As much as I would love to argue anyone who opposes my views of police corruption being a problem, there are not many, if any, that disagree with my opinion. Police corruption has been and will be a problem until a more organized as well as centralized system is set up in order to stop corruption altogether. Right now the majority of the control on corruption is police reporting other police. As much as I would like to believe a cop would turn in one of his own in order to up hold the law, that kind of thing does not always exist outside of mediocre movies. But who are we to blame them, would you report a man for stealing from a drug dealer if earlier that week that same man had saved your life? I know that it would be a tough decision for me to make. Policing is something that needs to be controlled by a system other than police themselves. However if there is a reader out there who would like to challenge my belief I would love to have a debate over this topic.
Okay i will be you opposistion. Haveing a centralized police agency is a terrible idea. It is like haveing the idea of having a strong centalized government. It would eventually gain too much power and be unstopable. With the police force in the country already gaing more power, why would we let them centralize themselves and give them more power? Centralizeing police agencies will not solve police corruption.
ReplyDeleteI have not investigated the idea of a centralized police agency although it really seems to reek of "1984" (Big Brother is watching!) ideals which is a very scary idea to contemplate. In my apparent naivety, I believed that the oath police officers take when they put on their badges for the first time holds them accountable (to themselves & to others) to uphold the law, no matter personal bias. Sadly, the level of police corruption you have informed us about in this blog proves me wrong. There needs to be some way that police can be "tattled" on by others without the recourse being profound so that corruption is stopped once & for all! Discussion anyone?
ReplyDelete@Smitty. Im sorry it has been so long since ive been on. I agree that a centralized power such as the one I suggested could lead to an abundance of power and control , but there are methods in which this can be prevented. Take our gov't for instance, it is in charge of making decisions for our entire country. That sounds like an incredible amount of power to me, however the system of checks and balances was instigated in order to stop one branch from gaining to much power. If there were to be a centralized agency it would obviously have it's own style of checks and balances to keep it from becoming an overpowerful entity. The U.S. military is a good example of how one such agency might work.
ReplyDelete@ Beth. As much as I would like such a system of "tattling" to work, I believe even such a sytem might render useless until an officers "morale blockade" of turning on his own is removed. In most cases officers won't turn on each other because in their mind they feel that its wrong to harm another "brother", rather then their own fear of social punishment.
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