lath comments on [Discussion] Why are cops such bastards?

[–] lath@lemmy.world 4 points 4 months ago (5 children)

Their job is to deal with criminals, to see crime, to find crime, to fill a quota of crime stopped.

But the thing is that crime can't be eradicated. As long as there are people who want to control, people who want to exploit loopholes around that which is controlled and people who just don't give a fuck, being a police officer is a thankless job and an unavoidable spiral towards falling into the worst this world has to offer.

Every bad thing you can think of, they have to deal with preventing it, seeing it happen or settling the aftermath. And it gets to them. It gets to everyone.

Like, every bad news we see here, reading or watching it from a screen, they deal with them every day, live. And you can see how much it affects people here, let alone those directly involved.

The life of a police officer is not a happy one. It's not a stable one. It's not a safe one. They live in (paranoid) fear that every criminal they meet might have a gun or a knife and will attack them. They see the results of every assault or accident and have to live through the powerlessness of being unable to change it. They are the poster child of what happens when you give a gun and a position of power to someone who's depressed or suffering PTSD.

The ugly truth is you don't want to be a police officer because it will absolutely fuck you up.

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[–] cassandrafatigue@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 4 months ago (4 children)

Ive dealt with worse shit than most cops.

Actually dealt with, not just murdered or kidnapped and drove away with the victims car still running. Zero resources zero infrastructural support. Nothing to do with why im such a bitch. Basically every time i leave the house i go at least one place cops are too scared to, and as an unarmed woman. Often without a phone.

People will always suck people will always function poorly people will never perfectly align. At least some of the time. Sure. Biology and autonomy can he messy.

It doesnt have to look like this be thought of like this or be handled like this. This is in the bottom few percent of ways to deal with this shit. Like concluding nothing will ever be perfectly clean at tge molecular level so we should just coat everything in a six inch thick layer of shit.

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[–] lath@lemmy.world 1 point 4 months ago (3 children)

That's the second part. How to avoid covering yourself in grime, to protect yourself. The police offers a ready-made group to give you comfort in your time of need. You're not like that. You're better! You're an officer of the law! You clean up the filth off the streets! You ought to be appreciated! Anyone who doesn't appreciate you, why, they must be dirty! Here, have a complementary doughnut, courtesy of our nameless sponsors. Don't ask, don't tell, yeah?

When in real need, we take the hand of anyone who offers help. Even if in better times, we'd realize it's full of shit.

Daily repetition is reinforcement. It increases belief and becomes a habit that eventually turns into the default.

When the bad stuff made by random people in similar ways is your daily life, you'll start asking yourself why and there's no guarantee you'll always come to the right conclusion. You distance yourself from what you perceive as bad and form a bias against it. They might not be as bad as you might think, but can you afford to take that chance? The answer isn't the same for everyone.

Life adapts to its environment. Those which don't, die off.

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