The police bully to boost their egos

The argument

The police today are enforcers rather than the protectors they were in the past. Public trust and confidence in the police has been decreasing for over twenty years. We see evidence of police brutality and corruption on the news every day. The police have little accountability and protect each other when they do wrong. They are an officially sanctioned gang – no different from the ones they try to disband. It’s unsurprising that community-police relations are so poor when new officers spend twice as much time learning to shoot as they do how to actually do their jobs. A good police officer should only rarely have to use their gun. The police in America today seem to have forgotten this. The police in America do little other than collect their salary and drive around harassing and intimidating people. Stop-and-frisks are the norm in some urban areas, and the police have no qualms about exercising their ability to do so. They don’t care about protecting anyone or keeping the public safe; they’re more concerned with the number of arrests they’ve made, and if it’s enough for their boss. The police have no real role in America other than to be a vigilante unit. Fewer police officers doesn't equal more crime because police officers don’t do very much. The police face no penalties if they don’t do their job – protecting people. For example, several police officers who did not save children in a school shooting were not penalized for their inaction. The police are police in name only. They do what they want and receive all the glory, but never the criticism and punishment. The police’s role in America may be to police, but there aren’t many police officers who are currently doing that. Until that changes, the role of the police is that of uniformed bullies.

Context

With almost 1% of Americans in prison, we are at a critical juncture in terms of how to define our correctional system . Should it expand, remain as is, or be reformed? There are people on all sides of the debate, but reaching a consensus is important so as to implement cohesive, effective policy regarding prisons and the police.

Premises

Counter-arguments

The fact that we hear about police brutality on the news doesn’t mean it’s the norm. It’s just that the most heinous and egregious actions of the police are the only ones that make the news. No one ever mentions how many crimes they’ve solved or people they’ve helped. The police ought to be enforcers. Their job is to stop crime, which entails enforcing laws. The police don’t need to protect anyone from vandalism, but they do need to enforce its illegality by arresting graffiti artists. Furthermore, the police absolutely have to protect people. There was one court case where the judge decided that the officers shouldn’t be convicted of a crime because they did their best to manage a school shooting without getting themselves slaughtered. Despite the tragic story explained above, the police do a lot of policing in America. Maybe people would realize they weren’t bullies if they remembered they were people too. The police often bully because so many people are so openly hostile to them. They’re only bullies when people force them to be because sometimes bullying is necessary to maintain control of a situation and exercise their authority. However, this is not their primary role. Saying that bullying is their role is an overgeneralization.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The counter-argument on record identifies a selection effect: the incidents that reach the news are the most egregious, which tells us what is newsworthy rather than what is typical, and the routine work of investigation and assistance is not reported at all. [Rejecting P2] The training comparison is offered without a source, and it is not obvious what it would show even if accurate, since firearms instruction carries certification and liability requirements that classroom subjects do not. The counter also argues that enforcement is the role rather than a departure from it — stopping crime consists in enforcing laws. [Rejecting P3] The school-shooting example does not establish an absence of accountability so much as the state of the law: US courts have generally held that police owe no enforceable constitutional duty to protect particular individuals, which is a doctrine to be criticised rather than evidence about officers' motives. [Rejecting C] The argument's central move is also unsupported. Everything cited concerns conduct and performance, and the conclusion is about purpose — that officers act to boost their egos and that hurting people is their role. The counter, while conceding far more than most defences would, still makes the structural point that generalising from misconduct to institutional purpose is an overgeneralisation.