Why can be done about police brutality and criminal misconduct? The murder of George Floyd was shocking and depraved. That other officers did not intervene is also indefensible. So also, is the behavior of officers who fired rubber bullets at peaceful law- abiding demonstrators including members of the press. The audacity of these officers is appalling.
Suppose a private citizen murdered another citizen in front of police officers. In the absence of collusion, wouldn’t the officers try to stop the murder and arrest the citizen? Suppose private citizens fired rubber bullets at citizens involved in a lawful protest or shot them at members of the press? Wouldn’t the officers arrest the private citizens for their criminal conduct.
What accounts for the daring of the officers who engage in criminal conduct? The fact is that the odds that these officers would be arrested by another police officer is quite small. As Ibrim X. Kindi wrote in The Atlantic in May, 2018 ”The National Institute of Ethics surveyed 3,714 officers and academic recruits from 42 states in 1999 and 2000. A no-snitching code of silence commonly exists, responded 79 percent of officers. More than half of the officers said this no-snitch code does not bother them. Nearly half of the officers reported witnessing misconduct and not reporting it. That’s probably because 73 percent of responding officers said they’d be fired if they snitched. And 73 percent of the officers said the individuals pressuring them to keep quiet were leaders.” https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/05/quis-custodiet-ipsos-custodes/560324/
Yes, social media has made criminal conduct by police officers more risky, but the no-snitching culture of police silence has to be frontally attacked. Criminal justice cannot be achieved when police officers participate in a culture making them complicit in criminal conduct.
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