I came across this article earlier: Outrage after parking officer tickets people waiting at food bank in Allentown, Pa.
It wasn't a major story, nor did anyone get shot or beaten up by the police in this case, but it seems to illustrate one of the root problems in law enforcement: Inflexibility.
'We are the law. You have to respect the law.'
This is the root concept upon which all cops are trained, along with the notion that their authority must be respected no matter what. Moreover, if someone doesn't respect their authority to their satisfaction, they have to come down hard on that person. It's not something that can dismissed as "rogue cops" or "a few bad apples," since these officers are following one of the core, fundamental standards of law enforcement.
Another problem is not necessarily rooted in the police itself, but in the way many governments seemingly want to assign police officers the job of "revenuer" to enforce piddling violations for the sake of revenue enhancement. It's not so much about "respecting the law" as much as it's about governments using law enforcement for strictly financial reasons, mainly because of revenue shortfalls because they're too afraid to raise taxes in other areas. Most of the brutal and/or deadly incidents were caused by police officers attempting a "routine traffic stop" or otherwise attempting to enforce some meaningless, victimless, piddly violation solely designed for revenue enhancement.
Of course, when it's brought to the public's attention, then they do damage control. Even they know "it's not defensible" and waived the fines, the fact that they did it in the first place was the problem. There also appears to be a wanton failure of the government to not have a better-designed street and parking system so that there's enough parking so that no one has to "park illegally" just to conduct business.
It wasn't a major story, nor did anyone get shot or beaten up by the police in this case, but it seems to illustrate one of the root problems in law enforcement: Inflexibility.
'We are the law. You have to respect the law.'
This is the root concept upon which all cops are trained, along with the notion that their authority must be respected no matter what. Moreover, if someone doesn't respect their authority to their satisfaction, they have to come down hard on that person. It's not something that can dismissed as "rogue cops" or "a few bad apples," since these officers are following one of the core, fundamental standards of law enforcement.
Another problem is not necessarily rooted in the police itself, but in the way many governments seemingly want to assign police officers the job of "revenuer" to enforce piddling violations for the sake of revenue enhancement. It's not so much about "respecting the law" as much as it's about governments using law enforcement for strictly financial reasons, mainly because of revenue shortfalls because they're too afraid to raise taxes in other areas. Most of the brutal and/or deadly incidents were caused by police officers attempting a "routine traffic stop" or otherwise attempting to enforce some meaningless, victimless, piddly violation solely designed for revenue enhancement.
Of course, when it's brought to the public's attention, then they do damage control. Even they know "it's not defensible" and waived the fines, the fact that they did it in the first place was the problem. There also appears to be a wanton failure of the government to not have a better-designed street and parking system so that there's enough parking so that no one has to "park illegally" just to conduct business.
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