Do you trust the police?

[BlueChair]

I've always taken it for granted that the police are around to protect us and ensure that people are behaving themselves according to the law.

As a kid, I grew up admiring the police quite a lot. I even briefly considered criminology as a possible career.

Lately, there have been a lot of allegations that Toronto's police force is having major issues with corruption. In fact, this morning's headline talks about how four police officers (some in fairly high positions) have been arrested. With our crime on the rise, this is a scary thought. Who will protect our city and ensure that criminals are put behind bars if the police and the criminals are the same people?

I couldn't help but think of the Clash song (or rather, the old reggae tune) 'Police & Theives':

Police and thieves in the street, oh yeah
Fighting the nation with their guns and ammunition
Police and thieves in the street, oh yeah
Scaring the nation with their guns and ammunition

From Genesis to Revelations
The next generation will be hear me
All the crimes comitted day by day
No one tried to stop it in any way
All the peace makers turn war officers
Hear what I say

[bambooneedle]

I've always taken it for granted that the police are around to protect us and ensure that people are behaving themselves according to the law.

I suggest you wake up and smell the coffee, Bluech. Police are just people.

[BlueChair]

Yeah, but they're paid to uphold the law, regular people aren't.

I'm not talking mp3 downloading or smoking a little dope on the weekend... many of these charges involve money laundering, extortion, etc. Serious crimes.

[bambooneedle]

They're human, that's all. And if someone wants ample opportunity to profit from dishonesty, joining the police would provide it. So, I'm not incredulous about police 'corruption'.

[pophead2k]

Blue, when I first moved to New Orleans in 94, several police officers were convicted of first degree murder and given the death penalty. Police were indicted for guarding the warehouse that the local crack lord was keeping his supplies in, and off-duty cops on 'detail' were killing their former partners for money. I lost any illusion I had back then. At the end of a major federal cleanup and probe, the NOPD has cleaned up considerably, but I still get pretty nervous around cops here.

[wehitandrun]

As the kid on the board, I trust the police. Ofcourse, around 90% of all officers I've encountered have had an "uninstigated attitude"... but I'd be pretty irritable if I had such an easy... err, endearing job?

[Jackson Doofster]

Bamboo makes a goint point about them just being people. In all walks of life you get bad apples etc.

Then alternative to not trusting the police is pretty scary. Who do I call after a burglary or if I'm mugged or I'm being stalked by a beautiful Spanish brunette who has a penchant for overweight, balding, middle-aged men (could happen) ?

However, I work closely with the police and have two close neighbours who are quite high ranking policemen. In my experience, racism is absolutely endemic in the British police. If I wasn't white, I would definitely not trust the police and I'd be positively nervous of them if I was Arabic. I work in one large mulit-cultural midlands town where I have never seen a non-white police officer. I have heard open abusive and racist remarks being made such as:

"I don't need to arrest him for smoking a joint, I can do it just cos he's a black bastard" I made a complaint after this and was made to feel very intimidated the next time I arrived at that station.

In recent years, it has become harder for the police to victimise non-white people, because of improvements in monitoring and more open investigation of complaints. Everything looks better, but it takes more than changing procedures to change attitudes. You could say that racism permeates the whole of society and that would be true. Nevertheless, when it comes combined with power, it can be very dangerous.

[RedShoes]

I too had the idealistic image of police until I got into university and started studying a bit about the law and how racism is still a part of it.

Whlie I'm not complaining, I find it somewhat odd that I've never been pulled over for speeding, especially considering how fast I go when I set out to drive 600 miles to see the boy and want to get there before dark (I've been known to go 20+ over the limit ). I can't help but wonder if my being a young blonde woman helps my case. Especially when I think about a few of my friends who have been pulled over mulitiple times....a black male friend of mine has been pulled over something like 5 times, and while he has been known to speed, I don't think he's ever gone more than 10miles over the limit - and even that is rare. He's a very cautious guy. And an arab-american girlfriend of mine (she's from Texas, her parents moved from Pakistan long before she was born) was recently pulled over because she swurved a bit on the highway due to high wind, and the cop was pretty demeaning to her throughout the conversation.

I guess while the "big" forms of corruption are pretty scary, they are at least obvious when they are caught. A police officer pulling someone over for going 4 miles over the limit and then searching for drugs....that's a bit sketchier. And it leads well to the statistic that black men are the most commonly found in prisions in the US. Is it really that they do more crime or is it just that they are caught more? No one targets the rich white kid who uses heroin in his bedroom...

[so lacklustre]

Being an hofficer of the law tends to attract (amongst other very honest and good people) thick fascist bullies.

[Boy With A Problem]

No.

I don't buy Sting's tantric sex thing. His wife once said, "I don't think he knows the difference between eight hours and eight minutes."

Andy Summers was like 40 when they started and didn't really admit to backing Eric Burdon in the 60's.

Stewart Copleand's father was in the CIA.

Not a band to be trusted.

[Mr. Average]

Boy With...

I cannot believe it but I wasn't ready for that post, and I should have seen it coming In my naive bliss, I think your post is hilarious. Thanks.

[bobster]

I missed this thread just becuase I wanted to get my own two cents in that, while its true that cops are just people -- the city you happen in to be plays a huge, gigantic part in whether or not you can or should trust the police.

As someone who grew up in L.A. during the height of Daryl Gates era (and the only slightly less noxious Ed Davis before him) when, trust me, there was more than one Rodney King and the LAPD regularly shelled out millions in settlements, I grew up thinking of cops as being a neccessary evil. With their paramilitary attitude and pretty pervasive culture of racism (read your James Ellroy for b.g. on this).

Of course, New Orleans in the mid-90's was much, much worse. (I visited there at the time and remember the case of the female officer who slaughtered several people in a diner hold-up. Kind of one-ups even the worst of the Rampart scandal.).

On the other hand, I probably still have an over idealistic view of Canadian and especially English police. Police without guns and they don't get killed on a daily basis...sounds like paradise to me!