Anil DashJan 30, 2023
One thing to understand about police "reform" is that, if you have to teach someone that it's wrong to brutally beat an innocent person to death, you _can't_ actually teach them that it's wrong to brutally beat an innocent person to death.
Show threadLizard

@anildash To add to this correct statement, IMO, it starts because police culture *first* teaches that it's *right* to beat someone to death. That lesson is taught implicitly, and no one explicitly tries to counter it, for the reason you mention: We (society) assume it's not something we need to teach a putatively sane adult.

So Joe Cop joins up, and he learns from his fellow officers you gotta be tough to deal with the scum, it's kill or be killed, and no one's gonna care if you rough some guy up, thin blue line, means justify the ends, and there's no effort spent training recruits against that culture.
/1

Jan 31, 2023 at 1:32pmWeb
Show threadLizardJan 31, 2023

@anildash /2
Suppose that instead of training starting with "Here's how you take down a man with a gun", it started with "Here's how you *talk* down a man with a gun." If de-escalation, conflict avoidance, and respect for human rights was the primary focus, and the use of force was taught as a failure mode, a sign maybe you're not cut out for being a cop, maybe, just maybe, there'd be a cultural shift.

But doing that is only possible if the existing personnel weren't already in place to undermine it. Cultural change is *hard*, in any institution, and there's few institutions that can just dissolve and re-form. Not only is the preservation of institutional knowledge essential, such 're-formed' groups typically attract the same people.

Show threadLizardJan 31, 2023
@anildash "means justify the ends" was a typo... but thinking about it, I think I'm gonna leave it in, despite having the blessed ability to *edit* here. I think my error was, in fact, a truth in disguise when it comes to the kind of mental processes we're discussing.
Show threadJoan of Cat (she/her) 😼Jan 31, 2023

@LizardSF @anildash

We could almost sum up your entire argument with "imagine if we could be kind to one another," and I'm like, damn.

I really, really wish that. 😿