What Is Causing Police Corruption?

It seems that with the advent of the camera-phone, police are being shown to engage in criminal behavior far more frequently than ever before. I can only think of three things.

1) Cameraphones affect a cop's brain causing them to be more corrupt when on film.

2) Police have always had a high level of corruption, but cameraphones allows it to be caught on camera.

3) The police departments have bloated budgets so they hire any droog off the street to fill their rosters.

4) Cops have too much time on their hands and so they engage in corruption for excitement.

McDonald's.

Burger King.

The internet.

Hydrodynamic spatula's.

The Dodge Challenger and Dodge Charger (ONLY the Hellcat models).

Oakland Raiders.

Breast implants.


Actually...I have no idea.

Sounds to me like this should have been a poll.
The best disinfectant is sunlight .
Keep the cameras trained on all cops 24/7.

(Love the use of the word "droog", Alex would be proud.)

The Stanford Prison Experiment: Still powerful after all these years (1/97)

The Stanford Prison experiment - a college based study of human psychology gone terribly wrong really covers quite a bit of it. They are that way because they CAN be that way.

And the other main component doesn't have a clever/disturbing study to cite - it has to do with the consistent state of exposure they have TO the worst of the worst in society. I think they begin to see most people through that filter: criminals / not good civilians.

And then there's the 'green' excuse. "He's new - he was nervous" -- To which I declare bull**** every time. He was new and nervous so he couldn't have been given a gun to accidentally shoot someone with.

reinoe said:

It seems that with the advent of the camera-phone, police are being shown to engage in criminal behavior far more frequently than ever before. I can only think of three things.

1) Cameraphones affect a cop's brain causing them to be more corrupt when on film.

2) Police have always had a high level of corruption, but cameraphones allows it to be caught on camera.

3) The police departments have bloated budgets so they hire any droog off the street to fill their rosters.

4) Cops have too much time on their hands and so they engage in corruption for excitement.

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There has always been a certain segment of every group in existence that is corrupt. There are probably as many reasons why as there are people. But the main reason is gain.

reinoe said:

It seems that with the advent of the camera-phone, police are being shown to engage in criminal behavior far more frequently than ever before. I can only think of three things.

1) Cameraphones affect a cop's brain causing them to be more corrupt when on film.

2) Police have always had a high level of corruption, but cameraphones allows it to be caught on camera.

3) The police departments have bloated budgets so they hire any droog off the street to fill their rosters.

4) Cops have too much time on their hands and so they engage in corruption for excitement.

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The answer depends on how obliquely you want to approach the topic, with the most oblique observation being that power corrupts.

Taking a more concrete view, law enforcement in general has base origins, with institutions of justice in medieval society being officiated by the guys who could swing clubs hardest to beat the peasants into submission on behalf of the interests of the local tyrants. Towns in the Old West employed former outlaws who were tired of living with a criminal status to be their sherrifs, securing pardons from governors who thought it was a good idea to kill two birds with one stone: pit dangerous outlaws against other dangerous outlaws. Numerous police precincts in cities with historically marginalized ethnic groups (Italians, Irish, Poles, Blacks, Jews, etc) recruited from the same neighborhoods that supplied fresh blood to the mafia and other crime syndicates, meaning that police and criminals shared an extended network of blood and communual relations. Being a cop converts physical force into a authority that commands fear and respect, which makes it an alluring line of work to a class of humanity that grew up lacking the agency or self respect that woud enable them to appreciate abstract moral concerns like justice or restraint.

Similarly, although you would think rich people who grew up poor would be uniformly generous and sympathetic, they tend to be petty and grasping because there's a big hole in their psyche where all their unfulfilled material desires from childhood left a crater.

reinoe said:

It seems that with the advent of the camera-phone, police are being shown to engage in criminal behavior far more frequently than ever before. I can only think of three things.

1) Cameraphones affect a cop's brain causing them to be more corrupt when on film.

2) Police have always had a high level of corruption, but cameraphones allows it to be caught on camera.

3) The police departments have bloated budgets so they hire any droog off the street to fill their rosters.

4) Cops have too much time on their hands and so they engage in corruption for excitement.

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There is no high level of police corruption in the US. An occasional corrupt cop or two doesn't mean corruption is rampant.People have easier access to video cameras and those video cameras are a standard feature on our phones. So it makes sense that when police misconduct happens it will get exposed a lot easier compared to twenty or thirty years ago when most people did not have cameras and those that had video cameras did not carry them 24/7.

reinoe said:

2) Police have always had a high level of corruption, but cameraphones allows it to be caught on camera.

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This is probably closest IMO but "high" is a relative term and you've not made clear what you're comparing it to. There is corruption pretty much everywhere, though how (if!) it gets identified and addressed varies massively in different environments.

I'm not convinced there is anything special about the amount of corruption within politicking in general, though the nature of the situation means the consequences of it there can be very serious. That's far from unique to policing though.

It is definitely number two. And corruption IS high. Corruption isn't just the cops who abuse their power, it is also the even larger number of cops who look the other way when such abuse happens. Cops that turn on their own don't seem to last long on the force. They aren't bad people, but the police culture is highly flawed.

I wonder what would happen if phones were trained on the average police day by day action instead of hyping up the few bad apples?

To be fair, there also seems to be a rise in cops doing good deeds too! If you have FB I'm sure you've seen the photo ops!

jamesrage said:

There is no high level of police corruption in the US. An occasional corrupt cop or two doesn't mean corruption is rampant.People have easier access to video cameras and those video cameras are a standard feature on our phones. So it makes sense that when police misconduct happens it will get exposed a lot easier compared to twenty or thirty years ago when most people did not have cameras and those that had video cameras did not carry them 24/7.

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Depends on what you mean by "high level." Only one out of a 100 Catholic priests is a child molester, but historically each of them can perform the deed dozens if not hundreds of times over the course of a career. It doesn't take a huge number of people to cause a "high level" of corruption.

reinoe said:

It seems that with the advent of the camera-phone, police are being shown to engage in criminal behavior far more frequently than ever before. I can only think of three things.

1) Cameraphones affect a cop's brain causing them to be more corrupt when on film.

2) Police have always had a high level of corruption, but cameraphones allows it to be caught on camera.

3) The police departments have bloated budgets so they hire any droog off the street to fill their rosters.

4) Cops have too much time on their hands and so they engage in corruption for excitement.

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Left wing manufactured narratives are causing all of the Police corruption.

Blatant misrepresentations of individual cases where Police jusifiably used deadly force against a violent assailant is whats causing all of the Police corruption.

Imo, police are no more or less corrupt then they ever have been (probably less, I would guess).

The MAIN reason people think they are more corrupt is...smartphone cameras.

There are too many movies about corrupt cops engaging in conspiracy, etc. and that is brainwashing people into thinking it is an epidemic.

Man on a Ledge
Copland
Internal Affairs
Training Day
The Departed
The Professional
Serpico
Street Kings
L.A. Confidential
Bad Lieutenant

reinoe said:

It seems that with the advent of the camera-phone, police are being shown to engage in criminal behavior far more frequently than ever before. I can only think of three things.

1) Cameraphones affect a cop's brain causing them to be more corrupt when on film.

2) Police have always had a high level of corruption, but cameraphones allows it to be caught on camera.

3) The police departments have bloated budgets so they hire any droog off the street to fill their rosters.

4) Cops have too much time on their hands and so they engage in corruption for excitement.

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Is your question implying that it's drastically going up?
I don't think it's going up at all. I feel the vast majority of law enforcement is not corrupt.

To answer your question though in general its "power" and "authority". Those things always breed "some" corruption. It's just in the info and tech age we see more of it first hand.

reinoe said:

It seems that with the advent of the camera-phone, police are being shown to engage in criminal behavior far more frequently than ever before. I can only think of three things.

1) Cameraphones affect a cop's brain causing them to be more corrupt when on film.

2) Police have always had a high level of corruption, but cameraphones allows it to be caught on camera.

3) The police departments have bloated budgets so they hire any droog off the street to fill their rosters.

4) Cops have too much time on their hands and so they engage in corruption for excitement.

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#2, but as we don't have much video from decades pas there's no way to prove it.

reinoe said:

It seems that with the advent of the camera-phone, police are being shown to engage in criminal behavior far more frequently than ever before. I can only think of three things.

1) Cameraphones affect a cop's brain causing them to be more corrupt when on film.

2) Police have always had a high level of corruption, but cameraphones allows it to be caught on camera.

3) The police departments have bloated budgets so they hire any droog off the street to fill their rosters.

4) Cops have too much time on their hands and so they engage in corruption for excitement.

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I'm going with option 5.

People are more likely to film unreasonable/corrupt police behavior than reasonable police behavior.

BrewerBob said:

It is definitely number two. And corruption IS high.

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Again, "high" is a relative term. When you claim it's corruption n the police is (currently) high, what are you comparing it to? Higher than in the police in the past, higher than in other fields, high because it isn't zero? Of course once you've established what you're comparing, you need to support your definitive claim.

The Mark said:

I'm going with option 5.

People are more likely to film unreasonable/corrupt police behavior than reasonable police behavior.

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Of course, but if it weren't there to begin with there wouldn't be anything to film.

reinoe said:

It seems that with the advent of the camera-phone, police are being shown to engage in criminal behavior far more frequently than ever before. I can only think of three things.

1) Cameraphones affect a cop's brain causing them to be more corrupt when on film.

2) Police have always had a high level of corruption, but cameraphones allows it to be caught on camera.

3) The police departments have bloated budgets so they hire any droog off the street to fill their rosters.

4) Cops have too much time on their hands and so they engage in corruption for excitement.

Click to expand...

All the above.eace

Im probably going to catch **** for this one.... but I am just speaking from my experiences as both a "War on Terror" veteran and a former Police Officer....


Some of it MAY have to do with the amount of combat veterans we are recruiting into police departments. Those combat veterans conducted operations in an environment where they treated the local population however they wished to do so, with a dominating sense of authority over them........

Then they became police officers in your town. Conducting similar patrols......stopping people for similar activity...... and being taught how to "articulate" the reasons for their extra-4th amendment activities in their reports....





Thats just my two cents.
Die hard military supporters....go ahead... bring it.

Caine said:

Im probably going to catch **** for this one.... but I am just speaking from my experiences as both a "War on Terror" veteran and a former Police Officer....

Some of it MAY have to do with the amount of combat veterans we are recruiting into police departments. Those combat veterans conducted operations in an environment where they treated the local population however they wished to do so, with a dominating sense of authority over them........

Then they became police officers in your town. Conducting similar patrols......stopping people for similar activity...... and being taught how to "articulate" the reasons for their extra-4th amendment activities in their reports....

Thats just my two cents.
Die hard military supporters....go ahead... bring it.

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I have heard this. I don't dismiss it, but many believe... including myself... that the trend toward this direction started a couple decades ago, and has become more visible in the last 10 or so years. If so, the veteran aspect may just exacerbate the issue, but not be the cause of it.

radcen said:

Of course, but if it weren't there to begin with there wouldn't be anything to film.

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Obviously.

But the premise was that because of the Camera phone, we could see that police were horribly corrupt - I'm arguing that the premise did not take into account the selectiveness of the camera operators.

I was once told (although I do not mean to post this as a universal statement, but I found some humor, and some empirical expierence to be true)


When they grow up, High School bullies pursue two career paths

Dumb ones become cops, smart ones become salesmen.



Where am I going with this? I absolutely think SOME bullies pursue careers where they leverage power over people, and sadly, the LEO commmunity provides them that path and chance.


1% bad apples and all that.