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Any form (passive/active voice...) or description (especially of a wide array of attributes, for example of the context) can be interpreted in various ways, either discounting or condemning an actor. "Chaotic", for me, conveys that there is no known way to always adequately solve this sort of problem ("911 calls ((...)) about a 'guy acting suspicious' who the callers thought had a gun"), however I reckon that interpreting it as some pseudo-justification is possible. In a similar vein one may interpret the George Floyd case as exposing a "popular culture of corruption". One may also think that such cases have many causes, just like most major technological disasters result from a chain of causes (multiple and redundant safeties, however in some rare cases something isn't properly handled).
A main cause may be that speaking up about a criminal colleague is only possible if you know for sure that he is guilty, meaning that you probably are a witness, and in such a case a colleague of the culprit. There are many reasons for teammates to cover-up each other. For example they may all be guilty of something (establishing a "popular culture of corruption"), or they may think that their colleague is guilty but should be pardoned given his merits (somewhat acting as judges). Some configurations of the rotten apple's team forbid any upper stratum (department, union, community...) to work adequately, as they will systematically amplify the testimony of those teammates. You don't have "one bad cop", but rather a non-neglectable probability for his teammates to avoid speaking out about his reprehensible acts, and also unreasonable hopes about the ability of upper strata to attain to the truth. In theory we may alleviate this by establishing larger teams and/or frequently changing (rotating) their members, hoping that it will reduce complicit distortions. In practice this leads to a new set of problems, not only related to cost but also to sheer practical efficiency: a team larger and/or populated with members not used to work with each other cannot be as efficient as a small (but sufficient) and more tightly made one. |