[jimjamuser]

Originally Posted by Choro&Swing

What brutalizes law enforcement personnel? They aren’t all problematic. Many weren’t a problem when they were trained. Most didn’t become cops in hope of being brutal. I think a lot of cops found themselves becoming more and more abusive or aggressive as they experienced aggression against themselves. This is NOT a matter of ethnicity—it happens in all ethnicities—but the more it happens, the more it may change police behavior. A cop assigned a neighborhood with a high crime rate is especially likely to become aggressive.

Consider this. You are a new cop, with good intentions. Perhaps you have a degree in criminal justice. If you are assigned to a neighborhood with little crime, where people treat you with respect, turn to you for help, and thank you, you prosper and you become wiser and more helpful as the years pass. However, if you are assigned to a high crime neighborhood where people lie to you all the time, sneer at you all the time, see you as the enemy rather than as a rescuer, where people curse you to your face, where you are in fear of your lives, where you see criminals breaking laws and hurting people all the time, but know that if you arrest these people, they will be released in hours, then there’s a much better chance that you will become aggressive. Who can blame cops for learning to hate criminals? Who can blame cops for developing a sense of who is a criminal and who isn’t? It may seem unfair to many of us, but that’s how the mind works, how it develops.

I suspect that most “police brutality” can be traced to cops who were brutalized by the people against whom they now show brutality. Some many have come to associate that with skin color, but bear in mind that the problem is found among African-American cops, too. If all cops were treated with respect, many more would treat others with respect.

Wery possible. My solution would be to have a national draft just like the military was in the '60s. 2 or 3 years then you can leave or stay if you prove you are dependable and not corrupt and have had 3 years' worth of psychological testing to minimize aggressive ethnic prejudices. Move senior police over to the post office and keep infusing freshly drafted rookies. Volunteer police are more likely to be power-hungry and corrupt.