare you into not committing any crimes. They do this by making enough sensational arrests to fill the headlines with the appearance of social order.
Of course, all of this changes when capital enters the equation. Then the police get very busy investigating and creating documentation trails, because they know they’re caught between well-funded entities who will scrutinize every detail to ensure their interests are protected.
That’s why it’s fairly easy to get a cop to write an accident report, or investigate a case of arson - this is to protect the interests of insurance companies, not you. This is why it’s hard to get police to respond to anything else (except the opportunity to beat up on brown people, because this is an essential part of creating the public perception of control).
People may not like that the police assist the powerful and abuse the powerless, but it continues, because this is a sign of social control. The public will tolerate injustice, and it will tolerate police that are out of control, but it absolutely will not tolerate a society that seems out of control. And police are happy to instigate the occasional spasm of unrest to remind the public that chaos is never very far away, held back only by the “thin blue line”.
I’m a lefty. I worked for a decade in IT selling & delivering tailored product to US big city police departments. I was pleasantly amazed at the professionalism and dedication I encountered at the upper levels. It was quite different from what I’d cynically expected as other above have asserted.
Having said that, many rank & file officers are “at risk”. it’s shitty work in a shitty environment and it make shitty people out of folks who started out OK. And also attracts folks who were shitty before they joined up.
I’ll argue from some experience that @HMS_Irruncible’s cynical screed just above is pretty much worst case, and is not generally true. But certainly is in some of the worst cases.
Note here that nothing I wrote is incompatible with what you wrote. Yes, many policemen are professional and dedicated and surely nice people. But the fact remains that they were not put there to protect you. They provide social control. They are only there to help you in the sense that you are part of the aggregate of “public safety”. No matter how nicely or gently they perform that work, it will always be prioritized over safety and security of individual civilians. And their top priority (like every other non-heroic wage worker) is making sure they themselves come home alive without injury.
That’s why they’re great at putting up barricades, riot control, traffic control, setting up command centers, manhunts, etc, but just generally inept (and often harmful) in dealing with issues of individual safety. That’s a completely optional and extra part of their job.
I wonder how many would know the law or care if we took away qualified immunity and cops lost their jobs (or suspended WITHOUT pay) for major fuck-up. Ya know - like us civilians have to deal with.
