[JumpCrisscross]

Do we have evidence around whether this is a selection effect or a transformation effect?

That is, do racist assholes disproportionately gravitate towards the police force? Or does the police force disproportionately turn ordinary people into racist assholes?

[squarefoot]

"do racist assholes disproportionately gravitate towards the police force?"

This one, probably, as usually racist+fascist assholes are the ones who dream of wearing an uniform and carry weapons so they can "feel the power" over other people. It's a selection problem, which I'm sure those responsible are very aware of and have no intention to change. A violent cop is a perfect weapon for corrupt governments and politicians: he does nasty things for you and when he retires he becomes part of your private "police" as eternal gratitude for having saved his ass multiple times for those nasty things. That is also very likely the reason why there are many accounts of cops abusing steroids (side effects very similar to cocaine) but so far it seems no serious investigation has been started.

[0815test]

The pattern with "the racist+fascist assholes" typically is that the craving for power (and sometimes for brutal violence) comes first, and then ideas are sought in a bid to normalize it. A position of authority, or purposely fanning widespread hate towards some socially marginalized or despised group that few people will bother to counter, are two things that are very often used to get away with all sorts of brutality and inhumane behavior. It's essentially a smaller-scale version of what the Nazis did, and the sort of thing that should actually be decried as such, in the strongest possible terms.

[cannonedhamster]

The police shouldn't be associated with the Nazis here. There's no wide scale organised plan to wipe out an entire race. The number of truly rotten officers is in the minority or there would be more bright line evidence of horribles. Most actions caught by police aren't outright actions of intentional corruption or malice, they are improper or bad policing that goes unpunished, which is the real problem.

You can't be expected to punish the police when you need them to do your job, which is the position DAs are in. If they were to lose the trust if the police then they wouldn't have the super they need to go their job. A statewide role of internal enforcement that's separate from the DA and is an unelected role appointed by the governor or legislative body would likely be the best one could do for this role and provide the freedom to do the job effectively.

Add to that punishments should come out of the insurance funds for the force meaning police organizations that are truly terrible would get shut down when they could not afford their insurance. Also a national police database with all punitive actions against officers that is permanent and not removable unless ordered by a judge would go a long way to prevent officers who get punished in multiple locations from just moving to a new job.

[JumpCrisscross]

> It's a selection problem, which I'm sure those responsible are very aware of and have no intention to change

Do you have evidence for this?

[squarefoot]

"Do you have evidence for this?"

If anyone of us had evidence of this the cat would be already out of the bag, so unfortunately I don't. There is however evidence that selection is deeply flawed, so I wonder why the same criteria that would have me sacked in no time by any company HR department if I behaved as such can't apply there. Racist violent people aren't usually that smart at hiding it, I know some of them and usually 30 minutes of chit chat is more than enough to expose their ideologies and how wrong would be to give them that power.

[Etheryte]

Alternatively, do heavily prejudiced people commonly not know how to operate social media privacy settings?

[ppseafield]

When you don't ever face consequences, why hide? It's just extra work. And then no consequences or even positive reinforcement from your Facebook friends validates them and makes folks even bolder.

[projektfu]

I'm pretty sure both are going on. If someone joins a new group of friends who have strong opinions, they'll usually adopt those opinions, or at least act like they're normal and shouldn't be challenged. I think most officers start in the police in their early 20s and will be mentored by the older ones who will explain that their racist attitudes are what save their life, etc. Good questions for empirical study.

[cannonedhamster]

Serpico the movie is based on real life corruption. I don't think this is a solvable problem without changing humanity it the role entirely. There's a saying, power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. While there are most likely some officers who are above and beyond the best of humanity, most are likely average or below average due to the selection process and the type of people who would go into the field.

[HarryHirsch]

The first, you'd think. Police forces have a recruitment problem, if they began firing those who have a history of excessive force use they'd be short-staffed.

[Gibbon1]

Ans: That overused word from early 90's business speak; Synergy.

[kiran-rao]

This would be both extremely interesting and very difficult to study.

[JumpCrisscross]

> This would be both extremely interesting and very difficult to study

You’d have to get a department to consent to the random sampling of its officers’ social media histories. (Can’t just use public data due to the selection bias it entails.)

The data are there, being dutifully logged by everyone’s cell phones and flung off to servers across the world. Ethically accessing them is the political problem.

[empath75]

The drug war is what ruined policing in this country. If a large part of what you do is brutally enforce laws against essentially harmless behavior disproportionately against minorities, you’re only going to get sociopaths and racists who want to do the work.

[dantheman0207]

I highly recommend David Simon’s talks on policing (he is the creator of The Wire).

He talks at length about how the skill sets necessary to investigative work and community policing have largely been lost as a result of the focus on meeting drug war quotas.

[cwyers]

Do you have any links?

[dmix]

There's 120,000 law enforcement officers in the US. It'd be pretty easy to find 10-15 people blowing off steam and joking on FB about their jobs in ways non-officers may find offensive. Combined with a couple straight up racist ones. I wouldn't be surprised if you could find similar relative numbers in Canada and the UK.

These individuals should be punished no doubt and likely will be as a result of this article.

[JumpCrisscross]

> I wouldn't be surprised if you could find similar relative numbers in Canada and the UK

I don’t have the source on hand. But the elevated rates of domestic violence (like 4x baseline) in policing households is unusually prominent in the United States.

[dmix]

I’m curious how that compares to other violent and dangerous jobs (ie, military, prison guards, etc) and other country’s law enforcement.

If the US or job is higher that could be a serious problem that they need to look into (if it isn’t already, which I doubt). There has to be more to this than the police are just over-selecting for evil people.

Although the US has to be one of the highest numbers of police dealing with people with weapons. I remember the WaPo database of police shootings showing that almost all of them (95%+ except one or two involved people with weapons). Adding all the people who didn’t get shot but still had a dangerous weapon, that can have some PTSD. Which famously rears its head in many unexpected self-destructive ways.