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Comment by seibelj | Hacker News Reader

Why would anyone except those with some innate and exceptional passion for law enforcement ever choose to become a cop? The politicians, media, and a good chunk of society hates you. The hours are strange. You have to put yourself in dangerous situations often. Every action you take is judged, and severe mistakes go viral instantly and destroy your life. No one is ever happy.

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Statistically speaking, police work is safer than logging, farming, roofing, garbage collecting, and tons of other jobs out there. It’s riskier than my job, sure, but not nearly as risky as many think.

In reality, “death is around every corner” is an intentional training method pushed by the police themselves. Evidence-based training would likely go a long way to making police public servants again, and improve community relations a great deal.

This seems to be an "internet bubble" take. Politicians campaign on supporting law enforcement. I travel a lot, both rural and urban, and I see far more thin-blue-line flag stickers than anti-police stickers around the country. (The media hates everyone, eventually.) Police work is like service work in that as you gain seniority you get more control over your hours, so that's not a permanent problem. While there's an element of danger, law enforcement isn't even in the top ten most dangerous jobs in America, a list dominated by tradespeople and truck drivers. As for viral media destroying your life, I've never seen it happen. Sure the occasional officer goes to jail for committing a crime, but I've never seen an officer who had to give up his or her career because of viral social media nonsense. Many of the officers who are "convicted in the court of twitter" wind up compensated for the trauma of going through that experience, which is about the best you can hope for, since anyone (cop or not) is subject to a viral tarring-and-feathering these days. But they're not prohibited from continuing in their career because of the experience.

Anyway, I have lots of friends in the law enforcement world, and almost all of them are happy with their careers.

The same reason anybody takes any job? Money. And in many states they are paid quite well… I know quite a few people who became police, only a few of them had any sort of fervor for policing before they were indoctrinated during basic training. It’s like an easier and better paid version of going into the armed services.

Also: on average, being a cop is just not that dangerous, and it gets less so every year as crime rates drop. These are just the facts. In the vast majority of situations police will be the better armed and trained party. Much different than other public servants, who often have to deal with the same public and the same scrutiny for less pay and with worse protection…

It’s a union job with a pension, and the pay is decent. That kind of security appeals to a lot of people.

Wow, you have some weird view of cops over whereever in the world you live. Here, the media doesn't hate them, I don't know about strange hours but I can't imagine it's too crazy without benefits to balance it out, and you'd do it to help your country or community stay safe.

Some people like to be in a position of power over other people. Some people see it as military-lite. Some people like guns. Some people her off on hurting other people. Some people are not smart enough to do any kind of job that requires a smidgen of intelligence, so they go into police work (it has even been shown that you will be rejected from becoming a police officer if you are intelligent - at least in the US). Etc.

My university best friend's dad was a cop. They were a middle class family and it was a relatively good paying / benefits job. He was a really nice guy. I never had the impression he was passionate about law enforcement, nor on a power trip, just a normal guy who got a job after high school. He would have become a cop in the 70s - what you say may be more relevant now.

One reason is devotion to the rule of law. Another is you get to boss people around. And given that "qualified immunity" is still a thing, most serious mistakes - or even outright criminal actions - go unpunished or punished by administrative means like demotions or firing - a luxury that a common citizen is never allowed. Hopefully, the majority is in the former category - but let's not close our eyes to the fact the latter category exists too.

That's reflected in the article's tone. I might characterize it as Although cops are terrible at their job, this time, they're terrible because they aren't doing their job and some experts say maybe that's because they're underfunded, but other experts say it's probably because they're just terrible.

I honestly dont know which one I prefer at this point: police who spend their time beating protestors, profiling black people and shooting family dogs, or police who simply don’t do anything. Seems like many are responding to recent widespread calls for accountability by just not doing their jobs.

I can't say, either. I moved from the US to a country where police training takes 4 years and cops generally are, and are perceived as, a force for good. Everything is much more relaxed. My friend and I even had a drunken rager of an evening with a pair of off-duty cops and it was a lot of fun.

I'm not sure what it would take to get there in the US, but whatever obstacles are in the way to true reform are not only the fault of police, but are pretty deep-seated social issues.

Particularly, the US has a political legacy of expediency being successful and popularly supported, while adhering to principles is seen as pointy-headed pedantry. When it comes to the portrayal of law enforcement and criminal defense in popular tv shows and movies, more often than not, protagonists bend the rules to catch criminals who otherwise use procedural loopholes to evade justice. So, the people that adhere to principles are the villains, and the people who bend the rules are heroes. This social current manifests in real, actual political life when partisans promote or cherry-pick gossip and news that they themselves know are false, but if widely believed will harm their political opponents.

This trend hits US cops specifically in two ways. The first is that bending the rules is expected and sticking to principle is not rewarded. And that's not by "the leadership" but by you, you reading this - if you have ever thrilled to a hero bending the rules. The second is that even cops who do stick to principles can be savaged in the media with a presumption of guilt because everyone knows ACAB.

How do we fix all of that?

I agree that the whole “Jack Bauer bends the rules and the terrorists are thwarted—therefore the end justifies the means” trope is harmful. But this isn’t what’s wrong with general day-to-day policing today. Focusing enforcement on (profiling) black people and shooting everything in sight without accountability aren’t examples of bending the rules. They are standard procedure, sanctioned and supported by police chiefs, DA’s and judges. This isn’t cops taking shortcuts like Jack Bauer, it’s cops doing exactly what is encouraged and rewarded.

> shooting everything in sight without accountability

Is that a thing that happens?

OP article explains that these cops don't do anything except profiling Black people.

It is frequently criminals who choose to become police officers, because they can commit violent crimes and get away with it.

Criminals and police are just two sides of the same coin that prey upon the peaceful populace for their own sadistic pleasures and profit.

You missed one factor: the bad cops will, at best, end your career if you don't look the other way.

Pensions.

https://transparentcalifornia.com/pensions/sfers-san-francis...

Power fantasies... I had a shitty acquaintance in my 20s who horrifyingly pondered aloud and with alarming detail about how he wished he was an off duty cop in that moment so he could intimidate and punish a loud group in the next hotel room over after telling them to keep it down and not getting the result he wanted. He was too busy freeloading off inheritance and offering nothing of value to society at the time, but he was open about his ambition to become a cop some day if/when his nest egg was depleted.

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