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Comment by na85 | Hacker News Reader

Frankly I think that anyone who applies to be a cop should be automatically blacklisted, and that police should be essentially conscripted for, say, $total_training_time + 2 years after education, the way some countries do with their military.

To me, the mere act of wanting the authority to arrest and shoot your peers means you are the last person I want to have that power.

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during my four-year hitch in the Corps, a quick poll of the first-term enlisted jarheads in a USMC infantry battalion, asking "what are you going to do when you're hitch is up?" the most frequent answer would have been "become a cop"

and these were guys who, when off-duty, wore t-shirts with aphorisms like

"kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out"

and

"join the Marines, travel to exotic places, meet interesting people, and kill them"

----

i have a (completely untested) hypothesis, that police forces which require officers to be trained as EMTs and police officers (San Jose?) have far lower incidence of claims and proven instances of incidence of excessive force, abuse of authority, etc.

Very anecdotal but after 5 years of living in San Jose, I was very scared of police. I've never had a problem with police, but the times I did there were terrible. I was pretty appalled at their behavior and I wasn't doing anything serious at all. I also heard of people throwing parties, getting in trouble, and being beaten. That was a second hand story though. One of the big reasons I left was fear of the police there.

It would be interesting if not only EMT training was required, but also some number of years as an active EMT. Having to respond to various scenes involving law enforcement, but not being blessed as law enforcement would provide an interesting perspective on police response.

This is silly and short-sighted. There are many people who genuinely want to 'serve and protect', multiple generations in some families. Some people take duty very seriously and in good faith. Applying to be a cop in no way implies that a person holds arrests and the use of deadly force as anything other than a necessary component of the real-world, end-to-end justice system.

>There are many people who genuinely want to 'serve and protect',

Honestly, I doubt this is true for most values of "many".

I'm a straight white male in a first world country with no criminal record. I have a good job and am a well-behaved citizen. I've lived all over this country and my experiences with the police have been uniformly negative.

Thugs interested in proving to everyone that they're in charge, that's all they are.

The idea that police should be conscripted is crazy when you consider that the vast majority of the population just doesn't have the nerves to stop that person in the sketchy car or dark side of the sidewalk, knowing there's a probability they will try to murder you, whether because they hate cops or to avoid arrest, while yourself carrying a lethal weapon. (A lot of police don't even have the nerves for it.) More innocent people would get shot, without question.

This doesn't really explain why folks want to be cops in other countries - Heck, I live in a country where they haven't traditionally carried guns, though they are starting to nationwide from time to time. They do have them available to them. Not only that, but not all of them will be automatically horrible folks. Some actually do want to simply help folks. Not all of them that apply are the asshole. And some of the problem is our own laws and expectations.

At this point, I should mention that I personally dislike cops, and have had really bad interactions with them, including one blaming another's suicide attempt on me. But I also know it isn't universal.

If you do want to arrest and harm folks, no, you shouldn't be on the force. There are other way to sort out these folks or make the behavior different. Pass actual laws protecting folks from such things. Give cops more education. Have laws that make sense. Hire enough police so that they have more time away from folks that are doing harm. Have cops do more work on things that are socially uplifting - where they have contact with good people - and pay the cops for this. Require they are respectful. Require they take the abuse we expect call center and retail employees to take (like being told to fudge off, yelled at, and generally called names). Require police to live in the areas they are policing. Make sure the laws are fair and that we fairly police different sorts of areas. And so on.

Politicians as well. Those who seek power rarely have the necessary moral fortitude.

Some people become police officers because it's a stable job with a pension. I have a buddy who might become a corrections officer but I don't think it's because he's excited to baton an inmate as much as the salary and benefits that is the driving motivation.

Yeah, giving guns and arrest powers to a bunch of bitter, angry people who'd rather be doing anything else sounds like a great idea.

Besides which, you really think that people only become cops for the power? No one ever honestly wants to protect and serve their community? There's a lot of problems with American police right now, but it can be so much worse.

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