4 ms·

Why is the nature of being a cop unethical? I agree there are abuses of the power but from what I've seen in real life it's important work.

by acover 4y ago

OnlineGladiator 4y ago
I should mention I am referring specifically to police in the United States. The short answer is because cops defend cops, including bad cops. People like to say it's just a few bad apples, but it's far more prevalent than that. And even if it were just 1 in 100, the fact that the cops band together to protect a rapist/murderer/whatever shows that they care more about unity than morals. I realize this answer is lacking, but I've had this argument so many times and it drains hours out of my day to pursue it - because the supporting data is complicated and people are correct to provide counter arguments (and then I have to respond and it goes back and forth for a while). I encourage you to do your own research on statistics regarding police officers in the US. The one everybody likes to cite is how many police officer's beat their wives - 40%. And even this data point is very complicated and requires a lot of nuance and so on. But since people enjoy stories, here's one egregious example of a sheriff's department abusing their power. Even I think this is exceptionally awful and most police departments aren't this bad, but it's well researched and makes for a good read. https://knock-la.com/tradition-of-violence-lasd-gang-history/ https://knock-la.com/tradition-of-violence-lasd-gang-history...
- kenjackson 4y ago
  I tend to think there is a huge selection bias problem. The people that I knew in HS who wanted to be cops (and two did), were exactly the people you did NOT want to meet in a dark alleyway. They abused the power their physical strength gave them in HS... what makes you think they'd act differently with legal strength? And the people that I think are those who most want to help those in need and are compassionate, careful, and would take accountability seriously are those who don't want to do the job. There is also a kinship/bond that grows, which is hard to break. It's natural. You see it among sports fans, school alumni, console fan boys, company workers, etc... You see things through exceptionally biased glasses. Try to find a sports fan who feels like their team tends to be FAVORED by refs? You won't find them -- they all seem to think the refs are against their team -- every team's fans feel this way. Every team's fans feel like the fight on the field was instigated by the other team. Given these things, how do you mitigate against them, and construct a police force that is reasonable? I personally think it has to be external oversight, but this hasn't been easy to implement historically.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- mhink 4y ago
  > People like to say it's just a few bad apples, but it's far more prevalent than that. Not discounting your point at all, but the best response when someone says this is to point out that the saying is "a few bad apples spoil the bunch". It's very literal- an apple that's going bad releases fumes that cause other apples nearby to spoil. So it's very important to find them and get rid of them before that happens. Completing the analogy is an exercise left to the reader.
- acover 4y ago
  Thanks for explaining. My experience is mostly with Canadian cops, which have some significant differences from American cops[0]. Though, consequences for cops are still rare[1]. However poorly executed, to me the service they provide is valuable and the cops I've seen at homeless shelters displayed patience. [0] - https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/douglas-todd-canadian-cops-far-less-likely-to-kill-or-be-killed-than-u-s-counterparts https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/douglas-todd-can... [1] - https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/deadly-force-police-criminal-charges-1.4607134 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/deadly-force-police-...
- haberman 4y ago
  > The short answer is because cops defend cops, including bad cops. Show me a group that doesn't do this. In Seattle's 2020 cop-free zone CHOP/CHAZ, the self-appointed "security forces" killed an unarmed 16-year-old. It's all on video, and the statements made by the assailants in the aftermath are heinous. Plenty of people were there to see it, but nobody's talking, and at this point it looks like they'll probably never catch the killers. I don't excuse or accept bad behavior by cops. But I can't call policing unethical by nature unless you can show me an alternative that is more ethical. Seattle got an experiment in the alternative, and it was not good.
  - pseudalopex 4y ago
    Police abolitionists talk about plans and years. The Seattle police abandoned a neighborhood when not asked and faked reports of armed terrorists.[1] The 16 year old was Antonio Mays. He drove a car through the occupied park and at a group of protesters. It's all on video? Not only parts of the aftermath? Where? [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/seattle-police-carried-improper-proud-boys-misinformation-effort-2020-rcna11147 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/seattle-police-carried-...
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - fundad 4y ago
    I bet they put out a statement that he succumbed to a medical emergency and every other public safety institution believed them right? Right!?
    - haberman 4y ago
      Their statement glorified the shooting and bragged of the "beautiful shot placement." https://web.archive.org/web/20200630012725/https://twitter.com/MaliceBD/status/1277554271966203904?s=21 https://web.archive.org/web/20200630012725/https://twitter.c...
- horns4lyfe 4y ago
  None of that means the nature of the work is unethical, it just means it’s done poorly. I think the majority of hacker news users world do very poorly in an unpoliced country, even without the police we have now.
- daniel-cussen 4y ago
  [dead]
javajosh 4y ago
Power is corrupting, and police have a de facto shit-ton of real, immediate power over everyone in their vicinity. They have a "martial law bubble" around them that allows them to physically assault you, put you in jail, and upend your whole life with very little effort. You will have no recourse, and they will suffer no consequences. You may file a complaint with the department, and it will be followed up on, poorly, by a fellow officer who is highly motivated to see nothing but another disgruntled loser trying to get petty revenge. The judges don't care and work with the DA and the same officers all the time, and maintain cordial, cooperative relationships with them, all of which is damaged if there is any adversarial action. It is within this context an average intelligence, perhaps even above-average moral person enters after 6-weeks of training. This person likes watching football and drinking beer. They help their elderly neighbors with the trash. They are a "normal" man who will stand up for himself, physically, in extreme cases. Now give him a gun and a badge and a martial law bubble. How do you think this normal, average man will evolve when he realizes his power? When he sees his friends on the force us it, daily, to get what they want, to make their jobs a little easier? When does he learn to enjoy that feeling of power, for itself, the way it feels to beat someone and put his knee on someone's neck because they talked back to you, and know that no-one can do shit about it? And you can even rationalize it - they shouldn't have been rude, they should know how much power I have and that I'm only human, its really just punishment for being stupid. Plus, the public still loves me and is grateful to me, considering me in high esteem as a moral upstanding citizen - so we must be doing something right!
- d0gsg0w00f 4y ago
  In my life experience an unsavory character turned law abiding citizen I found that I used to think ill of cops but after I changed, miraculously cops seemed to turn into amazing fantastic people. So I take all of these "cops are evil" claims with a grain of salt and seek out more context clues to what would initiate an interaction with LEO in the first place.
  - velp 4y ago
    This reads like "the problem disappears as soon as I'm no longer impacted". Just because cops see/treat you differently now doesn't mean they aren't still treating others poorly.
Parcle 4y ago
Consider all the people harassed and locked up for decades over posession of marijuana. Sure laws have change but ethics never did. The obvious problem I see seems to be that cops exist to lock people up. When locking people up is often an inhumane and ineffective solution to the problem at hand.
fundad 4y ago
Because policing covers up violence and murder committed by their own.
warcher 4y ago
Police are tasked with maintaining law and order. Laws are equal for all people. Order is a set of subjective social rules that keeps everything in its "correct" place. Maintaining order often requires not enforcing the law equally. This is the essential moral difficulty of the police. If you have people who appear poor in a rich neighborhood, they are highly likely to attract law enforcement attention at a minimum. Not because they've broken the law, but because they are out of place and "disorderly". We really really like order, by the way. You can't just do away with the maintenance of order, although a strong argument could be made that we should not enforce it via state-licensed violence.
BeFlatXIII 4y ago
It’s unethical because of the kinds of laws the legislature requires them to enforce. Prime example: civil asset forfeiture.

Why is the nature of being a cop unethical? I agree there are abuses of the power but from what I've seen in real life it's important work.

by acover 4y ago

Why is the nature of being a cop unethical? I agree there are abuses of the power but from what I've seen in real life it's important work.

OnlineGladiator 4y ago

I should mention I am referring specifically to police in the United States. The short answer is because cops defend cops, including bad cops. People like to say it's just a few bad apples, but it's far more prevalent than that. And even if it were just 1 in 100, the fact that the cops band together to protect a rapist/murderer/whatever shows that they care more about unity than morals. I realize this answer is lacking, but I've had this argument so many times and it drains hours out of my day to pursue it - because the supporting data is complicated and people are correct to provide counter arguments (and then I have to respond and it goes back and forth for a while). I encourage you to do your own research on statistics regarding police officers in the US. The one everybody likes to cite is how many police officer's beat their wives - 40%. And even this data point is very complicated and requires a lot of nuance and so on. But since people enjoy stories, here's one egregious example of a sheriff's department abusing their power. Even I think this is exceptionally awful and most police departments aren't this bad, but it's well researched and makes for a good read. https://knock-la.com/tradition-of-violence-lasd-gang-history/ https://knock-la.com/tradition-of-violence-lasd-gang-history...

kenjackson 4y ago
I tend to think there is a huge selection bias problem. The people that I knew in HS who wanted to be cops (and two did), were exactly the people you did NOT want to meet in a dark alleyway. They abused the power their physical strength gave them in HS... what makes you think they'd act differently with legal strength? And the people that I think are those who most want to help those in need and are compassionate, careful, and would take accountability seriously are those who don't want to do the job. There is also a kinship/bond that grows, which is hard to break. It's natural. You see it among sports fans, school alumni, console fan boys, company workers, etc... You see things through exceptionally biased glasses. Try to find a sports fan who feels like their team tends to be FAVORED by refs? You won't find them -- they all seem to think the refs are against their team -- every team's fans feel this way. Every team's fans feel like the fight on the field was instigated by the other team. Given these things, how do you mitigate against them, and construct a police force that is reasonable? I personally think it has to be external oversight, but this hasn't been easy to implement historically.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
mhink 4y ago
> People like to say it's just a few bad apples, but it's far more prevalent than that. Not discounting your point at all, but the best response when someone says this is to point out that the saying is "a few bad apples spoil the bunch". It's very literal- an apple that's going bad releases fumes that cause other apples nearby to spoil. So it's very important to find them and get rid of them before that happens. Completing the analogy is an exercise left to the reader.
acover 4y ago
Thanks for explaining. My experience is mostly with Canadian cops, which have some significant differences from American cops[0]. Though, consequences for cops are still rare[1]. However poorly executed, to me the service they provide is valuable and the cops I've seen at homeless shelters displayed patience. [0] - https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/douglas-todd-canadian-cops-far-less-likely-to-kill-or-be-killed-than-u-s-counterparts https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/douglas-todd-can... [1] - https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/deadly-force-police-criminal-charges-1.4607134 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/deadly-force-police-...
haberman 4y ago
> The short answer is because cops defend cops, including bad cops. Show me a group that doesn't do this. In Seattle's 2020 cop-free zone CHOP/CHAZ, the self-appointed "security forces" killed an unarmed 16-year-old. It's all on video, and the statements made by the assailants in the aftermath are heinous. Plenty of people were there to see it, but nobody's talking, and at this point it looks like they'll probably never catch the killers. I don't excuse or accept bad behavior by cops. But I can't call policing unethical by nature unless you can show me an alternative that is more ethical. Seattle got an experiment in the alternative, and it was not good.
- pseudalopex 4y ago
  Police abolitionists talk about plans and years. The Seattle police abandoned a neighborhood when not asked and faked reports of armed terrorists.[1] The 16 year old was Antonio Mays. He drove a car through the occupied park and at a group of protesters. It's all on video? Not only parts of the aftermath? Where? [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/seattle-police-carried-improper-proud-boys-misinformation-effort-2020-rcna11147 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/seattle-police-carried-...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- fundad 4y ago
  I bet they put out a statement that he succumbed to a medical emergency and every other public safety institution believed them right? Right!?
  - haberman 4y ago
    Their statement glorified the shooting and bragged of the "beautiful shot placement." https://web.archive.org/web/20200630012725/https://twitter.com/MaliceBD/status/1277554271966203904?s=21 https://web.archive.org/web/20200630012725/https://twitter.c...
horns4lyfe 4y ago
None of that means the nature of the work is unethical, it just means it’s done poorly. I think the majority of hacker news users world do very poorly in an unpoliced country, even without the police we have now.
daniel-cussen 4y ago
[dead]

javajosh 4y ago

Power is corrupting, and police have a de facto shit-ton of real, immediate power over everyone in their vicinity. They have a "martial law bubble" around them that allows them to physically assault you, put you in jail, and upend your whole life with very little effort. You will have no recourse, and they will suffer no consequences. You may file a complaint with the department, and it will be followed up on, poorly, by a fellow officer who is highly motivated to see nothing but another disgruntled loser trying to get petty revenge. The judges don't care and work with the DA and the same officers all the time, and maintain cordial, cooperative relationships with them, all of which is damaged if there is any adversarial action. It is within this context an average intelligence, perhaps even above-average moral person enters after 6-weeks of training. This person likes watching football and drinking beer. They help their elderly neighbors with the trash. They are a "normal" man who will stand up for himself, physically, in extreme cases. Now give him a gun and a badge and a martial law bubble. How do you think this normal, average man will evolve when he realizes his power? When he sees his friends on the force us it, daily, to get what they want, to make their jobs a little easier? When does he learn to enjoy that feeling of power, for itself, the way it feels to beat someone and put his knee on someone's neck because they talked back to you, and know that no-one can do shit about it? And you can even rationalize it - they shouldn't have been rude, they should know how much power I have and that I'm only human, its really just punishment for being stupid. Plus, the public still loves me and is grateful to me, considering me in high esteem as a moral upstanding citizen - so we must be doing something right!

d0gsg0w00f 4y ago
In my life experience an unsavory character turned law abiding citizen I found that I used to think ill of cops but after I changed, miraculously cops seemed to turn into amazing fantastic people. So I take all of these "cops are evil" claims with a grain of salt and seek out more context clues to what would initiate an interaction with LEO in the first place.
- velp 4y ago
  This reads like "the problem disappears as soon as I'm no longer impacted". Just because cops see/treat you differently now doesn't mean they aren't still treating others poorly.

Parcle 4y ago

Consider all the people harassed and locked up for decades over posession of marijuana. Sure laws have change but ethics never did. The obvious problem I see seems to be that cops exist to lock people up. When locking people up is often an inhumane and ineffective solution to the problem at hand.

fundad 4y ago

Because policing covers up violence and murder committed by their own.

warcher 4y ago

Police are tasked with maintaining law and order. Laws are equal for all people. Order is a set of subjective social rules that keeps everything in its "correct" place. Maintaining order often requires not enforcing the law equally. This is the essential moral difficulty of the police. If you have people who appear poor in a rich neighborhood, they are highly likely to attract law enforcement attention at a minimum. Not because they've broken the law, but because they are out of place and "disorderly". We really really like order, by the way. You can't just do away with the maintenance of order, although a strong argument could be made that we should not enforce it via state-licensed violence.

BeFlatXIII 4y ago

It’s unethical because of the kinds of laws the legislature requires them to enforce. Prime example: civil asset forfeiture.