6 ms·

I would worry more about PTSD than about death or injury if I was a cop. Almost getting killed tends to cause PTSD, but the tendency is stronger if someone int

by frank2 6y ago

I would worry more about PTSD than about death or injury if I was a cop. Almost getting killed tends to cause PTSD, but the tendency is stronger if someone intentionally tried to kill you. And doing violence to another person is also potent cause of PTSD. For those 2 reasons, I would expect rates of PTSD to be higher among cops than among the other 15 occupations you list. I would also worry that the habit of suspicion needed to be effective as a cop would be bad for my marriage and other relationships. In other words, I would worry that the work might make me pathologically cynical. Finally, some people really enjoy having power over others and using that power to inflict pain. Even if the other disadvantages of police work did not exist, it might be wise for me to avoid it just to pessimize the probability of my needing to work with someone like that. It is a complicated issue, but certainly I find such people distasteful and suspect that most adults in my country (the US) share my distaste.

wwright 6y ago
I would argue that this applies to the people being policed as well, if not more so. A black man has little recourse if he is assaulted by a police man, or if his wife or child is killed by them. Families are torn apart by drug laws and prison pipelines.
- jtbayly 6y ago
  At the jail I go to, there is more concern expressed by the prisoners about the destruction caused by the drugs than the drug sentences.
  - Uberphallus 6y ago
    Because that's the narrative that gets your sentence reduced and what any lawyer would advise: from now on, publicly you'll condemn the drugs that got you here.
    - jtbayly 6y ago
      No. You have no clue. It's because they are mourning their lost years, their failing health, their dead friends, their dead parents, their dead cousins and brothers and sisters. Oh, and their dead wives, girlfriends, and children. And probably more often than anything else, their fear that they will just go straight back to doing it all again when they get out, just like the last time they got out.
      - majormajor 6y ago
        > No. You have no clue. > It's because they are mourning their lost years, their failing health, their dead friends, their dead parents, their dead cousins and brothers and sisters. Oh, and their dead wives, girlfriends, and children. And probably more often than anything else, their fear that they will just go straight back to doing it all again when they get out, just like the last time they got out. For a lot of drugs, it's not the drug that killed all those people and tore apart those connections, it's the illegal nature that causes violent black markets and heavy policing.
        jtbayly 6y ago
        It's not violence and police that are killing them where I live. It's drugs. I'm not saying the jail system is the solution, but let's not kid ourselves about what's going on.
        jolux 6y ago
        I can see that perspective and also say that I think what it speaks to is that we don't provide a better systemic solution to drug addiction than imprisonment, which is an embarrassing failure of American culture and society.
- wasdfff 6y ago
  While thats true, I can’t imagine the slow bleed that ptsd from working 50 hour weeks of stress can do to the human brain. It would be a surprise if you retired and weren’t screwed up after decades of that imo.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - ryandrake 6y ago
    How about the slow bleed of living your entire life knowing you're always one random police encounter away from being shot. The whole law enforcement system creates a slow bleed of stress and trauma on both officers and citizens.
  - wwright 6y ago
    Oh no, cops are fucked over for sure. They suffer in many ways themselves. They also benefit in other ways, and IMO are not innocent, but they are definitely fucked over by how we do policing.
- macspoofing 6y ago
  >A black man has little recourse if he is assaulted by a police man, or if his wife or child is killed by them To be clear, those are not statistically significant events. In fact, they are insignificant at the population level, and there is no discrepancy across racial lines (as in, the numbers do not show Black Americans being targeted more than other demographic groups). One of the challenges is that if a demographic group disproportionately engages in criminal activity (more or less), then it will necessarily have a disproportionate negative (or positive) interaction with the entire judicial system (police and courts) - but you cannot fix that with police reform. You can still make the case for Police reform and there are a lot of places of improvement (e.g. the practice of 'swatting' should NOT be a thing - police and judges that issue these warrants should be MORE discriminatory !!!), but that will not lessen the proportion of negative interactions. >Families are torn apart by drug laws and prison pipelines. That has NOTHING to do with police. Police enforce laws on the books - typically municipal and state laws. Most cities have progressive Democratic leadership (from mayor, to council, to police chiefs) and those cities also had the biggest issues with protests against police brutality.
  - dwaltrip 6y ago
    There is more to the story of those statistics you refer to: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-statistics-dont-capture-the-full-extent-of-the-systemic-bias-in-policing/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-statistics-dont-cap... One needs to look at who the police are choosing to interact with to understand the denominator properly. The numbers seem to show that they are biased towards interacting with black people.
    - macspoofing 6y ago
      I get it and I have no disagreement with qualifying the numbers. It's a very complicated issue, but, if it is in fact true, when controlled for all other factors, if a particularity defined demographic group engages in disproportionate amount of criminal activity (less or more), then wouldn't you expect that that would filter down to the individual interactions? If an individual police officer is choosing who to frisk (or interact with), and the only things they have to go on are visible superficial characteristics (i.e. age, gender, ethnicity, clothing, etc.), and the global fact that those characteristics are statically correlated with more or less crime, that would be impossible for an individual to control their biases. We know this is a painful exercise, because people are not just those superficial characteristics, and it's unfair for an individual to be singled out for those characteristics - but that's the ONLY information available to the officer. The officer cannot control their bias, because if they try, they will either over or under compensate and because they are human. It's why we have double-blind trials and the scientific method - we know even well-meaning humans cannot control their biases. And this isn't an example of racism, because it could clothing or gender that trigger the frisk (I guarantee you that men are stopped more than women - WHY?!?!?), but aspect of human cognition. The only way to control for that is by introducing a non-biased random decision maker. For example, in airport security, there will be a device that will randomly flag passengers for extra screening. Perhaps something like that should be the case in these 'stop-and-frisk' policies? But even that has limited value. If a particular neighborhood with issues of crime, is dominated by an ethnic group, even random sample will involve disproportionate 'harassment'. A while back Sam Harris had a debate with an airport security expert on profiling in airport security[1]. Sam Harris advocated for profiling and security expert was not. Sam Harris was 100% wrong and didn't admit it. The security expert talked about how proper airport security should work (and the problems with profiling and how to control for that). That debate has analogues to this conversation, because police should adopt some of those strategies because profiling is socially painful and breeds resentment and has limited success ... and individuals will not make the right decision in context. [1]https://samharris.org/to-profile-or-not-to-profile/ https://samharris.org/to-profile-or-not-to-profile/
eloisant 6y ago
Does that really happen that often? Police officers getting "almost killed"?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- dopamean 6y ago
  No it actually doesn't. This is anecdotal but... my father in law is a police officer in a city with 1.2 million people and the way he talks you'd think officers were dropping like flies. I looked it up and in the last 150 years 20 officers have died while on duty in his police department. Many were traffic accidents. One was a heart attack.
  - tw04 6y ago
    I often (disgustedly) hear "it's a war out there". The only "war" that is equivalent to the current policing in the US is the occupation of the axis post WWII. It's absolutely a war, but it's a war where the natives are being raped and pillaged by the occupying force with no recourse because they already lost. I'd be willing to wager the source of violence in police|public interactions is the public in less than 5% of interactions, probably less than 1%.
  - jfengel 6y ago
    I found it disturbing to discover that my local cemetery has a memorial already up for local officers killed in the line of duty. The only name on it is a police dog. There is a lot of empty space. I'm sure this came from a salesman at a law enforcement expo who has been selling these to every community in the country. It suggests a national narrative where the police are convinced that people are plotting to kill them at every moment, and even if none actually have, it's only a matter of time. Every encounter with police begins with hostility. You know they're armed. You know they're assuming you are, too. I can only imagine how that's magnified for people who "fit the profile" solely because of the color of their skin.
    - 6y ago
dylan604 6y ago
> Almost getting killed tends to cause PTSD, but the tendency is stronger if someone intentionally tried to kill you. I'd be more concerned about being the first on scene of traffic accidents, fires, etc, especially those involving kids. I have vivid visions of stories I've been told from first responders, so I can only imagine it is worse for them.
polishdude20 6y ago
I think on that last point it would be dangerous if everyone that that way. What the police need are honest good and moral cops who are not afraid to stand up to their colleagues.

by frank2 6y ago

wwright 6y ago

I would argue that this applies to the people being policed as well, if not more so. A black man has little recourse if he is assaulted by a police man, or if his wife or child is killed by them. Families are torn apart by drug laws and prison pipelines.

jtbayly 6y ago
At the jail I go to, there is more concern expressed by the prisoners about the destruction caused by the drugs than the drug sentences.
- Uberphallus 6y ago
  Because that's the narrative that gets your sentence reduced and what any lawyer would advise: from now on, publicly you'll condemn the drugs that got you here.
  - jtbayly 6y ago
    No. You have no clue. It's because they are mourning their lost years, their failing health, their dead friends, their dead parents, their dead cousins and brothers and sisters. Oh, and their dead wives, girlfriends, and children. And probably more often than anything else, their fear that they will just go straight back to doing it all again when they get out, just like the last time they got out.
    - majormajor 6y ago
      > No. You have no clue. > It's because they are mourning their lost years, their failing health, their dead friends, their dead parents, their dead cousins and brothers and sisters. Oh, and their dead wives, girlfriends, and children. And probably more often than anything else, their fear that they will just go straight back to doing it all again when they get out, just like the last time they got out. For a lot of drugs, it's not the drug that killed all those people and tore apart those connections, it's the illegal nature that causes violent black markets and heavy policing.
      - jtbayly 6y ago
        It's not violence and police that are killing them where I live. It's drugs. I'm not saying the jail system is the solution, but let's not kid ourselves about what's going on.
        jolux 6y ago
        I can see that perspective and also say that I think what it speaks to is that we don't provide a better systemic solution to drug addiction than imprisonment, which is an embarrassing failure of American culture and society.
wasdfff 6y ago
While thats true, I can’t imagine the slow bleed that ptsd from working 50 hour weeks of stress can do to the human brain. It would be a surprise if you retired and weren’t screwed up after decades of that imo.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- ryandrake 6y ago
  How about the slow bleed of living your entire life knowing you're always one random police encounter away from being shot. The whole law enforcement system creates a slow bleed of stress and trauma on both officers and citizens.
- wwright 6y ago
  Oh no, cops are fucked over for sure. They suffer in many ways themselves. They also benefit in other ways, and IMO are not innocent, but they are definitely fucked over by how we do policing.
macspoofing 6y ago
>A black man has little recourse if he is assaulted by a police man, or if his wife or child is killed by them To be clear, those are not statistically significant events. In fact, they are insignificant at the population level, and there is no discrepancy across racial lines (as in, the numbers do not show Black Americans being targeted more than other demographic groups). One of the challenges is that if a demographic group disproportionately engages in criminal activity (more or less), then it will necessarily have a disproportionate negative (or positive) interaction with the entire judicial system (police and courts) - but you cannot fix that with police reform. You can still make the case for Police reform and there are a lot of places of improvement (e.g. the practice of 'swatting' should NOT be a thing - police and judges that issue these warrants should be MORE discriminatory !!!), but that will not lessen the proportion of negative interactions. >Families are torn apart by drug laws and prison pipelines. That has NOTHING to do with police. Police enforce laws on the books - typically municipal and state laws. Most cities have progressive Democratic leadership (from mayor, to council, to police chiefs) and those cities also had the biggest issues with protests against police brutality.
- dwaltrip 6y ago
  There is more to the story of those statistics you refer to: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-statistics-dont-capture-the-full-extent-of-the-systemic-bias-in-policing/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-statistics-dont-cap... One needs to look at who the police are choosing to interact with to understand the denominator properly. The numbers seem to show that they are biased towards interacting with black people.
  - macspoofing 6y ago
    I get it and I have no disagreement with qualifying the numbers. It's a very complicated issue, but, if it is in fact true, when controlled for all other factors, if a particularity defined demographic group engages in disproportionate amount of criminal activity (less or more), then wouldn't you expect that that would filter down to the individual interactions? If an individual police officer is choosing who to frisk (or interact with), and the only things they have to go on are visible superficial characteristics (i.e. age, gender, ethnicity, clothing, etc.), and the global fact that those characteristics are statically correlated with more or less crime, that would be impossible for an individual to control their biases. We know this is a painful exercise, because people are not just those superficial characteristics, and it's unfair for an individual to be singled out for those characteristics - but that's the ONLY information available to the officer. The officer cannot control their bias, because if they try, they will either over or under compensate and because they are human. It's why we have double-blind trials and the scientific method - we know even well-meaning humans cannot control their biases. And this isn't an example of racism, because it could clothing or gender that trigger the frisk (I guarantee you that men are stopped more than women - WHY?!?!?), but aspect of human cognition. The only way to control for that is by introducing a non-biased random decision maker. For example, in airport security, there will be a device that will randomly flag passengers for extra screening. Perhaps something like that should be the case in these 'stop-and-frisk' policies? But even that has limited value. If a particular neighborhood with issues of crime, is dominated by an ethnic group, even random sample will involve disproportionate 'harassment'. A while back Sam Harris had a debate with an airport security expert on profiling in airport security[1]. Sam Harris advocated for profiling and security expert was not. Sam Harris was 100% wrong and didn't admit it. The security expert talked about how proper airport security should work (and the problems with profiling and how to control for that). That debate has analogues to this conversation, because police should adopt some of those strategies because profiling is socially painful and breeds resentment and has limited success ... and individuals will not make the right decision in context. [1]https://samharris.org/to-profile-or-not-to-profile/ https://samharris.org/to-profile-or-not-to-profile/

eloisant 6y ago

Does that really happen that often? Police officers getting "almost killed"?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dopamean 6y ago
No it actually doesn't. This is anecdotal but... my father in law is a police officer in a city with 1.2 million people and the way he talks you'd think officers were dropping like flies. I looked it up and in the last 150 years 20 officers have died while on duty in his police department. Many were traffic accidents. One was a heart attack.
- tw04 6y ago
  I often (disgustedly) hear "it's a war out there". The only "war" that is equivalent to the current policing in the US is the occupation of the axis post WWII. It's absolutely a war, but it's a war where the natives are being raped and pillaged by the occupying force with no recourse because they already lost. I'd be willing to wager the source of violence in police|public interactions is the public in less than 5% of interactions, probably less than 1%.
- jfengel 6y ago
  I found it disturbing to discover that my local cemetery has a memorial already up for local officers killed in the line of duty. The only name on it is a police dog. There is a lot of empty space. I'm sure this came from a salesman at a law enforcement expo who has been selling these to every community in the country. It suggests a national narrative where the police are convinced that people are plotting to kill them at every moment, and even if none actually have, it's only a matter of time. Every encounter with police begins with hostility. You know they're armed. You know they're assuming you are, too. I can only imagine how that's magnified for people who "fit the profile" solely because of the color of their skin.
  - 6y ago

dylan604 6y ago

> Almost getting killed tends to cause PTSD, but the tendency is stronger if someone intentionally tried to kill you. I'd be more concerned about being the first on scene of traffic accidents, fires, etc, especially those involving kids. I have vivid visions of stories I've been told from first responders, so I can only imagine it is worse for them.

polishdude20 6y ago

I think on that last point it would be dangerous if everyone that that way. What the police need are honest good and moral cops who are not afraid to stand up to their colleagues.