Comments on: New Professionalism Roundup

By: Son o'Liberty

Son o'Liberty — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 21:08:41 +0000

err, that should have been brutal sadists… clearly I was paying attention in English class when the teacher said “Proof read your work before turning it in.”

By: Son o'Liberty

Son o'Liberty — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 21:03:30 +0000

billy-jay, As a former MP, I can say that Military Cops are just the same as “civilian” ones. I was in the 108th MP company, Ft. Bragg, NC. in the late 1980′s. While some of us were naive youths thinking we were doing something noble, the reality was that a large number of them were vicious thugs. Drug users/dealers, thieves, brutal masochists, thugs that see the law as a way to take advantage of others. These are the ones that were recruited at the end of their term of service by civilian police forces, the rest of us, disillusioned, went on to find jobs in the private sector, as far away law enforcement as possible.

By: Criminal Justice In The Age of New Professionalism « Injustice Everywhere

Criminal Justice In The Age of New Professionalism « Injustice Everywhere — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 11:09:11 +0000

[...] they would have been. The term even took root through Radley Balko’s running series of “New Professionalism Roundup” reports on police issues titled after this new age of accountability and [...]

By: Two--Four

Two--Four — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:47:42 +0000

[...] Michigan Knightstown, Inidiana Missoula, Montana ~~~~~ Are you getting the picture? (linx: Balko) Oct 27, 09 | 3:39 pm AxeBitesVarious guitars I see floating by, mostly Gibson and mostly eBay. [...]

By: albatross

albatross — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:56:04 +0000

Any closed group of people with shared expertise and hardship and identification tends to become self-protecting to some extent–it’s that us/them circuitry we’ve all been equipped with by evolution. I think this is even more the case when you have a strong shared identity as “the good guys,” and have a public trust.

This is a large part of what’s behind a great many scandals and tolerated misbehavior: Corrupt and brutal cops, pedophile priests, incompetent and drug-addicted doctors, soldiers committing war crimes, etc. In all those cases, the group-identification made members of the group who weren’t doing the bad stuff willing to cover for the bad guys, or at least to assume they weren’t bad guys until overwhelming evidence was presented otherwise. And even when it was clear that a member of those groups was up to no good, the usual goal is more to quiet it down than to stop the evil behavior or punish the bad guy.

By: MDGuy

MDGuy — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:43:05 +0000

Mike, I’d have to disagree with you. As people have noted, you can sue a surgeon. Even if their mistake ends up in the morgue, the family can still investigate and sue. On top of that, not every mistake ends up causing a fatality. I read a news story not too long ago about someone who had a some piece of surgical equipment left in and sewed up by accident. The foreign object caused him years of pain and complications until they finally did another surgery and removed it. Obviously, the guy sued the shit out of the original surgeon. I’d say that society definitely has a lower tolerance for mistakes from surgeons and medical personnel in general than cops. If you think about it, it really makes sense – almost everyone is going to have contact with medical personnel at some point in their lives, so there is a more universal demand for accountability. With cops, most people just think, “well I don’t break the law, cops are for all those bad people out there” so they don’t care as much when they read about misconduct. It goes hand in hand with the “difficult job” card – the “asshole had it coming” card.

By: billy-jay

billy-jay — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:44:17 +0000

@PW(#15):

Cops are civilians, too. Unless they’re military police (and those guys don’t seem to have the problems that civilian police do).

By: MacGregory

MacGregory — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 05:58:21 +0000

You can sue surgeons. You can’t sue cops.

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 03:16:41 +0000

SGE,
Certainly that is true. I was just talking about Madguy’s statement which seems to imply when a Surgeon fucks up we as a society tolerate it less than when the police do. I’d guess its about the same (for on the job offences). Cops mistakes aren’t scrutinized because the only person who can arrest a cop is another cop. Its somewhat the same with surgeons, the only person who can determine if a mistake is even made is another surgeon and then there isn’t usually much evidence (other than a body).

By: PW

PW — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 02:26:24 +0000

Frankly, I’m just sick of excuses in general from cops. And boy are they ever full of excuses…the job’s too hard, the job’s dangerous, we aren’t paid enough, our hours are too long, nobody respects us…or if it’s a crime, the line becomes some bullsh*t about how we “don’t know all the facts yet” (a line cops will use even when the whole thing was caught on video) or “innocent until proven guilty” (like they care about that one when arresting other people!). You can even find the excuses on the most egregious cases of police misconduct. Look at the comments on the link above about the DUI cop from Chicago. Most comments and even some cop comments rightly condemn the guy, but it is not difficult to pinpoint exactly which ones came from that cop’s fellow buddies down at the Fraternal Order of Police hall. And they’re pretty disgusting and callous excuses…such as one alleging that the two victims he killed had alcohol in their vehicle as if that somehow would make the DUI cop’s crime any less offensive.

No matter what it is with cops, there’s always an endless whiny driveling stream of excuses…all from a profession that supposedly prides itself on its machismo and toughness. But the answer for every single one of those whiny cops is simple:

IF THE JOB IS THAT TOUGH, THEN QUIT THE FREAKING POLICE FORCE AND DO SOMETHING ELSE WITH YOUR PUTRID EXCUSE FOR A LIFE.

By: SJE

SJE — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:39:09 +0000

Mike: that’s true. A surgeon gets to literally bury his mistakes. Unlike the cops, however:
1. A surgeon cannot claim various forms of qualified immunity
2. If you want to investigate a bad surgeon, you will not see a band of armed surgeons kicking down your door or harrassing and intimidating your family.
3. A surgeon might be able to cover up a mistake on the job, but cannot cover up mistakes outside the job.
4. I have never heard of a surgeon beating the crap out of someone and trying to claim it was somehow part of the job.
5. Surgeons don’t kill your dog too

By: Kristen

Kristen — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:16:19 +0000

aaaaaaannd spaceCrev demonstrates why this blog has so much material, day in and day out.

By: Mike

Mike — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 23:42:35 +0000

MDGuy,
Actually regarding surgeons I suspect their could be a blog devoted to thier misdeeds as well. They are another organization that is largely self-policing and usually immune from criminal actions possibly because the prosecution doesn’t have the nessasary expertize. Try bringing a video camera into a hospital it’s usually prohibited.

By: John Markley

John Markley — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 23:38:01 +0000

spaceCrev,

A friend of mine used to work at Midway Airport in Chicago. He was the guy you went to to report lost luggage. His workday consisted of being continuously shouted at by an endless stream of loud, angry, hysterical, and frequently verbally abusive people. It was an incredibly stressful job. Nevertheless, he did not go around committing violent crimes or engaging in corrupt efforts to pervert the legal system. Apparently, you believe it would be unreasonable to hold professional police officers to the exacting standard of decency upheld by a college kid working as a low-level clerk.

By: Aresen

Aresen — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 23:23:29 +0000

Like J sub D, I say “Thanks for your work”, Radley.

However, couldn’t this have waited until Monday, when I’m already depressed?

By: Raleigh Fingers

Raleigh Fingers — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 22:27:52 +0000

The Raleigh North Carolina (Wake County) police do not
use videos in their DWI cases.
I asked a lawyer why –considering the ubiquity of these cameras–
and he said too many cops were getting in trouble for protocol violations … so they did away with the videos which would easily distinguish impaired vs non-impaired drivers.
So now the cops can just lie their way trough these pesky trials.
Somebody should do a story on this.

By: J sub D

J sub D — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 22:24:26 +0000

Tip of the hat to the InjusticeNews Twitter feed for several of these stories.

I hate, despise, and generally malign the entire concept of Twitter. InjusticeNews may just change that.

By: J sub D

J sub D — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 22:12:45 +0000

*sigh*

This is NOT a complaint.

I’m tired and discouraged for a lot of reasons today (Afghanistan leading the list) and this just fits right in with the melancholy.

Thanks again for all of your work.

By: tjbbpgobIII

tjbbpgobIII — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 21:56:50 +0000

My guess is that cop in Georgia is now being exposed to on a hourly basis, even if it is just a look. Something seriously wrong with that type of an individual.

By: PW

PW — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 21:55:00 +0000

To anyone in the cop crowd who uses the “cops have a dangerous and difficult job” excuse to deflect criticism of the police, I have three comments:

1. Your job is NOT extraordinarily dangerous by a long shot. For starters, the Bureau of Labor Statistics data on job fatalities places police work well outside of the top 10. Fishermen, loggers, agricultural workers, and sanitation workers – yes garbagemen – are all more likely to die on the job than cops.

2. The danger you incur on the streets is SIGNIFICANTLY LESS than that experienced by almost any ordinary citizen the moment he or she steps out his front door. Yours is one of the only professions that is actually legally empowered to defend itself with deadly force at virtually all times, and legally carry the tools to do so (a gun) at all times. A cop on the streets is therefore in a significantly safer position than practically ANY civilian, as civilian gun carrying in public is severely regulated and in some places barred completely.

3. Your job is NOT particularly difficult by any reasonable standard. It has extremely minimal prerequisite educational qualifications, seldom exceeding a GED and a couple hours in night classes from a community college. It comes with a lifetime full-salaried pension and benefits plan. It’s darn near impossible for you to get fired for anything short of rape or homicide (and even then there are exceptions). And you have one of the earliest retirement ages of any profession. A career cop can retire before age 50 and continue to draw full salaried pension for the remainder of his life. Name one single other profession that has a retirement package as cozy as your own with such low prerequisite job qualifications. Not even the military compares with the cushy taxpayer-funded retirement package you and your unions have secured for yourselves.