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Police Post Racist and Violent Messages on Facebook, a Review Shows

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Re: Police Post Racist and Violent Messages on Facebook, a Review Shows

#41

Post by malvosenior »

phxrsg wrote: post #36
malvosenior wrote: post #31

Having grown up in a poor community I got to know a lot of police officers and their children. Racism and thuggish behavior was definitely a huge problem. These posts sadly don't surprise me. That being said, Buzzfeed and their ilk routinely make excuses for people on the left posting the same type of racism and thugish messages. "Ironically" calling for old white men to be punished, routinely calling for violence ag…

I don't think its a hard distinction to make that the bar is higher when you are issued weapons and authority by the state. Leftist asshole talking about "old white men" online = bad Cop who has the power to use force against you or arrest you talking about how "thugs deserve slugs" = worse This isn't hard.

The media is extremely powerful and has amplifying effects on violence. Both they and the police are strong and dangerous.

Re: Police Post Racist and Violent Messages on Facebook, a Review Shows

#42

Post by squarefoot »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #17

Do we have evidence around whether this is a selection effect or a transformation effect? That is, do racist assholes disproportionately gravitate towards the police force? Or does the police force disproportionately turn ordinary people into racist assholes?

"do racist assholes disproportionately gravitate towards the police force?"

This one, probably, as usually racist+fascist assholes are the ones who dream of wearing an uniform and carry weapons so they can "feel the power" over other people. It's a selection problem, which I'm sure those responsible are very aware of and have no intention to change. A violent cop is a perfect weapon for corrupt governments and politicians: he does nasty things for you and when he retires he becomes part of your private "police" as eternal gratitude for having saved his ass multiple times for those nasty things. That is also very likely the reason why there are many accounts of cops abusing steroids (side effects very similar to cocaine) but so far it seems no serious investigation has been started.

Re: Police Post Racist and Violent Messages on Facebook, a Review Shows

#43

Post by 0815test »

throwaway1492 wrote: post #15
pizza wrote: post #8

> "Two studies have found that at least 40% of police officer families experience domestic violence, in contrast to 10% of families in the general population," the National Center for Women & Policing says. "A third study of older and more experienced officers found a rate of 24%, indicating that domestic violence is 2-4 times more common among police families than American families in general." http://womenandpolici…

Surely there's a segment of the population with similar personality traits predominant to police officers that don't become police officers. One would think they'd also have similar incident of domestic violence if this were a personality trait? Personally, I would have no interest in dealing with the horrible things people do to one another, on a regular basis, as part of my job. No thanks. Reading the news is bad e…

> Surely there's a segment of the population with similar personality traits predominant to police officers that don't become police officers. One would think they'd also have similar incident of domestic violence

Funny enough, casual criminals fit that picture quite well. That would explain why they are attracted to "the horrible things people do to one another, on a regular basis" - to a non-trivial extent, they share the character traits of the people who do these things in the first place.

Re: Police Post Racist and Violent Messages on Facebook, a Review Shows

#44

Post by JumpCrisscross »

squarefoot wrote: post #42
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #17

Do we have evidence around whether this is a selection effect or a transformation effect? That is, do racist assholes disproportionately gravitate towards the police force? Or does the police force disproportionately turn ordinary people into racist assholes?

"do racist assholes disproportionately gravitate towards the police force?" This one, probably, as usually racist+fascist assholes are the ones who dream of wearing an uniform and carry weapons so they can "feel the power" over other people. It's a selection problem, which I'm sure those responsible are very aware of and have no intention to change. A violent cop is a perfect weapon for corrupt governments and politi…

> It's a selection problem, which I'm sure those responsible are very aware of and have no intention to change

Do you have evidence for this?

Re: Police Post Racist and Violent Messages on Facebook, a Review Shows

#45

Post by threwnaboot7656 »

Now can you imagine what they say in perceived safe spaces, like WhatsApp or the local, cop-friendly dive bar?

I can, because I've been in their midst in both of these places and it's as bad, and likely worse, than you'd imagine. It's happened more times than I can count, but it still never ceases to amaze me what some of these people will say to someone who they don't know, but could pass for one of them.

Re: Police Post Racist and Violent Messages on Facebook, a Review Shows

#46

Post by cwyers »

dantheman0207 wrote: post #40
empath75 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The drug war is what ruined policing in this country. If a large part of what you do is brutally enforce laws against essentially harmless behavior disproportionately against minorities, you’re only going to get sociopaths and racists who want to do the work.

I highly recommend David Simon’s talks on policing (he is the creator of The Wire ). He talks at length about how the skill sets necessary to investigative work and community policing have largely been lost as a result of the focus on meeting drug war quotas.

Do you have any links?

Re: Police Post Racist and Violent Messages on Facebook, a Review Shows

#47

Post by ppseafield »

Etheryte wrote: post #23
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #17

Do we have evidence around whether this is a selection effect or a transformation effect? That is, do racist assholes disproportionately gravitate towards the police force? Or does the police force disproportionately turn ordinary people into racist assholes?

Alternatively, do heavily prejudiced people commonly not know how to operate social media privacy settings?

When you don't ever face consequences, why hide? It's just extra work. And then no consequences or even positive reinforcement from your Facebook friends validates them and makes folks even bolder.

Re: Police Post Racist and Violent Messages on Facebook, a Review Shows

#48

Post by projektfu »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #17

Do we have evidence around whether this is a selection effect or a transformation effect? That is, do racist assholes disproportionately gravitate towards the police force? Or does the police force disproportionately turn ordinary people into racist assholes?

I'm pretty sure both are going on. If someone joins a new group of friends who have strong opinions, they'll usually adopt those opinions, or at least act like they're normal and shouldn't be challenged. I think most officers start in the police in their early 20s and will be mentored by the older ones who will explain that their racist attitudes are what save their life, etc. Good questions for empirical study.

Re: Police Post Racist and Violent Messages on Facebook, a Review Shows

#49

Post by dmix »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #39
dmix wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's 120,000 law enforcement officers in the US. It'd be pretty easy to find 10-15 people blowing off steam and joking on FB about their jobs in ways non-officers may find offensive. Combined with a couple straight up racist ones. I wouldn't be surprised if you could find similar relative numbers in Canada and the UK. These individuals should be punished no doubt and likely will be as a result of this article.

> I wouldn't be surprised if you could find similar relative numbers in Canada and the UK I don’t have the source on hand. But the elevated rates of domestic violence (like 4x baseline) in policing households is unusually prominent in the United States.

I’m curious how that compares to other violent and dangerous jobs (ie, military, prison guards, etc) and other country’s law enforcement.

If the US or job is higher that could be a serious problem that they need to look into (if it isn’t already, which I doubt). There has to be more to this than the police are just over-selecting for evil people.

Although the US has to be one of the highest numbers of police dealing with people with weapons. I remember the WaPo database of police shootings showing that almost all of them (95%+ except one or two involved people with weapons). Adding all the people who didn’t get shot but still had a dangerous weapon, that can have some PTSD. Which famously rears its head in many unexpected self-destructive ways.

Re: Police Post Racist and Violent Messages on Facebook, a Review Shows

#50

Post by projektfu »

malvosenior wrote: post #31

Having grown up in a poor community I got to know a lot of police officers and their children. Racism and thuggish behavior was definitely a huge problem. These posts sadly don't surprise me. That being said, Buzzfeed and their ilk routinely make excuses for people on the left posting the same type of racism and thugish messages. "Ironically" calling for old white men to be punished, routinely calling for violence ag…

Classic whatabouttism. Does it really make you feel better to imagine two sides, one of which is "left", the other "right", and placing them on a balance? The two sides here are the police and civilians, not police and "leftists on the internet".
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