Re:LAPD arrests man on suspicion of making deadly swatting c...
by dragonwriter on Saturday December 30, 2017 @10:02PM
(#16039108)
> Maybe less so today, when police work is an attractive option for violent people to let loose on civilians with legal sanction
Many of the early US “professional” forces were essentially violent ethnic gangs given official sanction to combat other violent ethnic gangs; the present violent condition is more a result of the fact that that culture had continued to shape US policing than some kind of recent deviation from historical police culture; it's more visible because of changes in media and some pro-transparency reforms, not because the actual behavior is worse.
If anything, the recent trend has been for many institutions to try to correct some of the long-standing cultural problems, but that's a long, slow process facing internal and external resistance.
Many of the early US “professional” forces were essentially violent ethnic gangs given official sanction to combat other violent ethnic gangs; the present violent condition is more a result of the fact that that culture had continued to shape US policing than some kind of recent deviation from historical police culture; it's more visible because of changes in media and some pro-transparency reforms, not because the actual behavior is worse.
If anything, the recent trend has been for many institutions to try to correct some of the long-standing cultural problems, but that's a long, slow process facing internal and external resistance.