I trust 'em about as much – or as little – as an average guy off the street. (And, no, that’s not my pithy all-purpose reply; ask me about used-car salesmen, or politicians, and et cetera, and I’ll give you a different answer. But the police? As far as I can tell, they’re squarely in the no-more-or-less-than-usual category.)
Depends on where. In the US, sure. In Thailand? Get outta here!
Like many others, I trust the police to treat me appropriately, but mostly because I’m a clean-cut white guy.
I’m friends with a few cops (NYPD), and have hung out with several of their co-workers. Good guys (& girls), who genuinely want to do a good job and help people. Unfortunately, there’s a clear, pervasive “Us vs. Them” outlook, where “Them” is not just criminals. If you’re considered to be one of Them, you’re going to have lousy interactions with police. In their own tellings they treat these people with disdain, and yet they’re deeply offended by the lack of respect they receive in return.
It’s a problem.
I live in England, so yes I trust the police.
As you may know, over here the policeman on patrol is unarmed.
I am not a criminal. I have never committed a crime. I have never even been pulled over by the police. I do not trust them. I have had very, very scary interactions with the NYPD starting at age 8. EIGHT. I know for a fact that they would just as soon shoot me and mine as talk to me.
I’m pretty cynical towards the police at the on-the-street-cop level for a number of reasons. I’ve got a bunch of experience with police officers in off-the-job situations (a few uncles, some personal connections when I was younger), and the good people/bad people/normal people stuff is true, but so is a lot of the “us vs them” mindset. I’ve also seen the difference in police interactions that I have now (30ish white male, wedding ring, usually in business casual) vs ten years ago (20ish young white male and dressed like it, working and driving in a not-great city core - and if anything, I was much more angelic as a 20 year old than I am now), and I absolutely believe that it’s that much worse for people who are that much farther out on the “them” spectrum.
I’ve noticed this as well. Once I got a decent car and stopped looking the “angry young man” part, the white male privilege became blatantly obvious in every interaction I’ve had with police. I’ve been pulled over six times in the last four years for speeding, and was let off with a warning every time. If it was that obvious going from angry young man to 30ish white middle class guy, I can’t even imagine how hard young black males have it.
I’m now 46. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in the back of a police car. Same thing for being pulled over, it was that often. My sons who now drive are 23, 21 & 19. Between them they’ve been pulled over a combined 12 times for 1 tickets so far. The 19 year old was pulled over in my car right in front of my house and the car searched.
Between us we have 1 speeding ticket.
I remember a conversation I had at work one time. We were talking about long driving trips. And during the conversation one guy mentioned a driving trip he had been on and in passing he mentioned how he always scheduled an extra day to the amount of time he planned for the trip. He didn’t make a big point out of it but somebody asked him why he needed an extra day. And he explained it was because he was black so he had to plan for the times when he would be stopped and questioned by the police during the trip.
I want to be able to.
I mean, I have met a number of civic minded officers who were all about justice and protecting and serving and I know it’s a hard and dangerous job…but…no.
I have seen too much bad behavior from police officers, both in the news and in person, to automatically give them the benefit of the doubt.
Three of my buddies are sheriff deputies. They’re good guys. Even then, I sometimes get the feeling they have an “us against them” mindset.
I have to wonder how folks in this thread are defining “trust”. In what capacity and to what extent? It’s a meaningless question if you don’t put parameters around it.
I ask myself whether my trust for the police allows me to make the following assumptions:
-
They are knowledgable enough about the law to not break it unnecessarily.
-
They care enough about the law to not break it unnecessarily.
-
They can be counted on to exercise better judgement than the average person, and don’t lose their head when the situation specifically calls for a calm one.
-
They prioritize public safety over getting their ego stroked or meeting their arrest quota.
-
They use lethal force only as a last resort.
-
They are as concerned about protecting our civil liberties as they are our public property.
-
They don’t lie or use coercion to steamroll people into waiving their rights.
-
They make it a practice to deescalate conflict whenever possible, not create it out of whole cloth.
-
They routinely treat people like people, not objects or animals, regardless of their race, gender, or socioeconomic status.
-
And last but not least, they routinely hold themselves and each other accountable with they act incompetently, abusively, or illegally.
I can’t make any of the above assumptions, so hell no I don’t trust the police. If I trusted the medical profession as much as I trusted cops, the only time you’d see me in anyone’s exam room is if I was on death’s door and needed prescription morphine to dull the pain in my final days. I used to afford cops the benefit of the doubt, but those days are long gone, never to be found again.
Looking at my list makes me wonder who here believes any of those things. To those who say you trust the cops, which is of those assumptions do you make about cops? Not individual cops that you personally know, but the institution?
I know of no one who would be surprised to hear that a cop lied to a suspect to get them to do or say something they otherwise wouldn’t have. We all know it’s in our best interest to clam up if a cop tries to interrogate us without a lawyer, even if we are 100% innocent. No one would be surprised to know cops aren’t above using veiled threats and manipulative tricks to conduct warrantless searches. And even staunch cop-defenders on this board think it’s too much to expect cops to know the law well enough not to break it.
So how can true, meaningful trust coexist alongside doubt in such things as a cop’s veracity, intentions, and subject matter expertise?
Compared to what, looters and arsonists? Hell yeah.
I am one of those who said he trusted the police where he lived.
I live in the Netherlands, and with regards to the Dutch police, my experience, my perception and what I have been able to glean from the news, so far, are as follows (in regard to each of your points):
1) They are knowledgable enough about the law to not break it unnecessarily.
As far as I have been able to see, this is definitely the case.
2) They care enough about the law to not break it unnecessarily.
My perception, in my interaction with Dutch police so far, is that this is the case.
3) They can be counted on to exercise better judgement than the average person, and don’t lose their head when the situation specifically calls for a calm one.
I have been witness to a pursuit on foot through a crowded commercial center near The Hague, and it seemed to me that the police behaved extremely professionally. When they finally caught up with the suspect, they took him into custody very professionally, calmly and without histrionics or anything. At no point was a weapon of any kind brandished.
4) They prioritize public safety over getting their ego stroked or meeting their arrest quota.
I would say so. Going back to point [3], during that pursuit nobody was put at risk, at least as far as I could see. And I have never heard not even a rumor about there being “arrest quotas” or anything like that.
5) They use lethal force only as a last resort.
Absolutely. In the 15 years I’ve been living in the Netherlands I have maybe heard of a couple of cases of the police shooting a suspect. The last time I heard of something like that happening was in May 2012 in Rotterdam, where the police shot a man who brandished a firearm and resisted arrest. The man was to be arrested because he had stabbed two other people.
Here is a link with the rules of engagement that the Dutch police are to follow in case of a confrontation. Unfortunately it is in Dutch:
http://www.politie.nl/onderwerpen/schietincident.html
6) They are as concerned about protecting our civil liberties as they are our public property.
Judging by my interactions with the Dutch police doing their duty, I would say this is the case.
7) They don’t lie or use coercion to steamroll people into waiving their rights.
I have never been in the kind of situation where I am under interrogation or anything, so I cannot say. What I can only say, after talking to my Dutch friends and colleagues and listening to the news, is that this does not appear to be a concern of the population here.
8) They make it a practice to deescalate conflict whenever possible, not create it out of whole cloth.
I understand that this is the case.
When it comes to personal experience, going back to [3], what I saw was that the police approached a guy and began talking to him, without (in my opinion) any particular display of threatening attitudes or anything. What I saw was a policeman and a policewoman who approached a man and began talking to him in a normal tone of voice, and from a normal distance. And then, suddenly, after perhaps 30 seconds of that, the guy just began running like hell. The police officers then began running after him.
9) They routinely treat people like people, not objects or animals, regardless of their race, gender, or socioeconomic status.
So far as I can see Dutch police officers are polite and treat everybody the same. At least initially, of course (see point [8]).
10) And last but not least, they routinely hold themselves and each other accountable with they act incompetently, abusively, or illegally.
I understand that the Dutch police authorities (that is, the Ministry of Interior) take police misconduct extremely seriously, and that the police officers themselves take that also seriously.
So, taking all that into account, I can say that, yes – I trust the Dutch police as an institution.
===
As a colophon, I can mention a personal anecdote here. I have a good friend, Dutch. She applied to enter the police. She passed the physical, began her studies, and showed that she had potential and everything. But in the end she was rejected.
Why? Because a final psychological examination showed that her temper was too short. And the Dutch police did not want somebody like that.
(And, yeah, although she is a great friend and I love her to bits, she definitely has a short fuse).
So, if the police here will reject somebody who otherwise has the makings of a good police officer because she may end up being too angry, I guess I can give them a measure of trust.
Compared to nothing. That’s what “generally” means here.
Nope. Not in the slightest.
I’ll use them, now that it’s post-Apartheid and I’m a middle-class citizen they nominally have to serve, but I’ll never trust them. The lessons of living in a true police state can’t be unlearned. “Some of those who work forces, are the same who…” gun down unarmed schoolkids with Galils, in my own personal experience.
Thanks for your response. Since I’m personally unfamiliar with Dutch police and haven’t any evidence to contradict your opinions, I can’t say you’re wrong to trust them.
I doubt many people in the U.S. can go down that list one by one and honestly say they believe them, though. At most, I think someone of reasonable intelligence and awareness could believe U.S. cops won’t unfairly hurt, harass, or screw them over. That’s a low bar for trust, if you think about it. I don’t know of anyone who truly believes U.S. cops as a rule are paragons of honesty, peace, and fairness.