This is exactly why I wish we'd just hire more police so the existing ones can spend a shift a week doing positive community work.

Helping folks, getting to know the 'normal' folks. This is when I get to the problem: I don't know what exactly I'd ask them to do, but it would be things like: Free (or very low cost) 2-hour windows of child care on the weekends to give parents a stress break, delivering hot food to elderly folks, helping some folks with lawn care or organize to repair some houses (at little to no cost to the dweller). Actual community improvements.

What is more common is to have well-advertised PR events and regulations that they live in the area. Simply living in the area without being exposed to the positive sides is not enough in my opinion.

In some areas (like Sunnyvale CA) you become an Emergency Responder and can alternate from police work to fireman (or EMT) every few years. I heard it described (by someone who was a policeman at the time) as going from hero to villain and back.

http://sunnyvale.ca.gov/Departments/PublicSafety/Recruiting....

I agree. I think it helps them see the people they "serve and protect" as better humans, and themselves as something other than the most righteous thug.

I think that is a wonderful program.

I don't feel that the second paragraph is realistic. But where to start in explaining why?

Cop life is so complex that a weekly home economics shift isn't going to repair relationships, normalize psyches or adjust attitudes.

There's a depth of behavioral psychology to this problem that extends well beyond imagining a one-size-fits all therapy plan.

This can't be approached from the perspective of an outsider's view of what plays well to the public concept of what ordinary people imagine about police.

In theory, police officers (and similar professions, also military) have various privileges, like early retirement and some other benefits (depending on the country).

I'm not sure if there even was a time where these things were enough, but right now they certainly don't outweigh the psychological devastation which almost inevitably follows being on duty for a couple of years.

I don't know the reasons but I'm sure there are many, ranging from cultural shifts in society to particular regulations they use to operate.

Still, the fact remains that the job is nowadays really bad. It's hard for people who never experienced it to understand how bad it is. An analogy which often speaks to programmers is: imagine the worst case of big corporation you can, stuffed with dick-head managers, full of pointless activities which obviously contradict each other, and so on. Now imagine every single manager above you can put you in jail for almost anything - but doesn't have to, if they don't feel like it - and that you are one weird rumor away from being fired (or worse). And that's on top of actual job being shitty, tedious, sometimes pointless, always psychically and emotionally draining.

All this is to say that I agree that "one day a week of social positive work" wouldn't help very much.

As a cure it might not work —existing cops are already biased by their experience. As a vaccine however, it may have a bigger impact.

The bigger problem is to figure out whether the extra expenses are worth it.

It's complex enough that the etiology might well be rooted in our entire culture. There are movements of people trying to approach the problem at that level. Their goal is to destigmatize pain, attack anti-pessimism, etc.

This sounds fascinating but I have no idea what it means. Could you point me someplace where I could learn more about it?

That's a pretty good idea IMO. Give cops the same as Google's 20% time, to help with things that bug them (which probably also help the communities they're serving in).

Many do. That's why you have organizations like PAL where police do just this.

You don't know? Here are some easy to implement ideas:

http://www.positivetickets.com/

In the 70s when police officers carried a baton and a revolver you'd encounter a lot more talk, diplomacy and second chances. In the age of terrorism and tazers that has become rarer in my experience.

Police officers need to have an 'edge' that is missing in normal people. Normalizing their experience with people and re-humanizing them isn't the best idea for their career and longevity in this day and age. Let them burn out in peace or find a way to cope with their distance from people (usually alcohol, seen that a lot).

I think this hits one something as well. I moved to Norway a few years back - and while the police have access to guns, they don't generally carry them. The public doesn't seem to want it for the most part.

The effect is the one you noticed in the 70s. From a normal citizen's perspective, the fear factor isn't there. You are generally OK so long as you cooporate, even if you tell the police to fuck off while still doing what they say. Some of this is culture: For instance, someone with a bow and quiver on their back walking through the summer palace that is here in town doesn't get harassed. There are fewer guns on the people.

I'm not sure about your outlook, however. I think they need the humanity to be able to treat people well. After all, normal people are the very people that become cops: That "edge" is a learned thing - just like it is in the military. Minimally, I'd go with a few years of training being mandatory before stepping out and becoming a rookie. Things like conflict resolution, dealing with the mentally ill, and interpersonal relations.

Edit: Oh, and stress. I'd include classes on dealing with stress in the training.

Your suggestions are ideal in terms of training and compatibility with society. I just don't think that they are practical (in the US) right now.

The dysfunctional approach between police and citizens seems to be more manageable and cheaper and makes candidates more numerous. My cynicism is showing though.

That was dependent on who you were and the location. A long haired hippy was not getting many second chances in the south. Watch the movie Easy Rider as an example.

I don't need to watch a propaganda film to remember how it was. I was there. How old are you?

I would dare say nothing of worth being done stop child abuse anywhere in world would compounds the effect of being exposed.

Child advocacy groups are exasperated. The tactics that have been shown to actually help kids aren't sexy enough for law enforcement or politicians. Busting actual abusers is one bust, and its almost always of a parent or other close relative of the victim. Whereas they can get dozens of people trading pictures online in one fell swoop, and the public tends to treat that as just as useful, but research shows it just isn't. Those people aren't the ones abusing kids in the vast majority of cases.

To stop child abuse, the most effective tactics are education and empowerment. Educating kids about the realistic dangers is uncomfortable and decidedly not something people are comfortable with. And empowerment - telling them that their body is their own property and no one, not even their parents, has the right to make them do anything they don't want to - goes against the narrative people want to believe about children being incapable of making those decisions (as if they're difficult).

To stop abuse, you have to realize what abuse is happening. And its abuse by parents first and foremost. A close second is close family members and family friends. Strangers simply aren't the problem. They're a statistical anomaly that is certainly a problem, but one that education does away with quickly and easily. That leaves kids who are afraid of seeing their family destroyed and potentially being tossed into the foster care system. Kids need to know that they will be taken care of, and to be made confident and competent enough to stand up and call out abuse when it happens. It's depressing, slow, intensive work. And law enforcement and politicians are instead too easily convinced to abandon it entirely and just go for the quick busts of extremely dubious benefit to kids.

Education and empowerment would be great, but why should cops be doing it? If DARE has taught us anything, it's that cops are really bad at education. Also it's a fairly privileged point of view that assumes any particular child would want to talk to police about anything. This seems more like a job for teachers and child advocates.

That is, if they can get past the PC "parents first and foremost" BS. First and foremost is stepparents and mom's boyfriends. Actual parents are a distant second, and even then is often a case of "divorced dad lost all custody rights so resorted to kidnapping in order to see children". Concentrating on the wrong thing is just as bad for advocates as it is for police.

You mention children fearing the foster system. I don't think awful foster stories are being traded at kindergarten recess, but it's true that foster care should only be contemplated in the most extreme circumstances. If child advocates are advocating for just turning up the knob on enforcement, and destroying families for such flimsy causes as corporal punishment or parental marijuana enjoyment, they're abandoning that requirement of extremity. In that case, I wonder for whom they're actually advocating, because it sure as hell ain't the children.

> And empowerment - telling them that their body is their own property and no one, not even their parents, has the right to make them do anything they don't want to - goes against the narrative people want to believe about children being incapable of making those decisions (as if they're difficult).

Not only does it go against the "comfortable narrative", it goes against the law. Children are systematically disempowered (often for their own good) until they reach arbitrary magical ages. Minimum driving age, Minimum drinking age, Age of consent, Compulsory school attendance, etc, etc. The idea that children have little agency and few rights is enshrined in law, so it's no wonder they feel powerless when they're abused.

There's a much bigger picture than this. It comes down to governments, media, community leaders, families and individuals. There's a huge problem with apathy toward abuse and it's all around us.

As a case on point, I am extremely disturbed by the way media and governments handle issues like domestic violence. 1800 respect (a government department in Australia) tried to shift the blame onto young boys in a series of heavily promoted TV commercials without any opposition from the community. When a female is caught abusing a family member (child/husband), the media's excuses flow readily "she lost her job", "she was under stress at work". The imagery on TV rarely reflect abused children, despite this being exactly what's happening across the spectrum of society. The Australian Bureau of Statistics says that about 25-33% of domestic violence victims are male (I haven't seen figures for children, but it is likely to be heavily under reported). That's a huge percentage of people who receive little or no representation by all media outlets and the government, let alone charity groups (ie. indigenous people are rarely represented, males are never represented, children are rarely represented - see the imagery as it speaks volumes).

Imagine being a young boy whose mother either mentally or physically abuses you. You turn on the TV and you only see fully grown white women who are (supposedly) the only victims. Politicians (eg. A prominent Queensland politician who should have been dismissed and charged long ago) are legislating for gendered criminal laws because fully grown white women are (supposedly) the only victims and never (supposedly) perpetrators. The people on the TV say how bad males are. The government (1800 respect) saturates TV with domestic violence ads saying "it's a boy thing". You open the newspaper and read the same message almost every week.

Even charity groups chime in. Most charity groups (about 95% of the ones I surveyed, using a public list of every charity that deals with domestic violence) won't even show images of male victims or house male victims. Some charities (like mission Australia) even go as far as to say that "men deny domestic violence happens". Which men? Where? This is almost certainly a ruse to justify almost all of their focus being on fully grown white women (even when Mission Australia say that indigenous women are 24 times more likely to be abused, they still mostly picture _white_ women as victims).

If you really want to talk about abuse and attitudes toward abuse, the problem starts at the top. Governments are prejudiced. The media is morally bankrupt. When somebody knows the government will turn a blind eye and the media will hand out a blank cheque and the courts will say "oh poor woman, she's oppressed/distressed/lost her job", you've got a complete system that's ripe to openly support child abuse.

I find some observations quite fascinating. For example, Steve Altman (Mr Y Combinator) expressed outrage because Muslims can't get on a plane. However, I am yet to see him voice outrage about domestic violence and the appalling attitudes in most media that are open for anyone to see.

The problem doesn't start with parents (although parents contribute to the problem). It starts with apathy.

I'm not under the illusion that this problem of violence and abuse is limited to one gender as that's patently not true. We need society to accept that truth and stop making excuses.