It’s the system that needs fixing more than the police. It’s pretty easy to opine about how the police should get tough but when you are outnumbered by a lagered up crowd perhaps not so many would be that brave in their shoes … particularly as you won’t get the benefit of the doubt when the person you have hit claims unreasonable force. We all know how to do everyone else’s job better though don’t we!
I’ll declare an interest as my son is in the police. They aren’t perfect but they do a trying job in difficult conditions. If society wants them to be able to dole out a crack around the ear or act like Judge Dredd the law needs to change. I’m pretty sure that’s not what I want.
Ever had a conversation with your son about what he thinks needs to change for the force as a whole to be more effective? I know what my answer would be, stringent pshychological screening. It's my suspicion that a significant portion of the police join for either the power trip, the fat pension, or because it's slightly easier than the army - the ones that actually WANT to "protect and SERVE" the more vulnerable members of the community are in the minority.
When I was younger I thought about joining, having been a Guardian Angel on the London underground for a couple of years; then I had a run in myself with 2 officers who tried to have me prosecuted for carrying an offensive weapon with intent to harm, when all I had done was collect the knife from a friend that had sharpened it for fishing. They claimed I was going to attack people with it and had resisted arrest, all of which was untrue. Apparently to them simply having a knife like that was ample evidence of intent to harm, based on nothing other than thier own opinion, even after speaking to my friend whom had sharpened it - the Judge however actually paid attention to my friends testimony, my fishing licence etc etc and threw the case out.
It was at that point I decided the police are just as crooked as everyone else and I've never trusted them since - especially so now they have targets to reach of successful prosecutions etc etc.
It's a point of annoyance to me that there's no simple mechanism for the public to have the police prosecuted / fined / mark put on thier record for false arrest - yes there is one, but it's both expensive, HUGELY time consuming often taking YEARS, and it seems a lot of the time the police win anyway because Judges don't want to undermine the system.
It should be that if you get arrested and it goes to court and the case is dismissed outright because it's bullpinapple, it should go on thier records - get 5 of those and boom you're out, no pension no nothing.
They should be
forced to do thier due diligence to it's utmost, just like all the other professions that have a direct and serious, often longterm, impact on peoples lives, with a mentality of "if I've got this wrong I could ruin this persons life forever, so I need to make sure I'm right, not "maybe right" or "enough to get a successful prosecution right" but actually 100% right", however it seems like if a copper says "you did it" that's enough.
The people don't trust the police because too many by percentage are crooked and almost none of the good ones are doing anything to bring them in line for fear of repercussions themselves.
/rant
