Suggested by a recent incident in Memphis in which a young man was arrested and held in jail by police for 64 on a felony murder charge after the police coerced a confession from him.
Poll in a moment. When answering, bear in mind that I’m talking about your faith in the police in the city, county, or other locality where you live. If you’re a Tennessean living in Memphis who thinks that Memphis police are trustworthy but wouldn’t turn your back on anybody in the Davidson County sheriff’s office, then you trust the cops.
As a middle-class white guy who wears polo shirts to work, I feel a certain level of trust for my police personally; I don’t necessarily extend this trust to the department in its dealings with all citizens. I’m pretty sure they won’t treat me poorly without reason. I’m not at all convinced they won’t treat black men or homeless people in my city poorly without reason.
I have had nothing but good experiences with the sheriff’s department. While I have not directly interacted with the city police, their demeanor hasn’t inspired confidence. Hopefully I’ll never have a chance to put that to the test
Speaking without regard to the OP:
Having traveled across much of the US east coast, I’ve interacted with a wide variety of officers. Some felt like they were genuinely concerned for my safety and well-being, while others appeared to only be looking for trouble.
I know almost all my local cops personally. Quite a few by first name. Almost all by last name. I am a public defender and I live in the jurisdiction I practice in. The actual town I live in is only a few square miles, though the county is huge.
I trust most of the cops. Almost all are good, as people generally, and are competent at their job. A select few are good at their jobs, but kind of assholes in person. Only one or two are generally bad at their jobs, but not really in a malicious way. Just more like they would be bad at any job because they are idiots. One or two are maliciously bad at their jobs.
If I were in a tight spot and had to call 911, I am confident that my situation would be handled professionally, expediently, etc… though I would probably ask for a few officers by name to respond.
I have had absolutely zero reasons to not trust the police where I live. I have a few dealings with them over the years, only for driving-related offenses like expired registration, speeding, burned out head lamp, a couple of accidents, oh and an impaired charge about 27 years ago, but I’ve been treated with the respect I believe I deserved every time.
On the one hand - I have a deep respect for the risks and difficulty of the job of the police. It is a job I wouldn’t go anywhere near and I am very greatful that there are those who do the job.
On the other hand - LAPD! There have been books and movies made about these mooks. IMHO a lot of the problems are institutional and I think the whole focus and model of policing is outdated. That, and the fact that a percentage of people attracted to the job are not suited to many requirements of the job.
The trouble is that, like politics, police work has characteristics that make it attractive to the sort of people who you least want doing it. I can’t think of any real way to fix that, either, short of making policing like jury duty or something.
Despite this, I voted that most are good, a few are bad. That’s just an extension of my view on the human race as a whole applied to the particular category of police officers, though.
I chose “most are good, few are bad” for my local suburb.
But I lived in Minneapolis for 17.5 years, and learned from experience and observation both then and since that they are mostly bad and I wouldn’t trust any of them if my life or anything of value depended on it.
Unfortunately, it seems that the larger the city, the more dealing with the police is like dealing with a powerful local gang.
I voted this too. We don’t have real crime here*, so most of their time is spent handing out tickets or helping at accident sites, and they’d pretty good at it. I know one cop who is a jerk, and the rest I know are decent people.
there has been one murder and one suicide by cop in the entire time I’ve lived here, which is 16 years. Very little theft etc either. About on par for an NH town of less than 10k people.
Through the years, I’ve had minor, everyday interactions with the police - response to a couple of minor accidents, a speeding ticket, flirting madly with a regular customer when I waited tables. I generally had a good impression of those I dealt with, except one (who, I’m happy to report, was fired after being charged with prescription fraud a few months after she tried to turn a minor wreck caused by equipment failure into a major hassle for me.)
A few years ago, I married a deputy sheriff, who has worked for about a half dozen agencies in our area. Naturally, many of our social acquaintances are cops. I trust most of them as much or more than my own family, but I also know which ones not to trust.
Like every profession, law enforcement employs a decent number of excellent people, a large number of the mostly competent, and a small percentage of people who are actively incompetent or worse.
I’ve posted in the past about the fact that the head of the state police is a fascist, who threatened a politician who objected to his plan to physically search people without justification. I haven’t had enough dealings with the rank and file around here to say either way, but they’ve been fine from what I’ve seen.
I don’t trust any of them; any person who wants to carry a gun and tell other people what to do is the last person who should be allowed to.
I have had two mildly unpleasant experiences with police in my life, I was in the wrong both times, but both had that flat, mean, don’t-forget-I-could-truly-fuck-up-your-life attitude that made me think, “Maybe some stereotypes are right.”
I tend to trust those over 40 more than the younger ones. Overall our local police have really improved over the years. 20 years ago they were a bunch of racist thugs as far as I am concerned.
The NSW Police are mostly good. Some bad eggs and some individuals with an overarching sense of their own importance. I’d like to think corruption has been dealt with but that’s probably an over optimistic approach. Corruption has been an issue in the NSW Police Force for decades (thanks, Sir Robin - may you rot in hell)
The main difficulties lately seem to centre on some police officers ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ approach, whether the shooting is with a firearm or a taser. There have been a few, highly publicised incidents over the past few years where individuals, with obvious mental problems, have been killed because of an over zealous overreaction on the part of the police sent to deal with them.
The lower level police you would encounter around here on the beat or at a traffic accident are generally nice, competent and fine to deal with.
The higher ranks, say, detective level, I would trust about as far as I could throw a bulldozer. I know enough people who have had “$10,000 and this problem can disappear” type conversations that I would be getting a really good lawyer if I had to deal with them or at least recording every conversation.
I trust most police in my town. There’s been one bad experience with them that I wrote it off to lack of training/experience.
It takes a while for most of them to learn that they aren’t going to make all those big changes they expected coming out of the Academy. But that’s no different than any young hopeful person, I think.
If they are able to learn not to personalize their work experiences they do okay. It must be quite an accomplishment and I know some who seem to have done so.
I think they are different in the way they handle our young, though.
What I don’t trust are some of the policies and pressures that are being foisted on them by politicians.
