From: John Marlow (johnmarlow@gmx.net)
Date: Tue Feb 06 2001 - 23:04:14 MST
Believe it or not, a good proportion of them got into it out of a
sense of civic duty/wanting to help people/etc. Many if not most of
these individuals, however, are your older cops, now of retirement
age. An awful lot of the new guys are what you describe. Another type
is the guy who gets no respect, and figures the badge will achieve
that. Another type is the adrenaline junkie.Then--with the idiotic
"inclusiveness" hiring practices of Miami and LA, where they overlook
red flags which would have disqualified the applicants because they
want to hire someone in that racial category and there's a shortage
of applicants--you wind up with, basically, criminals on patrol. Like
Miami and LA.
We need more femcops. They're much less confrontational.
jm
On 7 Feb 2001, at 4:22, zeb haradon wrote:
>
>
>
> >From: Harvey Newstrom <mail@HarveyNewstrom.com>
>
>
> >I have even
> >had guns drawn on me once when I said that I would not consent to a
> >search. Being law abiding offers no protection from the police.
> >--
> >Harvey Newstrom <http://HarveyNewstrom.com>
>
> I think there's an inescapable dilemma any society is going to face and
> always has faced regarding law enforcement officials:
> Even when the laws are completely just, even when the only crimes are those
> that actually have a victim, who is going to want to be a cop? The answer
> is, with rare exception I think, that the only people who will desire police
> powers are those who are prone to abuse them. Bullies, people who want to
> have power over others, who enjoy pulling a gun on someone and seeing
> someone squirm under the gun. I can't figure out any other type of
> psychology that would make someone want to chase after and catch people,
> even people who deserve it. If someone hurt someone I loved, I'd put in a
> lot of time to see that person caught, but without that emotivator, I see
> only sadism as an explanation for putting so much of my effort into
> "catching" people. I think speed limits are good laws, but I can't imagine
> getting pleasure out of waiting in speed trap to ruin people's days, unless
> I had a predatory type of personality.
> The only exceptions to this I can think of are tradition ("my father was a
> cop"), which probably makes up a sizable minority of motivations for people
> going into law enforcement.
> Another possibility is as a desire to right a wrong done to them earlier in
> life (like Batman - who isn't technically a cop I guess). I suspect this
> doesn't make up a strong portion of motivations.
> This doesn't exist in our society I think, but people may also want to
> become cops as a last resort when they can't find a job. I think a lot of
> people who join the Army do so because of this.
>
> A possible solution to this dilemma is to shift police responsibilities into
> other occupations. For example, have speed limit enforcement be moved to the
> area of road consturction/maintenance (this may be a bad example but I can't
> think of a better one at the moment). The people drawn to do it, then, will
> be drawn for other aspects of the occupation, and not the domination aspect.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------
> Zeb Haradon (zebharadon@hotmail.com)
> My personal webpage:
> http://www.inconnect.com/~zharadon/ubunix
> A movie I'm directing:
> http://www.elevatormovie.com
>
> "Fish fuck in it." - W. C. Fields answer to why he never drank water.
>
> _________________________________________________________________
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>
John Marlow
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