The Problem With the Police Is That It’s Not Just a Few Bad Apples
(Unless we mean “a few” in the way Krugman does when discussing ObamaCare.)
Gene Callahan–author of Economics for Real People and once a frequent co-author with me on libertarian articles–has a new blog post in which he chastises libertarians for their over-the-top denouncement of the police State. Here’s Gene:
I received a phone call today from a cop from one of our major cities. (We know each other only electronically.) He wanted to talk because he was so discouraged about the state of police-civilian relations in the country right now. He has always been honest at his job…, always obeyed the law as if he wasn’t a cop, chastised his men when they would break it, sought to respect the community he was policing… and what’s more, he assures me that most cops are more like him then they are like the jack-booted thugs of libertarian fantasies, a few of whom actually exist…He readily acknowledges “We brought some of this on ourselves.” He wants dirty and violent cops punished.
But he also tells me that the one-sided sensationalizing of every possibly suspicious action on the part of a cop makes things worse. Naturally, if cops feel they will be attacked and smeared even if innocent of any wrong-doing, they will become defensive, and tend to dismiss any criticism of any cop as just more libertarian/leftist hate…
Once again, assertions that excessive police violence is is merely “the essence of the state,” as one poster fatuously put it recently, is a falsehood designed to promote a political agenda: police forces all over the developed world are enormously less violent than the American police. For instance, in 2011, all of the police from the entire nation of Germany, policing 80 million people, only fired 85 bullets while policing. By way of contrast, in one incident resulting from a driver’s failure to stop when ordered to do so, Miami police fired well over one hundred shots, killing their target as well as injuring five bystanders…So in the course of a few minutes the Miami police launched more bullets at a single man than the German police do at 80 million people over the course of a year. If excessive police violence is “the essence of the state,” every other state in the developed world must have had its essence sucked out.
First of all, it’s a bit odd that Gene is trying to convince us we’re being paranoid when worrying about a police state…by pointing to Germany. OK, maybe the German police didn’t behave very violently in 2011, but I’m pretty sure they had a few bad years back in the late 1930s. The “paranoid” libertarian position isn’t that all States at all times are totalitarian nightmares, just that they have the tendency to move in that direction and citizens must take great pains to guard against tyranny. Hayek’s famous book was titled the Road to Serfdom, not the Parking Lot of Serfdom.
But I also challenge Gene’s entire premise. I don’t doubt that his buddy is a decent guy, who would be perfectly fine to have over to your barbeque or even babysit your kids. The problem is that, as a general rule, “good cops” keep their mouths shut even when they observe some of their colleagues breaking the law. If Gene’s buddy is indeed a cop in a major city, he is probably personally aware of several officers taking money from drug dealers, or at the very least can make very educated guesses. Again, I am speculating, but I imagine if Gene had put this particular guy’s full name in his blog post, that the guy would flip out and tell Gene to take it down, for fear of professional reprisal.
When a member of any other profession is accused of wrongdoing, colleagues are willing to pontificate on whether the accused should be considered in the right or wrong. For example, if a historian is accused of plagiarism, it won’t be hard for CNN to line up other historians to defend or “convict” the accused.
In contrast, police who are still on the job almost never come forward and say one of their colleagues was in the wrong. I admit I conducted only a cursory search, but using Google I can only find retired police officers criticizing the actions in Ferguson. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure that plenty of cops around the country are shocked at what’s happening in Ferguson, and I don’t doubt that they call up their buddies and say so…privately, on the phone, when their comments can’t be used against them. Yet I don’t see hundreds of these outraged police writing letters to the editor or signing petitions, asking their fellow officers in Ferguson to re-think their tactics. (I would love to be corrected in the comments, in which case I’ll update this post.) There’s a reason people coined the term “Blue Wall of Silence.”
Let me give a beautiful illustration of what I mean. Watch the following video:
Note in particular that the CHP spokesman (starting around the 0:20 mark in the video) stresses how the woman was “a danger to herself” because she was walking around on the freeway. So even as he’s telling the press that they need to investigate before rendering a judgment on the officer’s actions, he wants to make sure people realize that this lady could’ve been hurt. (I mean, someone might tackle her and start beating the crap out of her; it’s safer to stay in a vehicle on the California highways.)
Notice also that the second cop runs up and jumps in to restrain the woman. When I worked at a grocery store, if I turned the corner and saw one of my co-workers sitting on top of a grandmother, punching her repeatedly in the face, I’m pretty sure my response would be to restrain him and say, “What the hell are you doing?!”
I recognize that by its very nature, law enforcement places cops in hazardous situations, and it may be hard for outsiders to appreciate the constant state of apprehension. But let’s not kid ourselves that there are a just a few “bad apples” out there, as in any other profession. No, the problem with police forces in the U.S. (I can’t speak for other countries) is that there is virtually no accountability. The rot starts at the top. It’s not because everyone who goes into police work is an awful person, but that the institutional structure produces horrible outcomes.
UPDATE: It’s possible that this particular officer will face “serious charges,” though he was initially put on desk duty and he hasn’t yet been charged. Either way, my point was the initial reaction of the CHP spokesman. He didn’t stand there, his face in shock at seeing one of his colleagues beat up a grandmother lying on the ground, but instead his reaction was to try to minimize the PR damage. Even if he does end up getting charged, the mere fact that it’s an open question shows just how much leeway the police have. They operate under a different law from everyone else.
UPDATE #2: I saw this Twitter picture of a Missouri cop marching with the Ferguson protesters.
That is the main point I like to stress. The most the police will do is jump in and hold the guy/gal down while the other cop/s continue the beating.
When someone is down on the ground shielding themselves from the rain of blows, that means the conflict is over. Handcuff them and put them in the squad car. A 5+ minute beating is not necessary. It is pretty hard to put your hands behind your back while very heavy blows are landing on you.
Now in personal experience…. I was attacked recently. Someone was coming at my friend ready to swing. I told him to back off, it quickly escalated to multiple punches being thrown my way. My training prepared me for such an occasion. I was not harmed and was calm enough not to strike back. The police were called and to my astonishment… they were upset at me. It only took them 30 minutes, despite being within 1/10 of a mile from their local station.
– I was told I was supposed to just be a witness and let my friend get attacked.
– I was told it was “petty” for me to have complained to the police about what happened.
Now think about this for a second. If someone throws a punch in a police officer’s direction, you are lucky to escape with only a beating and a couple years in prison.
[Edited by RPM.]
“But let’s not kid ourselves that there are a just a few “bad apples” out there, as in any other profession. No, the problem with police forces in the U.S. ***(I can’t speak for other countries)** is that there is virtually no accountability”
You “can’t speak for other countries”, but you want to make sweeping generalisations about all states and all police forces? If not, and all this post is meant to do is make a point about America, then you have unwittingly confirmed Gene Callahan’s original point:
“This is not a problem inherent in government police forces at all: it is a uniquely American problem.
And if you are misidentifying the cause of a problem to advance you own political agenda, despite massive evidence against you… you are part of the problem!”
LK, is this just sport for you or are you an unhappy disagreeable person by nature? I swear if Bob said the sky is blue, you would accuse him of being color blind and cite six links.
On the contrary, Bob Murphy has written some correct and insightful stuff, which I would agree with:
Robert P. Murphy, “Is Keynes from Heaven or Hell,” Free advice, 7 July 2011
http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2011/07/is-keynes-from-heaven-or-hell.html
“Multiple Interest Rates and Austrian Business Cycle Theory”
http://consultingbyrpm.com/uploads/Multiple%20Interest%20Rates%20and%20ABCT.pdf
Correct and unsightful notwithstanding, it’s really only because he said something positive about Keynes. Truth is besides the point.
LK, I understand what you’re saying, but I disagree. Go look again at this post from Gene. You are thinking of his earlier one, where he says violent cops are a uniquely American problem. In this post–the one to which I’m responding–his main point is that most U.S. cops are good guys like his buddy, and libertarians should stop demonizing them.
Also, I did indeed push back against Gene’s claim that it can’t be about “the State” in general, by saying his prime example of Germany is rather unfortunate if he’s trying to demonstrate that most government security forces are harmless.
I don’t think Gene said violent cops are a uniquely American problem. He thinks the inability to control them is a problem in America now, not one for all states at all times. He thinks we can only address the problem if we can identify it correctly. “That’s what governments do” is not the correct diagnosis here. It is for some reason what this government is doing.
Define “control”
Haha, poof goes that question begging fallacy.
LK, you sited another blog post in order to determine “Gene Callahan’s original point.” Bob wasn’t arguing against that post, he was arguing against parts of the post he linked to and quoted from. The main point of Callahan’s post Bob was replying to seemed to be on the “good cop” he spoke to.
Even if that was the point of the post, saying “I can’t speak for other countries” doesn’t “confirm” that the problem is “a uniquely American problem.” Not knowing something or not speaking on something doesn’t confirm that someone else is right.
Oops, Bob beat me to it.
No Reece, you improved the response to LK. I had just assumed that he was quoting from the Callahan post to which I linked, and that Gene had repeated himself from the prior one.
But nope, you’re right, LK was actually quoting from a *different* Callahan post and claimed I confirmed his original point.
By the same token, I am confirming Callahan’s “original point” if we quote from when he wrote as an anarcho-capitalist.
LK you need to learn how to avoid quoting out if context. Murphy wrote:
“The “paranoid” libertarian position isn’t that all States at all times are totalitarian nightmares, just that they have the tendency to move in that direction and citizens must take great pains to guard against tyranny. Hayek’s famous book was titled the Road to Serfdom, not the Parking Lot of Serfdom.”
One thing I notice among Americans is the lack of proportion. If you read the papaers it would seem that every few days the police were involved in some sort of scandal. But you have to remember that America is a massive country with 300 million people and about 800,000 police officers. If we are generous and assume that 1% of cops are “bad apples”, that’s 8,000 police, enough scandals to fill the papaers every day. Thus you could easily get the impression that the police are rotten to the core by simply focusing on the most visible abuses.
There is also the point that lax gun control gives police a good reason to fear ordinary people and to act defensively around them. Thus the militarisation of the police can be seen as part of an arms race with an armed population.
Yeah, the problem isn’t just the sheer number of police abuses, it’s the fact that they so seldom face the consequences for their abuse.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/08/what-i-did-after-police-killed-my-son-110038.html?cmpid=sf#ixzz3AVhiAojp
“It took six years to get our wrongful death lawsuit settled, and my family received $1.75 million. But I wasn’t satisfied by a long shot. I used my entire portion of that money and much more of my own to continue a campaign for more police accountability. I wanted to change things for everyone else, so no one else would ever have to go through what I did. We did our research: In 129 years since police and fire commissions were created in the state of Wisconsin, we could not find a single ruling by a police department, an inquest or a police commission that a shooting was unjustified. There was one shooting we found, in 2005, that was ruled justified by the department and an inquest, but additional evidence provided by citizens caused the DA to charge the officer. The city of Milwaukee settled with a confidentiality agreement and the facts of that sealed. The officer involved committed suicide.”
“There is also the point that lax gun control gives police a good reason to fear ordinary people and to act defensively around them. Thus the militarisation of the police can be seen as part of an arms race with an armed population.”
I don’t doubt that the police see US citizens as their enemy and feel it is necessary to be able to wage a deadly war against us if we don’t bow down. They may even feel that they would require less military equipment to be able to wage war against us if we would simply disarm ourselves.
Robert, I have had the misfortune to work with a police officer. While I personally dislike this person I doubt he would represent what people think of as a bad apple. Nevertheless, after learning from him the procedures and training he has been given as well as the mindset this has bestowed upon him, I have little doubt he would choose the wrong course of action in a given situation and feel completely justified in doing so. Your point is fair but I think it goes beyond any idea of rotten fruit. There is a systemic problem with law enforcement and at its core is what they are expected to do.
The conclusion of your second paragraph does not follow. Also if lax gun control was the issue Switzerland would have the same problem. Your last sentence deserves comment but I have to go.
The question is what the other 99% do when they see one of those “bad apples” in action? Do they say nothing, until someone dies, or do they try hard to get the bad apples to clean up their act (for the good of all police and the community as a whole)? What about when there is an incident, do get good cops tell the truth and get the bad guys punished, or at very least thrown off the force?
It’s amazing in how many cases cameras seem to just stop working when a cop goes rogue. Do you think we should buy better cameras? How many times cops are so happy to back each other’s evidence, sometimes with statements that are exactly the same. How many investigations are secret, you would think those good cops want the public to have easy visibility of what a good job they are doing and how honest they are when faced with the difficult choice of giving evidence against another cop.
“There is also the point that lax gun control gives police a good reason to fear ordinary people and to act defensively around them. Thus the militarisation of the police can be seen as part of an arms race with an armed population.”
If only the State had guns everything would be just fine….right?
Oh and last time I checked, nobody in my neighborhood had an outfitted APC in their driveway.
No but you buy an assault rifle which could take apart any regular police car, making an APC necessary. Also I live in Ireland where (more or less) only the state has guns and we’re doing quite fine. None of the dictatorships or massacres or genocides that libertarians warn will happen.
http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/by-the-numbers-is-private-gun-ownership-responsible-for-police-militarization
First: “assault” rifle is a marketing term. Any firearm can be used for defensive or offensive purposes.
Second: “take apart any regular police car” Lets dispense with the drama please. Strip down an AR-15 and you will find it is essentially no different than many hunting rifles sans the “scary” cosmetics. I have a hunting rifle this will do more damage than an AR-15.
Third: Don’t compare the results of a monolithic culture like Ireland to the one in the US. We don’t have a gun related crime problem; we have a societal values and ethics problem. And if you want to compare monolithic cultures, most of the Swiss households are armed. No issues.
Fourth: Most importantly, I love Ireland. My favorite place to visit.
Robert, I might agree with you, but for my own experiences with law enforcement. I have had perhaps a dozen encounters, in various cities of two states (Washington and California), and precisely one of them acted professionally (officer Cash of the San Mateo Police Department). All the rest acted like bullies on a power trip.
I realize it’s still a small data sampling. The statistician I worked with in BI explained that for a meaningful sampling, the smallest segment across which a demographic sample set was divided needed to have at least 200 people in it.
Nevertheless, it’s the data I have, and from it, it sure seems like the majority of cops are bad.
I’ve always thought that the statistics pointed to a moderate number of government employees being paid by the illegal drug industry (not just cops) and probably a larger number who know about it but for whatever reason do nothing. The sheer size of the drug industry and the massive money involved, from even a cursory economic analysis, couldn’t be operating without a network of people in key positions.
Exactly how to discover that network is quite another thing, but making the drugs legal and taking away the business model is the only viable strategy.
In Australia we have a “Royal Commission” now and then, they cleaned up a few Queensland cops some decades ago, and at the moment they are going through some of the unions. We do haul up a few of them. Thing is, the drug dealers have such financial reserves that they find new people to bribe.
We also got a few crooked customs agents, I think we are doing better than the USA.
“He has always been honest at his job…, always obeyed the law as if he wasn’t a cop, chastised his men when they would break it”
Honest cop, who does his job honestly, sees his coworkers breaking the law… and chastises them.
Doesn’t ticket, detain, nor arrest them. He chastises them.
I’m sure he’d extend the same courtesy to any of us, cause he’s an honest guy.
Will Grigg has an excellent blog where he documents the encroaching police state and brutality:
http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/
Even in Germany the successful persecution of police abuse is a problem. Cops tend to protect each other and most cases get dismissed. Considering this, I am pretty happy that we have a comparatively well-behaving police force. I can only hope it stays this way. The US is a very strong deterrent example in this regard. Not just since Ferguson.
Polish cops are also violent thugs, Blue Code of Silence is not a uniquely American phenomenon, and you can get a beat down in a interview room.
The officers I’ve known – from big city to small county and city to border patrol and ICE – have been absolutely giddy about the new toys and powers they’ve been given over the past years. Most of them are good guys, if naive in the macro sense. The ugly side of dubious ethics is always there, though, and has been getting larger as well as time has gone by.
Bob, I know you are trying to look even handed, but I still hate it when people suggest that policing is an unusually dangerous profession. Yes, it is more dangerous than working in a law office, but it’s not even in the top 10 most dangerous professions in the US:
http://newsfeed.time.com/2014/01/15/these-are-the-top-10-most-dangerous-jobs-in-the-u-s/
So next time someone thinks we should thank police for risking their lives to keep the streets safe, maybe we should thank the logger for providing a sturdy roof over our head, our trash collectors for keeping the city clean, or power line workers for keeping the lights on before we even think about worshiping the police.
We had a courteous, respectful deputy and one day I got brave enough to ask him if they hire bullies and he said no, they train them.
In the ’90’s we were stopped at 10 in the morning at a drunk driving stop and the policeman talked to us in the most arrogant, hateful voice until he say the voice activated recorder on the dash and then hes voice changed in mid word.
Public servants–what a sick joke!
Great post Bob. Also note that Gene Callahan looks completely at statistics on how many shots were fired in order to determine if police in Germany use excessive violence. ( “Once again, assertions that excessive police violence is is merely “the essence of the state,” as one poster fatuously put it recently, is a falsehood designed to promote a political agenda: police forces all over the developed world are enormously less violent than the American police. For instance, in 2011, all of the police from the entire nation of Germany, policing 80 million people, only fired 85 bullets while policing.”) This is extremely misleading; people can use excessive violence without shooting people. Actual research shows that police in Germany actually do use excessive violence in various cases (http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/report/germany-must-investigate-police-abuse-claims-2010-07-08). Furthermore, even if they didn’t use excessive violence to capture them, they do put them in a situation of excessive violence afterward. The prison system in Germany is a mess (http://www.dw.de/study-violence-is-common-in-german-prisons/a-16178415).
Also, accusing people of just trying to promote a political agenda with this isn’t particularly nice, and could easily be flipped around. I could just as easily say that Gene Callahan is “fatuously” promoting his “political agenda” with “falsehoods”; but I don’t think that’s true, regardless of whether he is right or wrong on this.
In Australia the preferred methodology is for a bunch of cops to all jump on top and one of them grinds the victim’s face into the pavement a bit. If the victim attempts to use his/her hands to protect their face they get a “resisting arrest” charge. It works even better if there happens to be some steel grating on the footpath like a cover for a utility pit or something like that.
Sounds bad perhaps, but in the USA they shoot you full of holes (very rarely do they shoot just once), and I think, all things considered, the US is worse.
Sadly, Mr. Callahan has demonstrated his value by not only deleting any comment I make on his blog questioning his conclusions, but also calling me a “troll” for doing so _and_ making up straw-men to slay which have nothing to do with my questions yet are supposedly what I “meant” to say.
[Edited by RPM.]
Bob,s bigger point is right. I pointed this out on Gene’s blog: the blue wall means little accountability.
Usually when you have bad apples, it’s prudent to make apple sauce. Eating a bad apple in its original form may taste horrible, but when you grind it up and add sugar and cinnamon, it usually turns out quite tasty.
Bachelor frog says each day past expiry date can be solved by 20 extra seconds in the microwave.
As someone who works in the criminal justice system I can tell you it’s not just a few bad apples. It’s in every department, not every officer but a large enough percentage to be a real problem. And not having any accountability is the main issue. Not only internally but there are no checks from the court system. If a cop says it, it must be true. Chew on that.
“In contrast, police who are still on the job almost never come forward and say one of their colleagues was in the wrong.”
but, they also dont do the opposite right? they also don’t say colleagues are right, generally speaking.
isn’t this “silence” a characteristic of a professional fighting/peacekeeping/policing force?
the issue of rightness or wrongness is not theirs to pontificate on. its for civilians, right?
You should check out the policeone site. They definitely say their colleagues are right, generally speaking.
For example, http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/07/cops-react-to-the-death-of-eric-garner.html
http://reason.com/blog/2014/08/21/san-diego-pd-says-cop-camera-footage-not
Like they tell us all the time, if you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to worry about.
Statistics are clear that the occupation of cop is not even close to the most dangerous occupation
“If Gene’s buddy is indeed a cop in a major city, he is probably personally aware of several officers taking money from drug dealers, or at the very least can make very educated guesses.”
So? I would rather have cops be on the take and turn a blind eye to drug use than busting people for what is a voluntary transaction. Is it a bad thing when we don’t put people in jail for what are victimless crimes?
For example, if a historian is accused of plagiarism, it won’t be hard for CNN to line up other historians to defend or “convict” the accused.
CNN has no trouble lining up historians to defend academic misconduct of historians who are on their side of the political spectrum and did what they did to promote a message that CNN liked. Note that there are court historians who stick together and tell the same narrative to promote the message that the state likes to send. But these same people would ignore or attack someone who can justify a conclusion with original material if the message did not agree with the state position.
There’s a reason people coined the term “Blue Wall of Silence.”
I am sure that Walter Block or Jeff Riggenbach can give you plenty of examples where historians do the same thing.
“So? I would rather have cops be on the take and turn a blind eye to drug use than busting people for what is a voluntary transaction.”
Contrast this to the idea of a politician accepting money from a corporate firm in exchange for supporting legislation to deregulate an industry. Just because you like the outcome does not mean that a travesty has not occurred.
Vangel, my goodness you really like to argue don’t you? I’m not saying I would rather a cop put a guy in jail for selling drugs, versus taking a bribe to look the other way.
But Gene specifically said his buddy “wants dirty and violent cops punished.” Now does that mean a cop has to be BOTH dirty and violent to warrant punishment? I’m not sure, but “dirty cop” means someone taking money from lawbreakers.
So my point is, if this guy is a cop (and it sounds like he has some authority, with people under his command) in a big city, then he almost certainly knows the guys working on drug enforcement, their personalities, what kind of house they live in, etc. and can at least make educated guesses about who receives regular payoffs from big-time drug dealers. And by the way, I’m guessing further that these drug dealers don’t obey the NAP.
As others have stated the problem with police misconduct isn’t so much that it happens, but rather the fact that it usually goes unpunished by a corrupt system. The internet is chock full of incidents where police illegally assault or kill ordinary citizens under color of authority without any repercussions at all.
Anecdotally I can think of two outstanding examples resulting from the notorious Christopher Dorner manhunt. LAPD cops shot over one hundred rounds at two Hispanic ladies in a pickup truck who were delivering newspapers at 0 dark 30. Obviously the cops didn’t even bother to identify their target before unleashing a potentially deadly fusillade which fortunately only injured the innocent victims. What happened to the cops who committed this appalling act? NOTHING! They weren’t prosecuted by the D.A. and they were merely given a months paid vacation, then “retrained” and put back on the street by Charley “politically correct” Beck.
That same morning in neighboring Torrance, Ca. a Caucasian surfer driving to the beach in a pickup truck resembling Dorners was rammed by a Torrance PD patrol car and had a dozen or so shots fired at him though he didn’t even remotely resemble the suspect. Thankfully and not atypically, all of the shots missed and he was only injured by the ramming maneuver. What happened to those cops? NOTHING OF COURSE. No charges filed and no discipline from their department.
In American jurisprudence the concept of qualified immunity seems in practice to mean complete and total immunity for police. The lack of consequences is what is really galling, and those who can’t understand that have serious ethical issues.
It’s funny how Callahan’s article is a sweeping generalization against libertarians who seem to offend his sensibilities with sweeping generalizations against cops.
Lulz.
It is OK to say “libertarians” this, and “libertarians” that, but don’t you say “cops” are bad. He has a cop buddy.
Weren’t Goebbels and Hitler close friends?
NUMBER ONE: The policing issues we are dealing with these days have little or nothing to do with “police departments.”
Our rogue gov’t is drawing law enforcement into the police state mentality through a wide range of subtle &
not so subtle arrangements. Bullies are attracted to modern day law enforcement, because:
they are bullies
time has shown that bullies are given free range of behavior, no serious accountability for antisocial
actions, and protection from the system, when they are involved in an incident that gets public
attention.
bullies are being recruited for the job and honest folks with a conscience and a sense of duty, not
to the public but to The Constitution they took an oath to uphold and protect, are being
weeded out or turned away.
Bullies is what the ruling elite needs to operate a police state.
We are being incrementally conditioned for the declared implementation of martial law………..Right now, and
for some time in recent history, at least back to Sept. 2001, we have been living under a state of
undeclared martial law. (Eg. the TSA at airports.)
Secondly, re: the so called “good cops” & the blue wall of silence:
Silence implies consent.–Sir Thomas Moore
To permit is to participate.–David Daubenmire
:”Good” anybodies do the right thing: That includes honesty, integrity, conscience………and oftentimes guts.
Two suggestions I would make to those who see themselves as “good” cops:
Consider having for yourself mentors such as Serpico or Michael Ruppert
(If you can’t find the where-with-all to do the right thing, you don’t qualify as a good anything.)