Not a thread about Black Lives Matter, police brutality, etc. (although all of those things affect our perceptions) but rather, just how you feel about police in America (or whatever your nation is). Do you feel good, safe vibes around them, or do you feel wary and fearful vibes? (There are plenty of people who are afraid of cops despite never having committed a crime at all.)
Edit: For clarification, I mean, when you are in the near proximity of police. Like cops standing near you.
No issues being in the proximity of a LEO, however encountering one on the road, even when I’m completely within the law, I get a tad paranoid, back in college, the local PD had a deserved reputation for pulling over vehicles for no reason and inventing one by the time they approached your window.
Favorite excuse? “You were ‘weaving’ “ even if your car was arrow straight, under the speed limit and everyone was belted in.
That PD was well known to be corrupt, during summer vacation, the running joke was they’d drive around giving speeding tickets to cows.
Australian. I’ve seldom had much interaction with police, but when I have seen them interacting with other drivers/criminals/civilians, I have seen nothing but polite, professional, friendly officers. Sure, there are stories of some bad ones, but what profession doesn’t?
It truly saddens me how much hatred, fear and blame Americans show towards their police force. Although I’m open to the possibility that American police officers are (on average) worse people than Australian police officers, it seems unlikely. It seems much more likely that the police are something of a scapegoat, combined with the average person’s inability to separate ‘an individual circumstance committed by a cop’ from ‘all cops’, and a general misunderstanding of statistics.
I have no issue, and I have never been mistreated by police. I’m an upper-middle-class white guy who looks the part in America, which pretty much guarantees a lack of mistreatment by police.
I’m ok with most of them but Bill is kind of a dick.
Cops are scum. Actually, scratch that, worse than scum. I can think of plenty of “society’s dregs” career criminals I’d rather spend time with over any cop.
What is a cop? Somebody who self-selected into a supposedly dangerous, poorly paid job simply because they get a gun and get to boss people around and unleash their inner petty tyrant. By the numbers, most of them spend their time harassing teenagers and motorists rather than doing anything to actually prevent or stop real crime. And if you’re ever the actual victim of a crime? They don’t care, and at most will have you come down to the station to file a report they’ll do nothing about. Combine that with them being and acting flagrantly above the law they’re supposed to uphold, (see, driving like assholes wherever they go, see murdering innocent people and getting away with it all the time), and you have zero reason to respect the average cop.
Anyone interested in being poorly paid to actually help people became a firefighter or EMT, which are professions that actually deserve a good amount of respect.
Combined with how thoroughly screwed and biased our legal system is, any time you’re around a cop you’re around a power-mad, petty tyrant who can essentially charge you with whatever they feel like at their whim and at minimum ruin your month, with the potential to ruin your entire life if any of the charges actually stick, or if you decide you want out of jail sometime in the next three years before your trial is supposed to come up and plea bargain to something just to get out of there while you still have a job and girlfriend. Who wouldn’t be nervous around that? I’d suggest if you’re not, you’re ill-informed about certain realities about our justice system.
I say this as a rich white guy who is currently at the top of the system which cops exist to protect and maintain, too. I was a rebellious youth and saw plenty of cops at their life-ruining worst when I was younger, though.
Other. I support law enforcement generally as sound concept; one that’s generally well done, in execution. However…the power and authority U.S. society confers upon law enforcement means that, when it goes wrong, it’s often horrifyingly bad.
I can’t honestly answer your poll with a check-mark. I have been subject to, and an observer of, injustices by police, but I have also had (and have today) good friends who were/are cops [sup]*[/sup]. The badge bestows an enormous amount of power, but that doesn’t mean it is used irresponsibly.
I’ve had a few run-ins with the cops, and I’ve been arrested a few times. I’m white and I always cooperate I think on average you’ll find more assholes in the profession than the general population but there are some good cops out there that give you respect and dignity if you give it to them, and occasionally will cut you a break.
What I probably hate more than anything is how traffic cops and troopers seem to be a money making scheme for the county or state more than stopping real crimes. There are certain counties that will pull over anyone for the slightest infraction just hoping that they can hit them, especially people that are visiting or passing through with every possible ticket or violation possible under a false guise of safety so they can rake it in by the thousands or probably millions at the state level.
I always feel uncomfortable around the police because I feel like they can pretty much do anything to you and get away with it, you can be singled out because the cop is having a bad day or just doesn’t like something about you, and I say that as a white guy, though I acknowledge it is probably worse for minorities, though there are more minority police these days I imagine.
I just hate the hypocrisy, you are on the interstate going to work, you keep up with the flow of traffic you go 15mph over the limit or something and the cop pings you on the radar. Your day is about to be fucked. Sure you were speeding a little bit, it’s hard out there on the working man with kids, license is good, registration and insurance is paid, you’re not trafficking drugs, here is your $250+ ticket maybe throw a few more bullshit infractions in for fun.
Late to work, lost income, maybe fired? Have to miss another day for court all kinds of other fees thrown in maybe it turns into $500 fine. Fill those state coffers boys!
You don’t think these same officers are speeding when they’re off work or even on the job but not responding to an emergency? You don’t think they’re engaging in the same petty crimes smoking a blunt every now and then on vacation or something? I’m sure they are, because they can. Of course they are but that’s just fine if they do it, they can break the law when it suits them and if they get pulled over by a fellow local, it’s just go right about your day.
I think things are slowly changing with bodycams and such but very slowly, and there are also a lot of correctional officers that abuse, humiliate, and torture inmates at jails and prisons just because they can lie and get away with it, and be protected by their brothers in blue.
No issues with them being near at all. If fact it wouldn’t surprise me, even at my age, that they are more nervous being around me than I am being around them; the beard and biker attire and all that that I often have. I’ve known really good cops and cops who ended up in prison just as with any large group of people. And I know them to be human and needing to stand in line or do some quick shopping just like I do. So basically my brain registers “cop” and moves on to more interesting subjects.
Non-American Doper in America. I’m ambivalent about US cops. US ritualized respect for authorities rub me the wrong way and routinely armed cops still feels wrong to me. I realize the need for law enforcement in a society, but those things combined with the frequency of police misconduct in the US makes me see police as less of a positive presence here than “back home”.
Can you give examples of what you mean? In USA, teachers and professors are seldom respected, and police are actively abused and hated.
And how would you feel about unarmed cops in a society where guns outnumber people and citizens can (in many places) legally walk around town with a gun in hand?
To me, that is a far more absurd alternative.
I don’t intend to steer this into a ‘gun debate’ conversation. But surely we can agree that, so long as the average citizen retains the right to walk around with lethal ranged weapons, police MUST be armed to be even remotely effective. And policing will be more dangerous for all involved (thus increasing the risk to police and civilians alike).
I’d say law enforcement attracts a higher ratio of assholes than your average profession.
That said, the profession itself still runs the full spectrum from Saints to Assholes. (just like any other profession)
USA, rural, white in a mostly-white area, female, in my 60’s.
Voted other; because it depends on the situation.
Usually, if I’m around police, it’s either a matter of being in an area where police are present as a matter of routine – village police walking through the village, for instance – or of seeing a police car while I’m driving. The first doesn’t make me uncomfortable anywhere I’m familiar with, because in the places I’m familiar with they’ve behaved to me in a neutral or professionally friendly fashion. If I’m driving I always have a bit of a reflex flinch – how fast was I going? might I have a tail light out? did I cross the line when I dodged that pothole, and if so am I about to get stopped for it? – but if I do get pulled over it doesn’t freak me out.
If I’m in a strange place, though? I don’t know how the police behave there and I’m not a local. That doesn’t mean they automatically scare me but it does make me at least a little more wary; how much more wary depends on the rest of the situation. – it occurs to me that I might well also be a bit more wary of non-police when I don’t know the area; though that’s also quite situational.
And in general, whether the area’s familiar or not, there are situations in which the obvious presence of police would make me feel more comfortable (presuming of course that the particular police representative wasn’t acting entirely out of line) and others in which it would make me feel less comfortable.
Afraid Hitchcock had it right, “I am not against the police, I am afraid of the police.”
@Textual Innuendo: Are cops really low paid? I had seen some numbers for Austin and they seemed very high paying indeed for the rank and file troopers (but maybe the big cities are much more high paying than rural)
Yeah what about the “school safety officer” that sat around like a pussy while kids were getting killed in that Florida school shooting, didn’t he have a 6 figure pension?
I’m another middle-aged white guy who has never been harassed and has no particular reason to fear law enforcement. Indeed several members on my mother’s side of the family were law enforcement over a couple of generations. I’m always polite and respectful in my chance encounters.
However, I will admit to being just a teensy bit on edge around them. Do I fear a cop standing in line with me at a Starbucks? No - but I am uncomfortably aware of their presence. I certainly do not feel safer 90+% of the time.
Why? Same reason ExTank notes above. They are armed, have a shit-ton of both actual AND de facto authority and every once in awhile things go sideways quickly. I need not even be directly involved, just close enough to get caught up in the edge of some mess.
Also, as above I’ve known a fair few cops and ex-cops of various sorts. They’ve all been okay guys when calm, but many/most of them were highly reactive. It’s a tough job and unfortunately I think it tends to encourage that mentality, especially under stress. While I have personally haven’t had a bad experience, I remember my pretty tiny( and very white )mother getting unnecessarily tackled off a bike over a misunderstanding.
So, yeah - they make me feel wary, fair or not.
American. I’ve never had a personal problem with police. I have been a bit skeeved out and wary since the normal town cops switched to fatigues from regular uniforms 20 or so years ago This happened in a number of places that I was familiar with in Midwestern small towns and small cities. Police now sport a militaristic affect that is wholly unnecessary. This is bolstered by how local law enforcement is encouraged to and can purchase used equipment from the US military, such as armored tank vehicles (MRAPs). A town of 30,000 does not need such things. All they do is intimidate residents.
As a Canadian I completely support our police officers and feel entirely safe in their presence.
I’ve been treated with nothing but respect in my encounters. No issues whatsoever, but then again the default situation with police here is that no one has a gun! The default situation in the US is that anyone has a gun!