Are police good for society?

gah wrong forum

That is shear nonsense. Can you imagine the anarchy that would prevail without a police force.

theres a difference between POLICE BEING GOOD FOR SOCIETY, and police keeping peace. you can have total peace but it doesnt mean that your people are happy.

As it stands, police are good for business, but i dont see how they are good for society. Nice try though. LOL anarchy without police, in reality, i bet if there werent police people would commit less crime, but that is speculation.( i know id rather have the police catch me, then have the owner of the car i was stealing catch me in the act, because he would probablly beat the **** out of me)

And nowhere in my post did i say anything about the absence of police...

:/ all i know is that i have a clean record, yet im harassed by police at least 2 times a month. There is never any charges, yet the same officers stop me time and time again.Never any tickets, and they say "jaywalking" everytime. Its like living in a ******* lockdown in my own neighbhorhood.

Winston Churchill once commented that democracy was the worst form of government--except for all of the others which had been tried.

The same view can be applied to the police. The police may not be a perfect solution to enforcing a social contract, but the alternatives without police are only and obviously going to be worse.

If the police are not performing up to the standard you expect, take public action to reform the police. Frankly, i believe you got stopped by the police, shot your mouth off, got in trouble because of it, and now you're pouting.

My whole life, I have been aware of police corruption. It's everywhere, it seems. I have witnessed much of it firsthand. I have witnessed an officer, unprovoked, smash a prisoner in the temple with his fist, among other transgressions (We were together, getting booked; he for public drunkenness, or something, me for hitch hiking too near a freeway). The guy had been a wise ass earlier, but for at least ten minutes was simply standing there, with his hands at his sides.

Funny thing, not once has any officer been out of line in his/her treatment concerning me. I have recieved deserved tickets from good humored officers a few times, who actually left me grinning when they drove away. I've seen their patrols in action, checking out my property, during work hours and at night. As setanta says, they are about the only viable option we have, and it is up to us all to help keep the police as corruption free as we can.

lol. i said no tickets were issued. if u dont get the point of my post it is that they CONSTANTLY STOP ME FOR NO REASON!

Your assumption is rather, ignorant.

I should shoot my mouth off, but do you know what would happen if i did?
hospitalization, being shot, or trumped up charges and jailtime. One time i asked why i was being stopped and they immediately became aggressive, and even abusive. Do you know what its like being shoved around by a police officer, and knowing they could beat you down without reprecussion?

At first i was ok with it, i thought they were trying to get drugs off the street. Then i soon realised they just want to write as many tickets as possible. regardless of whether or not the crime is insignificant. And when a gang unit comes through our neighbhorhood and forces everyone to have their tattoos photographed THERE IS SOMETHING VERY VERY VERY WRONG!

But, it is my fault for living in a ghetto.I should have realised that it made me an instant criminal.

When I got arrested in the bus station for no apparent reason in Chicago in the 80's, thrown in jail overnight and then got released the next morning with 200 dollars in traveler's checks missing when my belongings were returned, if you'd asked me if cops are good for society I'd have said no.

When I lost my rental car in San Antonio 5 years ago (I simply forgot exactly where I'd parked it - it was not my best moment, and I wasn't drunk, or anything ), and a cop rode me around for a half hour searching for it, if you'd asked me then I would have said yes.

There are good cops and bad cops. And every situation is different.

Your use of punctuation is rather, stupid.



Yes, i do, given that in 1970, i was beaten by four San Antonio police officers. They carefully removed my glasses, and then they beat me into unconsciousness, just as carefully, leaving the right side of my face a livid black and purple, while making not a single mark on the left side of my face. I have no doubt that they had done this carefully, and for their own entertainment.

If anyone here is displaying ignorance, it is you. As both Snood and EB point out, there are good cops and there are bad cops. If you have a beef with the police, there are organizations to which you can complain. If there are none in your area, you can agitate with politicians to get such an organization created.

You'd be up the sh*t creek with no paddle if the police suddenly disappeared.

snood, you were obviously arrested for "malicious blackness" However, Thats less of a class 1 felony nowadays but it used to be a serious crime. When I was a kid, a black buddy of mine was on the swim team with me and we were both sprinters. He rode with me on the way to a meet with Lehigh , I was stopped and given all kinds of **** for not having a current license sticker(it was in my glove box). My friend made a snappy remark and was immediATELY SWARMED ON BY 3 COPS and was roughed up and almost beat up . He was taken away and I was told to get out and dont get involved with a police matter. We hadda bail him out so he could make the swim meet. My uncle was a judge and used his considerable clout to quash any charges. This was in Allentown Pa.

You live in a shithole apparently and are surprised that you sometimes step in **** even when you aren't intending it.

You always have the choice to grow up and see those boys in blue as individual people.

That can't happen if you are thinking of yourself as a victim. And that victim mentality en masse, that is where crime and cops breed and feed. It's sure as the sun rises.

Being a cop is not an easy job. It's a **** job for **** pay. Without the power trips and perks, there isn't a whole lot it has on offer!

Consider that the next time you meet an even semi-decent cop. Treat them accordingly.

Myself, I hate that there are cops, but they exist for a reason. And that reason is a good one.
I hate that there are convienience clerks too- another shitty job, but they exist for a reason.
They are a part of society, not an oppressive force 'out there'.

The less of them, the better, but that is only possible when people take care of their own. People are pretty poor at that generally.

I don't hate convienience clerks for doing a crappy job, so why would I hate cops. See what I'm saying. Once you talk to them as people, it is a matter of that one person and their quality. Not whether clerks/cops are good for society or not.

eh?

19 officers earned over $200,000 in '04

By Suzanne Smalley, Globe Staff | March 12, 2005

Nineteen Boston police officers made more than $200,000 in 2004, earning amounts far beyond their base salaries by working overtime or private-detail shifts, according to city payroll records and city officials.

The records, obtained by the Globe through state open-records laws, show that 143 officers made more than $160,000, exceeding the $136,615 salary Police Commissioner Kathleen M. O'Toole collected during the same period. Mayor Thomas M. Menino made $152,885.

The officer salaries dwarfed figures in 2003, when only two officers made more than $200,000 and 22 made more than $160,000. Police officials said the sharp increases are the result of the major overtime requirements of the Democratic National Convention and the Red Sox postseason. In addition, officers received retroactive payments after unions, including the Boston Police Patrolmen's Association and the Boston Police Superior Officers Federation, finalized new contracts this summer.

''Public safety is number one," said police Sergeant Thomas Sexton. ''As a result, overtime is incurred, and officers are deployed to ensure public safety at all special events."

Big events notwithstanding, critics said the numbers are a warning that Police Department spending on overtime is too high.

Samuel Tyler -- president of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, a business-funded watchdog group -- called the numbers troubling and said that the city will have to find ways to cut costs in the future. Tyler said that since officer pay increased with new contracts, the department must be more vigilant about managing expensive overtime and sick time. In contract arbitration, the patrolmen's union won a 14.5 percent pay raise over four years.

''I think it is a factor of collective bargaining," Tyler said. ''It certainly has made the cost of providing services, particularly police services, much more expensive. That has to be taken into consideration when we have these discussions about manpower being less than it was 10 years ago. Well, 10 years ago it didn't cost nearly so much for an officer."

O'Toole and police union officials declined to comment. Councilor at Large Maura Hennigan, who this week launched her campaign to unseat Menino, said that she considers the money spent on overtime in the Police Department to be ''out of control."

''We need to increase the number of uniformed police officers within the BPD," Hennigan said. ''We are paying exorbitant amounts of overtime. It's expensive for the taxpayers, but it also begs the question: Are the police going to be able to do their job? They're going to be tired."

The current base pay for first-year police officers is $46,615 for patrolmen; $72,876 for sergeants; $84,829 for lieutenants; and $98,719 for captains.

Salary figures for deputy superintendents and superintendents are determined on an individual basis.

Officers can supplement their base salaries by working paid details at construction sites or for other contractors. High-earners also tend to work large amounts of overtime. Including overtime and private details, police officers are allowed to work 16 hours a day, 96 hours a week, and 320 hours a month.

The Police Department spent millions on overtime in single weeks last year. In early August, not long after the Democratic National Convention ended, the department paid $4.55 million in overtime. Officials said much of that money was for overtime for officers to cover for co-workers on summer vacation. During the last week in August, when officers flooded the streets after a surge in violent crime, $1.8 million in overtime was paid.

O'Toole has pledged to hire 90 additional officers this year. But Tyler said the newly released earnings numbers make it clear that Menino will need to consider alternatives to hiring more officers.

He said Boston has traditionally paid its police officers more than most other departments around the country.

According to an independent budget commission, the average salary for a patrolman in New York is $66,000. The average Boston police officer earns $83,700.

Tyler said he hopes officials will consider hiring more civilians in areas where police officers are not needed, though he acknowledged the clout of the police unions here may make it difficult to eliminate jobs and some of the perks Boston officers enjoy, such as the paid detail system, which exists almost nowhere else in the country.

''The police unions are much stronger in this area than they are in much of the rest of the country," Tyler said. ''That has allowed them to benefit by these generous contracts. ''

A study published in November by the Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University said that taxpayers and businesses could have saved $37 million to $67 million if companies and government agencies were allowed to hire civilian flaggers to direct traffic at construction sites.

The study also concluded that even though Massachusetts is the only state where police officers routinely direct traffic, the state had the highest rate of accidents causing property damage and the second highest rate causing bodily injury between 1998 and 2000.

Those are dam good salaries. There's nothing shity about them, thanks to the UNION...

I edited this post, because I had originally disagreed with Miller, but after research found that around $46,000 is actually the national average for patrolmen. Not as bad as I thought.

I dunno. I live in a fairly affluent neighbourhood where the median age is 53 and the average house price is about $3M. They are doing construction on our roads for the g-d olympics and there are signs that say Construction, Slow to 50... Well, we all slow to 50 kmh (or 60, close enough), but I got stopped one Sunday morning at 6:00 a.m. when there was NO sign of any workers, much less work, and no danger to anyone. Yes I got a ticket and Yes I was peeved. I was going 70... it is normally a 90 kmh zone (except for the construction)... wtf??? Come on, buddy! Not a bloody soul is out here and I get a ticket for going what I think is a sedate pace on a blinking highway? That's what's called a cheap ticket.

On the other hand, I have had several good encounters with the police. Overall I think they are a little rigid in some things, but are extremely helpful in others.

For the Boston Police Department:

Honestly i could care less what you think of my "punctuation"

True, there are good police and bad police, but in my opinion all police are breaking laws, which makes them more criminals than anything (to me ,(we all have our opinions) But i am from las vegas, one of the most corrupt cities in america, haha.

Maybe i just need to quit bein broke and buy a house in the rich side LOL!

Yes but clerks dont force their wills onto other people for the sick pleasure of being dominant. A smart mouth isnt the same as a severe beating, and if a clerk gives u a beating i dont know what to say :X

The police have almost always targeted certain people to get rough with. An unfortunate fact of life. It is hard for a poor person to fight these things, for obvious reasons. I sympathize with what you have been telling us, ogionic, but still, there has to be police. I don't think anyone fights the corruption hard enough, but it occasionally happens.

its all good. i guess i cant hate them for being stupid, ignorant and unable to think for themselves.

all i can do is hope that america doesnt turn into a straight up dictatorship

"( i know id rather have the police catch me, then have the owner of the car i was stealing catch me in the act, because he would probablly beat the **** out of me) "

Yeah especially if the owner is a 95 year old women.

Yeah nice try though.

I can understand your thought process though - I don't think it is the police in general though that is the problem - perhaps it is how they are policing your area that is more the issue? I can fully understand how it could be an issue - people in the neighborhood will then resent the police, not trust them if they for no reason are stopping people because of jaywalking?

Some police are just a$$holes like any other profession. I had one incident where a policeman was an a$$hole. I was very young in my early 20s; from all appearances I am conservative petite - not much of a threat. I recently moved into this small town and was coming back to my apartment after visiting a friend. I was at a light when I thought the light had changed to green (it happened to be a delayed red on my side, but when I saw the traffic move opposite me, I assumed mine had changed as well). When I pulled into my parking spot - less than a block from this intersection, a police car pulled behind me. He came over and said apparently you didn't realize the light was a delayed red. I answered no I did not. I took out my registration and license and handed to him. Both had a different address as I was recently out of college and moved from one address to another (though I had updated both in through the systems as required). He started being rude and accusing - how many times have you moved? Why? Stuff that didn't even matter - I explained to him and of course because of my age, I was nervous and scared - he came across very aggressive, rude and intimidating (like you needed to act that way with a young naïve girl about half his size and weight). He did give me a ticket and I paid it. Had I been a bit older and more confident, I would have filed a complaint about his behavior.

With even incidents like this, I realize there are also many police officers who are kind and responsible. I have had a situation where I was threatened and thank goodness for them in that case.

My question is - have you filed a complaint? Maybe you can reduce this sort of thing from happening where you are - if people start filing complaints.