Castle Rock v. Gonzales for anyone curious about the SCOTUS opinion that says cops only have a duty to protect property.
And for those interested in is police really have to protect and serve, look up "Police duty to protect" online and feel free to start on the wiki. It's astonishing how little police actually have to do. As someone trying to become a cop, this is one of my biggest issues with the field outside of blatant racism.
I once asked an elementary teacher what was to stop cops from breaking the law whenever they wanted and she told me that any cop breaking the law would receive double the normal punishment. I nodded my head as that made complete, reasonable sense to me. Then, as an adult, I learned THAT ISNT TRUE AT ALL! Not only do cops NOT automatically receive double the punishment, but 99% of the time the entire system will rally around to protect them if they commit a crime.
Fucking baffling to me how the most armed country in the world doesnt train their officers.
German police tends to suck ass, but to become a policeman you have to study for 3 years. And you have to pass a lot of law exams.
Where I live, the police are lazy but they are more trustworthy and are more community-oriented, unlike the American police.
At first when I heard the ACAB slogan, I thought it was rather judgemental. All cops are bad? Then I learned that the American police are hired primarily on having low IQs and receive only few weeks of training. Now I understand why Americans hate them. Not all American cops are bad, but majority of them probably are. What can we expect from hiring low IQ folks with minimal training and arm them to the teeth? No wonder the American cops are memes themselves.
ACAB as an actual term is a bit more ideological in nature, specifically, in regards to the task the police actually do, which is primarily protect the state and private property, no matter whether it's good or bad.
If the state tells the police to disrupt a protest about climate change? Then that is their job, and if they don't do it, they're effectively not doing what they're supposed to.
You're a bit off in the ACAB definition. It's not that the state makes them do bad things (they do, but that's irrelevant). It's that all cops protect bad cops, making themselves bad cops as well. If a department has 30 cops, 3 are "bad" and 27 are "good," then the bad ones should be forced out. That doesn't actually happen though, so you have 30 bad cops.
This system is also heavily self reinforcing. If you add a 31st good cop that tries to do something about bad cops, they are either forced out or intimidated into compliance. That still leaves you with all bad cops.
At first when I heard the ACAB slogan, I thought it was rather judgemental. All cops are bad? Then I learned that the American police are hired primarily on having low IQs and receive only few weeks of training. Now I understand why Americans hate them. Not all American cops are bad, but majority of them probably are. What can we expect from hiring low IQ folks with minimal training and arm them to the teeth? No wonder the American cops are memes themselves.
And when they do get things wrong, they rarely get punished.
The slogan probably wouldn't be quite as prominent if the police that made mistakes like that were held accountable.
Police generally dont think the law should apply equally to themselves and civilians. That's most cops; a group within that thinks they should be able to create the law on-the-fly.
Should they go to school to be better at this? Irrelevant. They have a gun and the idealogical highground.
A friend of mine is a prison guard, in Norway, and from what I recall him telling me, a solid 6 months (out of 2 years) of the education he took to become a guard was spent studying law. It's probably more comprehensive if you want to become a police officer.
Yeah, it's always weird looking at all the ACAB messages when you live somewhere where cops actually have to have some form of education... It takes 3.5 years in school to become a cop around here and sure we still have issues with bad employees, but at the same level you would expect in any job...
If your police system prioritizes protecting its own over serving the public, and you choose to join it anyway, then you are a bastard, so in that sense ACAB is true. The problem is that a lot of people have started using it to claim that all police, everywhere, in every system are bastards, and that just undermines the whole movement and ensures that we'll never have progress.
Maybe the slogan shouldn't have been so idiotic and unnuanced. Americans seem particularly skilled at coming up with slogans that rile people up while being fundamentally shitty slogans.
Law Enforcement should be a profession, just like doctors and nurses.
Formal education. Licensing with a college whose role is to protect the public. Malpractice insurance. Requirements to remain current, and eligible to practice.
How would you feel about police making $200,000 {or more since they will need hazard pay} a year to drive around and or sit in a car. There is no way a city could afford to hire enough cops to patrol a city. Yes they should have to learn the laws they enforce and carry liability insurance but there is no way we should force them into doctor/nurse level education without equal pay.
Meh, where I live police are paid a little bit over the median wage, and they have to get a bachelor's degree (~3 years) in law enforcement before they can work as a police.
Why on earth would you assume 200k? I've seen a lot of misused rhetorical terms but this is a textbook strawman falicy.
Police officers make anywhere from 43k to 63k based on a quick Google, getting massive pay bumps as they are promoted up to over 100k for police chiefs, not to mention hazard pay and usually amazing benefits. Nurses make 56k to 88k, also generally with really good benefits and a lot of overtime. It would only be a 10-20k pay bump and I would love that if it meant fewer cops with much more professional training.
Yeah but for teachers it's not a problem for the sort of people who want that particular job to actually get it. For cops I'd rather the people who inherently want to be cops to be outcompeted by a larger applicant pool and have to get some other job.
In the civilized world cops get arrested when they kill civilians, they still kills civilians of course but at least they get arrested when they do it.
I wouldn't necessarily call it civilized world, but yeah for basically every country that belongs to the so called "1st world" except the US it is and it takes a few years to become a police officer.
You don't need to study to become a police officer in the US? OMFG! You have to study 1.5-2 years in the UK and then spend months in the field under supervision as an apprentice.
The duration of the training in the Police Academy varies for the different agencies. It usually takes about 13 to 19 weeks on average but can last up to six months.
I mean they're not wrong - I wouldn't expect every policeman out there to be Phoenix Wright, but at the very least they should actually have to learn the laws that they're supposed to be enforcing
Yeah, whenever I see videos where cops tell them that they are not cooperating when being silent after pleading the fifth, I get furious.
You are NOT compelled to answer any questions until a lawyer is present. Not answering questions does not and in no way constitute being uncooperative. Cooperative simply means following lawful orders, so even refusing to follow unlawful orders is not obstruction, uncooperative or whatever excuse they want to put on you.
Sadly, it's probably better to let the manchild have his power trip and complain about it afterwards. Prevents acute lead poisoning.
Why not? If you needed to pass the bar (or similar exam) and you had to complete police training we'd have to pay police a pretty good salary. They would be comparable with doctors in terms of qualifications and career investment.
Not to shit on my own profession (about this--there are plenty of other reasons for that), but lawyer education is nowhere near doctor education.
To paraphrase one of my professors, "Ever wonder why in the legal profession you can get a terminal degree after only three years without having to write a dissertation?" [Answer: It's because lawyers control their own profession, along with the government that controls how professions are regulated.]
On the OP, I don't think police should be required to pass the bar exam. The reason is that the bar exam, and by extension law school, covers much more material than police should ever realistically need to know, even being generous. Cops don't need to know which agents owe their principals fiduciary duties, for example. They don't need to be able to articulate contract remedies or determine when a party might have a prevailing argument against personal jurisdiction.
They should, however, have to pass a version of the UBE that covers criminal law and procedure in their jurisdiction, and they should have continuing education requirements. [And in many if not most or all US jurisdictions, they already do. --they do in mine, at least.] More importantly, they need to carry a bond.
In order for any of this to matter, however, first a court has to hold that the police owe a duty not only to the public at large but also directly to those in immediate need. In the US, the state of the law with respect to police and other state actors vis-a-vis victims of the torts and crimes of others is reprehensible. Take a look at Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales, 545 U.S. 748 (2005), DeShaney v. Winnebago County, 489 U.S. 189 (1989) ("Poor Joshua!"), and Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d. 1 (D.C. Ct. of Ap. 1981). And if you like podcasts, Radiolab has covered this.
In short, the police need to be bound by a legal duty to rescue, and members of the public need a private right of action against agencies (police and others, including agencies like DCS) to whom private remedies have been surrendered when those agencies fail to perform their duties as required. It would require an upending of the American "system" in favor of something closer to civil law jurisprudence (e.g., the European continent). And it's desperately needed and long overdue.
