I voted “Most of our local cops are good, but a few are bad.” I’ve dealt with the police extensively, as a prosecutor and now as a magistrate. The biggest problem locally, I think, is not corruption but incompetence… or lethargy. Time and again they’ve handled cases badly.
On a personal basis, I’ve never been treated poorly by the police anywhere I’ve lived. I’m also a young college-educated white woman who speaks English natively with an American accent. Every interaction I’ve ever had with a uniformed officer has involved some variation of the phrase, “I’m sorry, miss, is this man bothering you?” The only time I’ve ever spoken to a plainclothes detective was when one knocked on my door asking if I’d seen my evidently-missing neighbor lately. (I hadn’t.)
The transit cops here in Boston seem to be good eggs. I’ve seen them deal politely but firmly with complaints from other passengers that someone was up to something alarming in their subway car. I’ve even had one of them specifically ask me if I was all right, when I was curled up on the train trying to get home before the flu/migraine really hit.
I don’t have a lot of basis to evaluate their overall operations, but I will mention that I was here during and after the Marathon bombing, and I was impressed by how much other people trusted the BPD/CPD/Mass state troopers. Having grown up in Arizona, I was dumbfounded that issuing a ‘shelter in place’ warning actually resulted in people staying inside, and that no one felt the need to remind folks repeatedly not to gather up all their guns and roam the streets in a mob, because apparently we don’t really do that in New England. And also that everyone, law enforcement included, wanted whoever was responsible rounded up and marched out in front of the city to answer for their crimes – that is, they wanted these guys on trial, rather than chased down like dogs and shot in the street.
BPD is certainly not perfect, and they’ll probably spend the next fifty years wincing whenever anyone shows them a Lite-Brite, but overall I find them a lot less nerve-wracking than the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department.
I have an economist’s attitude towards them. (Note:IANAE.) Cops are human; they respond (more or less) rationally to incentives. I’m sure that like most people, all else being equal, they’d rather everyone be happy and avoid suffering–if nothing else, it’ll make their jobs easier. When they’re under pressure or are rewarded for cutting corners that’s what they’ll do. And the people most likely to suffer as a result will be the ones they empathize with least, whoever that may be, and those least able to do anything about it.
I’m the same way at my job, and so is everyone else I’ve ever worked with.
I’m not sure competence is the problem, exactly. They are good at what they do. They just don’t necessarily understand that what they do might not be the best. But they are at least trying to be good, so their probity is definitely fine.
But that’s only if I stay on my side of the county line. Move over slightly, and we get into some pretty crooked stuff, mostly because the county is so rural.
yep, I agree. I cannot think of a single positive experience with Memphis City police or Shelby County Sherrifs dept. I am a middle aged white woman, at least I am not black and across the river. I think West Memphis is even more out of control than Memphis.