Your average "beat cop" in any major American city almost certainly tends
> to avoid conflict with her / his superiors - for reasons that should be too
> obvious to require recounting here - but also tends to seek it out when
> patrolling neighbourhoods that, according to the common wisdom, "require
> extra vigilance”.
You could stand a little less Marxist ideology and a little more street experience. What you say is sometimes true. It's also often untrue. In neighborhoods that, according to your wisdom, "require extra vigilance," cops are actually quite likely to excuse themselves from the scenes of minor crimes if reporting them will include a hassle. Anyone who lives there can tell you that.
Granted, Marx might not have written about that in the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts*, so I can hardly fault your ignorance of it. :-D
-- "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað."