COPS
Cops are certainly in the news these days. From the highly publicized spate of police shootings of unarmed black men (not a new phenomenon, but now far more public because of private citizen videos) to the vicious attacks of sheriff deputies and police on peaceful Water Protectors at Standing Rock, cops are earning-or perhaps just polishing-a reputation of infamy.
Sworn to “serve and protect” the public, how is that the police regularly come into serious conflict with the very people who pay their salaries? Most cops come from working class backgrounds. And while their salaries on urban police forces may tag them as middle class, they are not perceived by society in that way, nor treated with that level of regard. Especially in urban locations, policing as an occupation has a strong intergenerational quality, where children of cops tend to become cops themselves, as do their own children. Within this dynamic the culture of the first working class family member to become a cop is passed down (along with the acquired police culture) to the next generation cop, and so on down the line, a tradition that they view with great pride. Fewer than one third of police personnel have an education beyond high school.
As in any occupation people choose to become cops for many different reasons. And as in any occupation some are good at what they do and others not so much. Police do not receive much training, that is true, but doctors and lawyers, for example, do yet that does not ensure they will not be incompetent, unethical or even criminal in the way they work. We have seen all of those on a regular basis. Some go into police work viewing it as a noble calling, doing good for society. Others because it is a job they can qualify for without a college education. Still others for darker reasons that they are likely to be unaware of based upon deficits in their personality, such as the appeal of power and of having authority over others that they would not be able to achieve in any other way.
The bottom line is that people are people. We all have baggage and we bring that with us wherever we go, whatever we do. We all also have strengths and positive qualities that we bring along as well. So as people cops are not that different from people working in other jobs-or from those they police. Given that, what is it that makes them appear to be so different? The answer is in the nature of the institution of policing.
In the US police work began as privately owned security services for business and industry. Remember the Pinkertons? Those notorious agents were used by industry against their own workers, in violent attacks against strikers seeking better pay and working conditions. Once policing became a function of government the tradition of the institution owing its first allegiance to business owners remained, covered only by the thin veneer of the protect and serve ruse. Whenever organized workers challenge a business via strikes or sustained demonstrations and whenever an organized public challenges business or government assertively over time, the police are deployed against the people. Try to think of a single instance of the police taking the side of the people in such a conflict. You cannot. It never happens. Those events strip away the veneer, exposing the true function of police as protectors of private wealth and property.
