Lol. Awe.... I am gonna blush.
That blog makes some going points. I agree that we have slipped from the Peelian principles. HOWEVER, while certainly the cops bear the responsibility for their poor behavior, to some degree we get the police department we deserve. In that I do think that we unfairly put a lot of burden on the police to show results. The results then end up being arrests and ultimately convictions. Which I think ultimately leads to using bad tactics to get those arrests and convictions.
In any system, when you create results based incentives, rather than performance based incentives, you create a system ripe for abuse. And, that is true from everything from cooking the books, to secret wait lists in the VA, to police and prosecutorial misconduct. When someone is rewarded or punished ( via loosing jobs and funding) based on results, the incentive is of course to get the results at any cost - and oftentimes that leads to bad acts. It leads to pressure which creates the rationalization of those bad acts.
In the case of the police, its two fold. One, the departments are very results based where officers who do the most arresting, the most narcotics busts, what have you - get rewarded and recognized. BUT - also, they are increasingly facing a more lawless and less controlled populace. The amount of people on this forum who have admitted to breaking laws, to not caring about following a law, etc - is honestly stunning. What the hell happened to following the rules as one of the responsibilities of being a good citizen? So, not only are police departments faced with getting results, they are also increasingly faced with even the average John Q. Public, who couldn't care less about the law, and thinks that everything from speeding to parking in a handicapped spot, to recreational drug use, is their right.
Now, the libertarian in me feels to some degree that much of this comes from basic over-legislation. That IF we had stuck to making laws on the "big stuff" people would be more inclined to follow them and that by having a damn rule about every cotton picking thing, not only makes people more rebellious but it desensitizes them to breaking the law. Once you get a taste for and get over your fear or shame and are able to rationalize breaking one law, its easier to break another and another. Plus, the more laws there are, the more criminals and lawbreakers there will be, which would necessitate more police work, which would mean that the police have that much more pressure to show a result. Its a viscious circle.
While the cops need to be better the people need to better also. And, to that end, perhaps we should consider what exactly it is we need the police to do - and why we may want them and use them more sparingly as well.
connie
