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Anecdotal evidence and survivorship bias is strong here. Cops tend to be human beings on a medium income. If you want the apropriate penalty for irresponsible c

Anecdotal evidence and survivorship bias is strong here. Cops tend to be human beings on a medium income. If you want the apropriate penalty for irresponsible cops then you need to look further than wrongdoing of the individual. Cops are in the line of work in which every mistake is a wrongfull imprisonment, death or negligence. What if your work didn't allow for a single white lie or error? Wouldn't you demand higher pay? Or would less people be willing to work in your field? It is also not obvious from all this anecdotal evidence that cops are more likely to be morally corrupt. All research done towards discriminating cops have shown the opposite. It feels like every couple of years the news finds a new scapegoat. I used to read stories about monsanto, evil wall street and bankers filling their own pockets. Now the theme is injustice of lawfull force.

overgard 7y ago
The news story is that the cop told a lie that caused a person to kill themselves. There's no bias to that; it's a simple cause and effect. The news story doesn't even really editorialize it. It's just what happened. I don't see how paying police more would mean they're never cruel. And by the way, if you're wondering why he killed himself over this: if he was a drug addict he was probably in trouble with the law a lot. He's probably used to being harassed by cops (hard to say without knowing his identity, but seems pretty likely based on how the law treats addicts). There's a decent chance if caught he was going to get into a lot more trouble than the average person, especially if he had been in and out of the system.
- Out_of_Characte 7y ago
  Ofcouse the story itself doesn't show any bias. But the summation of only seeing police cases of reported injustice is going to create the illusion that there might be something rotten in the police force. The truth is that policework is similar to surgery, 6% might not survive low risk surgeries. The best surgeon will have a lower mortality rate, the worst will hae a significantly higher rate. But we dont shame and blame minor misconduct, misstepts or errors because there is an understanding that surgery is done to the best of our ability, even for the rookie surgeon, and it CAN go wrong against all odds. Yet this simple analysis doesn't get to be applied to these police stories because we're unable to seperate the individual story in which we know with 100% certainty mistakes were made by a policeofficer from the overarching story of policeofficers making the wrong decision 6% of the time.
alphabettsy 7y ago
The only thing that has really changed is body cameras leading to some measures of accountability, certain communities of people have been complaining about the police for decades. That said, I do believe officers should be better compensated and we as a society shouldn’t use police as social workers unless we’re going to appropriately train them.

overgard 7y ago

The news story is that the cop told a lie that caused a person to kill themselves. There's no bias to that; it's a simple cause and effect. The news story doesn't even really editorialize it. It's just what happened. I don't see how paying police more would mean they're never cruel. And by the way, if you're wondering why he killed himself over this: if he was a drug addict he was probably in trouble with the law a lot. He's probably used to being harassed by cops (hard to say without knowing his identity, but seems pretty likely based on how the law treats addicts). There's a decent chance if caught he was going to get into a lot more trouble than the average person, especially if he had been in and out of the system.

Out_of_Characte 7y ago
Ofcouse the story itself doesn't show any bias. But the summation of only seeing police cases of reported injustice is going to create the illusion that there might be something rotten in the police force. The truth is that policework is similar to surgery, 6% might not survive low risk surgeries. The best surgeon will have a lower mortality rate, the worst will hae a significantly higher rate. But we dont shame and blame minor misconduct, misstepts or errors because there is an understanding that surgery is done to the best of our ability, even for the rookie surgeon, and it CAN go wrong against all odds. Yet this simple analysis doesn't get to be applied to these police stories because we're unable to seperate the individual story in which we know with 100% certainty mistakes were made by a policeofficer from the overarching story of policeofficers making the wrong decision 6% of the time.

alphabettsy 7y ago

The only thing that has really changed is body cameras leading to some measures of accountability, certain communities of people have been complaining about the police for decades. That said, I do believe officers should be better compensated and we as a society shouldn’t use police as social workers unless we’re going to appropriately train them.