The Way In Which We Live: Helping Police Help Themselves (That Includes Reform)

Allegory of Good Government
Ambrogio Lorenzetti 1338

Who wants someone to narrate to them, tell them who they are, and create the story. So I encourage police to start the conversation on how they are going to reform to ensure they are fulfilling their missions to the community and to the nation. While its just words in the wind at the moment I do believe that our capacity to draw strong human capital will be based in part, among many parts in the ability of our police to act with integrity and the wider system to enforce that integrity if there is default. 

That of course does not take away from the good officers doing the right thing but that is a just criticism that moves beyond those actually engaged in corruption to those that have not reported the crime or the system that struggles to act upon those crimes. To many, its more important to protect their homogeneous ethnic and racial clan then it is to protect the general will of the public. Role and responsibility confusion.

When I was younger we used to have this belief that policing was something we wanted to be and it was a noble occupation. We could be firefighters and could be the "good guys" which we associated with police. That has become increasingly difficult to differentiate because not all police are good (not all bad) and there are certain aspects of the system that take no responsibility when social contracts are broken. Notice kids don't play good cop police as much as they once did (Its a unscientific but important observation).

What I have seen over the past few years should offend our leadership and sting the souls of judges, politicians, religious leaders and general people of moral conscious. However, that doesn't appear to be the case. What does appear to have happened is that there has been an attempt to cover violations of state, national and international laws in an effort to "protect ones own". The official system is trying to placate/justify the shadow system (Its not a good third world place to be).

When these systems become tools (I'm talking about the corrupt individuals and the general incompetence of the system to fix itself) to hate and third world cleansing we have to wonder at what point will a concept called justice come into play (Yes, I do understand how justice is misused against minorities, children, and those who rightly criticize corruption. People like us are called everything to delegitimize and cover up crimes.). We then can look around at others and the world around us and see that there are a huge percentage of people complaining but are having their rights and protections circumvented (I can speculate why based on sociological changes, narrow recruitment lens, and political perversions of America's values). 

My suggestion is to any system, organization, or black market is to take a good look at itself and take to heart the complaints of people. Try and develop the highest moral standards and ensure accountability not only on the officers who engaged in crimes but also those who they allowed others to engage in crimes (This isn't about punishment at all. This is about correction and accountability. Something corrupt systems avoid). I do recognize that I come from the lowest caste of society and laws become increasingly subjective when you are in this sociological stratification but sometimes, everyone once in a while, the 'little' people (including the marginalized) may have something important to say. 

*This is in honor to the victims of corruption (specifically two people) and those who were recipients of unAmerican and dishonorable police practices. This hopefully does not detract from the good officers trying to do the right thing but is a direct challenge to those who are more worried about their clan than their country or community.