jericks

I don’t believe ACAB. But I understand how anyone who has repeatedly witnessed or been victimized by the actions of corrupt cops would.

And let’s be clear: The “few bad apples” assessment is bullshit. The problem isn’t a handful of rogue individuals responsible for isolated incidents. The issues are institutional and systemic.

You take an average human being and place them into a fiercely loyal fellowship that has an us-verses-the-world mentality. You put those people in harm’s way and expose them to the worst of human behavior, then give them a combination of power and impunity no individual should possess. You bolster them with the nation’s strongest unions and the support of wide swaths of the population who have been programed to believe cops are demigods who can do no wrong. Sprinkle their ranks with some authoritarians and hotheads and chip-on-the-shoulder types.

Now what have you created? Who is that recruit now and what kind of officer are they? There is a word for groups that do to their members what the police community does: They’re called cults.

Perhaps one reason I hate the “bad apples” metaphor so much is that it’s backwards. The full proverb is: One bad apple spoils the barrel. When it comes to the police, I believe the barrel rots the apples.