a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  2842 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: 11 Police Officers shot at a peaceful protest in Dallas, 5 dead

The problem is we've created a siege mentality in Police culture, and that siege mentality causes a reciprocal siege mentality amongst the police. It does not encourage quality applicants to police forces and the antagonistic nature of the job drives the siege mentality ever farther until we end up in this vicious cycle where cops profile black men to death and black men avoid and/or antagonize cops on every possible level.

'member when the TSA first got started? It was full of every veteran grandfather with a desire to help his country. Then it got shittier and shittier and shittier until the employees at the TSA now are the thugs that lack the competence to do a real job but glory in the opportunity to inflict their will on people who can afford to travel.

I know a cop who legitimately protected her town from a crazed coworker who was involuntarily committed because he threatened to mow down the elementary school. She was fired, sued under whistleblower protection and won over a million dollars. And her facebook feed is full of cold dead fingers rhetoric because she honestly believes that people should have the right to shoot anyone who threatens them in the face at any time.

None of this is going to get better until we can get out of the bunker.





snoodog  ·  2841 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I though lack of quality applicants was a feature not a bug. Police departments are active discouraging smart conscious people from joining so that they can continue to be a band of thugs. The article you linked says the opposite but here is this from 2000 barring high IQ applicants from police is a thing in some areas.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836

The other big problem is

    Candidates must pass demanding physical and psychological tests, and they must have a drug-free history and pass a rigorous background check. Many departments administer polygraph tests.

Weed is so ubiquitous that most people have tried it at least once and that would disqualify you in many departments. So you end up self selecting for people that either are super sheltered or just lie well.

kleinbl00  ·  2841 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Not sure that "high IQ" necessarily equals "quality."

snoodog  ·  2841 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Maybe not but it it can't hurt