[lbo-talk] TLF's Iraq cure: hair of dog that bit you

[joanna]

In my experience with police, as a result of interacting with them as 
teachers when I was in cop shop... as a state park ranger, I found that 
they tended to separate the world into two camps: cops and not cops. The 
not cop camp was further divided into the rich (that you had to respect) 
and the poor (that you didn't) and minorities (that you could take out 
your fustration on). This was true for cops of all colors.

In term of temperament and world view, the highway patrol was best, the 
cops were middle, the narcs were the worst.

Joanna

Jordan Hayes wrote:


> Josh Narins writes:
>
>> A policeperson is trained to see citizens,
>> a soldier is trained to see threats.
>>
>> It's a totally different mindset.
>
>
> It's blurring all the time, though.  I blame a down-market in 
> 'community policing' and the drive for specialization: there are whole 
> organizations within (especially the bigger) police forces who never 
> speak to citizens as a regular part of their daily job.  The trend 
> started small in the 70s with the LAPD SWAT team and has filtered over 
> into many small-town forces as well: para-military in training, 
> weapons, and tactics.  9/11 has made this much, much worse.  "Task 
> force" groups who focus on one issue: drugs, gangs, terror, "crime" 
> ... They have different organizations, different budgets, and of 
> course, see little actual action, so they wind up 'pumped up' when 
> they actually interact with the citizenry.  Stuff like that has to 
> stop; departments say they need full-timers on the project to maintain 
> proficiency, but rotation through the whole force would be a) better 
> overall for raising awareness of all officers and b) lowering the 
> tempo of operations when they come up.
>
> /jordan
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