Why where cops better in the 80's and 90's?

Great Debates
61

Than vote the libertarian party in power. You can thank the liberals and conservatives for getting ideas from communism and fascism.Big government and we have to run or control things.Tell people what they can or cannot do base on my political party line ideas.

In the past it was if you do crime to others than you do the time.The federal government role was military ,defense and immigration not following political party line ideas.

You can thank the prison industrial complex when prisons became government institutions on party line ideas. You in jail you not wearing a seat belts ,you smoke drugs ,you are a street hooker ,you not waring wearing life jackets , you have no car insurance ,minor theft.

Officers arresting power has branched out than crooks and violent offenders to being part of the government institutions on party line ideas.

If such a government passed laws no red jack wearing on the weekend :eek::eek::eek: officers would not think otherwise of making arrests on that.

Hack some places they are arresting people on sagging pants and baggy pants.You can thank the liberals and conservatives for getting ideas from communism and fascism and make up any law base on party line ideas big government.

62

You have latched onto the case of the fireman/EMS and think it represents a major shift in police attitudes. There’s no evidence so far that this never happened in the past or that it happens with any frequency now. The fact that you didn’t see any of these reports in the past can easily be explained by the shift in news reporting, the proliferation of cameras, and a change in the public acceptance.

You are still back at square one; trying to identify if something has changed. Before you ask why something happens you need to establish that it is in fact happening.

63

No the media may be bias to police being very pro police.But fireman/EMS and reports are other thing…This makes the front hit line.

64

No the media may be bias to police being very pro police.But fireman/EMS and reports are other thing.This makes the front page.
It still does not explain police wearing longer hair ,glasses and mustage is no no now.

Now police must look like military type or hulk like.

These officers appearance and behavior would not be allowed in the UK or Canada.

Cop arrests TV news reporter and camera crew

Cop Puts Cameraman In Chokehold for Filming Peaceful Protest

RESIST ILLEGAL ORDERS- EXERT YOUR GOD GIVEN RIGHTS

65

I do vote almost strictly libertarian for positions related to law enforcement (sheriff, prosecutor, judge). I don’t know if it matters though since that is a minor party. I don’t agree with libertarians on economic policy so I only vote for them on L.E. related platforms.

Part of the problem is that the beast of L.E. has become so big it has to justify its existence by creating an endless pool of criminals and creating draconian fines and punishments. Something like 40% of men have been arrested by age 23. They keep making more and more things a crime, and creating more and more of a surveillance state to justify their jobs. This gives them lobbying power, which leads to more things being criminalized.

This book

Was written by an ex-FBI agent who got disgusted with the fact that the purpose of law enforcement is to justify its bloated existence by criminalizing more and more of regular life, not protect people. He outlines minor lifestyle changes to drastically reduce your chances of interacting with the law. Its the best people can do right now.

66

There was a time where SWAT was used for hostage crisis and barricaded suspects.Now many police department are calling out SWAT on gun calls and knife calls.

The SWAT is being used more and more.

The Filming Cops in public seem be new trend.I don’t remember police getting so worked up over this 5 year ago.

Many youtube clips of cops and Filming in public like they are hiding some thing.

cops Demanding ID is other thing.

Filming in public leads to local arrest

Angry Texas Cop Demands ID

Arrest for Filming Cops in San Diego Again

Police officer apologize for citizen filming arrest in public.

Wife of man killed by San Diego police officer angered by District Attorney’s ruling
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEp6PDvFtks
What is with them today.

67

The same thing that was with them 50 years ago. You keep posting links to incidents. Find data that supports your hypothetical first, then worry about the finding the best cases to illustrate your point.

68

Close but no cigar. It’s from decades of kids being raised on violence and a permissive society. If a kid manages to grow up and stay out of jail as he does, then when he gets on the cops, this kind of behavior is almost to be expected.

69

Of course you can’t really go by TV shows and youtube.In the past people had no cameras like today ( no youtube) and the cops would probably beat you up or take you to woods and leave you to die:eek::eek::eek:than take you to jail. One of reason cops hate the cameras is it shows them doing wrong.

The TV show cops on fox or cops on spike is not that good because they can act good on camera but off camera treat you like garbage.In any case the way they act on TV show cops on fox so called good side manners in front of the camera is less desirable. The cops on fox in south west US seem more hyped up and get excited easy.Well cops on fox in south east US seem calmer and friendlier with the exemption of Florida.

There was TV show jail on true TV the cops in jail in Las Vegas jailhouse where horrible compared to Portland jailhouse.The cops in Portland jail seem much better.

70

Aaand there’s part of the answer. The proportion of the populace which can be classified as “subhuman minority so very extremely far from the ruling class that it is effectively open season on them” is apparently increasing.

A bigger part may be this:

Police forces were originally instituted to bring a professionalism into law enforcement. This has a good side (taking power away from lynch mobs) and a bad side (putting police power in the hands of those employed by a wealthy ruling class). But they were accepted at all because they offered a more controlled, more responsible, and sometimes more ethical system of policing. (On the other hand, when some of them started out, they basically picked a street gang and recruited from them.)

Once the authority of the professional police is taken for granted, things tend to go bad. Over time, police forces can begin more and more to attract the sort of person who makes a horrible police officer.

But here’s the good news! This has happened before. And what happened in response was a revolution in jurisprudence to diminish police brutality.

And then there was a counter-revolution, that got us to today.

Possibly the signature plank of the political conservative counter-revolution from the 1970’s on was “stop coddling criminals.” Thus, dismantling the ability of the courts to protect the accused, dismantling the tendency to rein in the police, giving private citizens vast authority to engage in vigilante kills, making prisons hellishly unpleasant, and making prison sentences disproportionately long. It’s the politics of hatred and sadism, and it’s hellishly popular. The Republicans have won everything vital for a generation on the backs of raining leaden hell on “criminals” and “thugs.”

And the worm will turn again, because in order to become the masters of this hell they devised, they had to become devils, and now the police are more and more seen as the real criminals and thugs.

71

In my direct experience the vast majority of police are upstanding people. The bad ones I’ve come in contact with cannot be removed because of the unions they belong to. I can think of 2 in my multi-county area that are disliked by the public and their fellow officers yet they can’t be fired. They’re literally loaded guns waiting to go off and there’s nothing that can be done until their actions are so actionable as to allow for their dismissal.

72

And yet the only evidence you provide for your claims are Youtube snippets.

A few observations:

  1. You are repeatedly making hasty generalizations and are highly subject to confirmation bias.

[QUOTE=sweat209]

Many youtube clips of cops and Filming in public like they are hiding some thing.
[/QUOTE]

Setting aside the borderline incomprehensible grammar, this is an example of confirmation bias and cherry picking evidence. People are filming cops more often because in past decades people didn’t have cell phone cameras. Further, the clips that make it onto Youtube will show cops doing the wrong thing because nobody would bother posting a video of cops being nice and courteous. Same thing goes with the news… they don’t report the number of police interactions that result in happy outcomes.

[QUOTE=sweat209]
So may be the problem is liberal media ,government and police chief where cops are scared to bring out the baton in street fight ,bar fight or guy resisting now or to shoot guy armed with out saying 5 or 10 times drop the gun or knife that they are stressed out and frustrated and taking it out on non criminals and public safety fire/EMS and public service now days.
[/QUOTE]

You haven’t provided quantifiable evidence that police are attacking non-criminals with increasing frequency. Further, you are making the assumption that the people police used to club and shoot were, in fact, ‘bad guys.’ How do you know they were not clubbing and shooting non-criminals? You haven’t shown any evidence that police were better at discriminating the criminals from the non-criminals in the past. Also, you repeatedly flip-flop on whether violence is a good thing or not, as I will demonstrate below.
2) You are appealing to emotion rather than laying out your evidence.

[QUOTE=sweat209]
In the past people had no cameras like today ( no youtube) and the cops would probably beat you up or take you to woods and leave you to die:eek::eek::eek:than take you to jail.
[/QUOTE]

You are making an accusation without evidence. You are attempting to cultivate fear on what you assume “probably” happened, but you have not provided quantifiable evidence that the incidence of extrajudicial killings is higher or lower than today. Your only real purpose here appears to be increasing fear and prejudice towards the opposing side.

  1. Your arguments are inconsistent.

[QUOTE=sweat209]
The TV show cops on fox or cops on spike is not that good because they can act good on camera but off camera treat you like garbage.In any case the way they act on TV show cops on fox so called good side manners in front of the camera is less desirable…
[/QUOTE]

This is an inconsistency. You are discounting evidence that contradicts your claim. Further you are creating unsupported assumptions about what the cops do off camera. Please present quantified evidence that cops on-camera behavior is different from their off-camera behavior

[QUOTE=sweat209]
There was TV show jail on true TV the cops in jail in Las Vegas jailhouse where horrible compared to Portland jailhouse.The cops in Portland jail seem much better.
[/QUOTE]

Another inconsistency. You are skeptical of cops who behave well on camera, but here you take the Portland cops at face value. Why is one TV show reliable and the other not reliable? If your claim is true, then wouldn’t the cops in Portland treat people like garbage when they are off-camera?

[QUOTE=sweat209]
In the past people had no cameras like today ( no youtube) and the cops would probably beat you up or take you to woods and leave you to die:eek::eek::eek:than take you to jail.
[/QUOTE]

This statement is also inconsistent and undermines your original premise, which I understand to be that cops are increasingly indiscriminate, perpetrate more misconduct, and go “gangsta style.” If cops in the past were more likely to resort to extrajudicial violence, how can you claim cops are more violent today? If anything, this seems to be an admission that cops today are less violent than cops in the past, who you claim would beat people up in the woods.

Further, you blame the “liberal media” for making cops scared of using their batons or firearms, claiming that this increases their frustration and aggression towards non-criminals. In this, and several other points you appear to be in favor of violence, and yet here you appear against it. Please resolve this contradiction.

  1. More statements without evidence:

[QUOTE=sweat209]

There was a time where SWAT was used for hostage crisis and barricaded suspects.Now many police department are calling out SWAT on gun calls and knife calls.

The SWAT is being used more and more.
[/QUOTE]

a) You have not provided evidence that the use of SWAT has increased.

b) Assuming the use of SWAT has increased, you have not linked this to police brutality. Does the use of SWAT result in worse outcomes? Why should police attempt to fight someone armed with a gun or knife, when a specialized unit is available? It seems foolish to me. I would assume the use of SWAT results in fewer casualties to police and civilians. You need to provide evidence that the opposite is true.

[QUOTE=sweat209]
In the 80’s and 90’ cops where more casual they know who the bad guy was and who was not.In the 80’s and 90’ it was more clear he has a gun or knife shoot him you not social worker to talk him down.You get in street fight ,bar fight or guy resisting no question out comes the baton.
[/QUOTE]

Another inconsistency. You state that modern police are more likely to “talk him down” i.e. resolve a situation without violence. This is incompatible with your claim that police are increasingly brutal and indiscriminate.

[QUOTE=sweat209]
Now many police department are calling out SWAT on gun calls and knife calls.
[/QUOTE]

I’ve added emphasis here because you are making two contradictory claims. In the paragraph above you appear to support the use of force against people armed with guns and knives. And yet here you claim that SWAT should not be used on people armed with guns and knives. Please resolve this contradiction.
Conclusion: I have to agree with the posters above that your arguments are fallacious, unsupported by anything other than anecdotal evidence, self-contradictory, and appeal to emotion rather than fact. You might do better if you started citing quantifiable metrics that demonstrate changes in police behavior over time. Right now it is difficult to even follow a consistent argument from one post to the next, and the only thing I can say with any certainty is that some Youtube videos made you mad.