Is the mechanism fear for their lives?
Or that they don’t want to rock the boat?
Which of the above is true for so-called “good” cops who know terrible things are going on, but don’t say or do anything?
I don’t think “good” people let co-workers get away with beatings, law-breaking, and other blatant violations of police procedure. YMMV.
I have a friend who has been a cop for 20 years now. He is a good cop, and he is setting up an alternative career so he can get away from police work ASAP. According to him, the “good cop” is now in the minority.
↑ ↑ ↑ This !!!*
*yeah, me liking a kayaker post, who would a thunk I would thunk he knew what he was talking about?
Ignorance fought… 
I’m going to assume, with no evidence though, that LEO abuse is less common today. For one thing western society seems on an egalitarian trajectory, and it is probably safe to say that LEO is less abusive in 2015 than it was in 1975. Simply because most social trends are moving in the same direction.
Plus now that the media is more hostile to LEO and almost everyone has a camcorder in their pocket it is harder for LEO to get away with abuse. Politicians and police leadership still don’t care about LEO abuses of the public, but the media and society at large do.
Having said that, I have heard multiple cops who were cops in the 70s and 80s lament on the new generation of LEO who have a paramilitary, us vs them mentality while the cops of yesteryear felt they were part of the community and existed to serve it. They feel cops of today are too hostile and disrespectful, and that we have criminalized too much of everyday life to make almost everyone a criminal. So I think there is something to the idea that cops are worse. I know they have gotten more paramilitary with the rise of SWAT teams and surplus military gear.
I am not sure if it was always like this but I get the impression that many cops today have it backwards about who serves whom. Cops are supposed to serve and protect the public, the public don’t exist to feed their inflated egos and tell them their criminal behavior is ok.
I think there could well be a rural vs urban split here too, with rural cops being part of the community and urban cops with an “us vs them” attitude.
Cops are civilians.
I’m not a cop myself, but I am friends with several NYPD members, and I know several of their friends in passing. “Us vs. Them” is pretty much the defining concept for their professional life, to an extent that it’s a bit misleading to just say that all organizations have that mindset.
One of the reasons this is problematic is the operative definition of “Them.” It’s not the civilian population in general, and it’s certainly not just criminals. It’s, I don’t know, “scumbags,” people who are ghetto. It tracks pretty well with race, but it’s not about that per se: a white kid with dreadlocks and pot leaf t-shirt is gonna be treated about the same as a black teen in the proverbial hoodie – think Chris Rock’s “Black people vs. Niggers” routine. If you fall into the “Them” category, your interactions with the police are going to be really unpleasant, and probably numerous. Because you’re a skell.
The cops I know are good people, who certainly went into it with all the right ideals. But those working in sketchier neighborhoods see their job as population control, not Protect & Serve. More Fallujah then Mayberry. It’s a problem.
It’s 20 years since I worked with the police - we used to do their payroll - but they were just ordinary people. I wonder, therefore if the OP hasn’t got the situation reversed: perhaps it’s not the police who have an Us vs Them attitude but sections of the public?
They do; its both. It’s a vicious circle.
Perhaps Penfeather thinks UCLA is the Universal Cop Linquistics College.
Or he went to USC.
Preach it Brother! But this is like King Canute, I am afraid.
I think large police forces have a major problem recruiting officers with the right kind of emotional make up. I support the police but sometimes it is hard when I see them abuse their perceived authority on such a regular basis.
The only times we really hear about the police in the press are when they err and when they die in the line of duty. Most of their good works don’t make the news.
Yes, but, wasn’t this an anomaly? He should have had their backs to begin with- instead, he shit all over them. (IIRC) It was more of a “Since he fucked us, we’ll just make a protest of his treachery.” Not indicative of their general attitude.
It wasn’t insubordination: they weren’t required to have their faces towards him. It wasn’t bordering on insurrection: they did their jobs and made no overtures to illegally overthrow him.
That’s the thing: he really didn’t. He said he understood the protesters’s frustration, and relayed that he’d had “the talk” with his son (a black teenager) about being extra careful and respectful around police, since he might not get the same benefit of the doubt as others. That’s it. It was very gentle criticism (it wasn’t even explicit criticism), but the officers of the NYPD had what I can only describe as a pathological reaction to it, collectively. When two officers were murdered by a violent and unstable felon, the cops literally blamed De Blasio for the deaths, saying he was responsible for creating the environment that led to the violence (based on my own conversations and also quotes in the media). They were spitting mad, for the simple reason that the mayor had allowed that there might sometimes be a racial component to police interactions. The anger even predated the murders, as evidenced by the fact that cops had been passing around and signing form letters requesting that De Blasio was not to visit them in the hospital or attend their funerals if they were hurt in the line of duty.
And that gets to the Us vs. Them thing. This is a little more subjective, but it seems to me that the typical American police officer’s first loyalty is to other police officers. Anyone failing to show the proper deference to the force is written off (and, if they’re in a position to do so, probably written up). Meanwhile other officers’ minor misdeeds and corruptions are ignored, to the detriment of the public at large.
It’s a problem.
How does that differ from any other profession?
Except when they complain when they get written up for tickets, or their families get written up, or they busted DWI and expect to be given a pass by their “brothers”, or there is a domestic call, and the fellow cops are expected to let them off, no matter how many times the cop beats his wife.
other than that, yeah.
I don’t think either situation you refer to is an appropriate comparison.
Almost by definition, the job of the police is to deal with crime. If they see crime and do not deal with it, they’re not doing their job.
This is markedly different from the “job” of being a family member or the “job” of being a member of a minority group.