Today’s strip is a continuation from Wednesday’s. Click the previous button to view it.
I figured we could play another Family Feud game today. One hundred people surveyed; give me a reason someone chooses to become a cop, a position where they will be given tremendous power over others with minimal consequences for their actions. I’ll start you off.
1) Picked on in high school.
2) Abusive parents.
3) Insecure about penis size/masculinity/sexuality.
4) Wants to help people… No, seriously! Sometimes it starts off that way!
i had a cousin once who was a born-loser type. unskilled, failed at a couple small businesses, then became a cop. always very nice to me but obviously a chip on his shoulder. oneday out of nowehre with no prompting, he says, “know what i like best about being a cop? i get to beat people’s asses and there’s nothing they can do about it”. i was dumbfounded by the candor and thought, finally, someone admits it. he ended up killing himself.
then years later, a really dear friend of mine, while we’re sitting around *smoking out*, in her little haze outs with, “so i’m thinking about maybe becoming a cop”, and i ’bout fainted. i’m like, “WHY?!?!”, and she’s like, “cuz i wanna HELP people”.. and mind you, one of our best friends had just gone to jail for selling a little weed. i mentioned this and she said yeah, but she could be easy on them or something, still help people overall, various rationalisations. i suggested she become a firefighter or paramedic if she wanted to help people in a way that doesn’t fuck them in the process. she said, “hmm, maybe” or something like that. but she was the antithesis of a power-craver. an artist type, made cool clothes and stuff. just plain sweet, and totally mellow. i totally didn’t see it coming, and still wonder what she did. i never hung with her again, it was too creepy. i just wasn’t comfortable with her in my home anymore, it felt like being friends with a surveillance camera.
i knew another one in Jersey, my landlord there, real sweet guy but kinda thuggy i could tell. like my cousin, he loved me so i was safe, but oneday he mentioned getting a good deal on some “hot” appliances for his building, totally casually like didn’t expect me to be shicked or anything, like la-de-da, and i thought, “ah, ok, this one did it for the power, not because he “loves the law” as many will claim.
another one for whom i was kind of a confidante said, “it’s just a job”. he’d been in the military and that’s the civilian gig for many of them. but he tipped his hand when talking about legally harrassing someone who’d filed a report on him once, saying, “i showed him not to mess with a Jersey State Trooper”. so it was more than just a job. he had low self esteem and liked hierarchies (was also into martial arts and earning higher and higher ranks and spoke glowingly of drill sergeants and gurus and “higher-ups” in general). he needed external approval, and derived his self-image from it – an image he was very protective of. he was forced to leave the force for bad vision, and is now a lost soul. no other job can give him that self-image. i know another cop who also fell into a deep depression when he was between gigs after moving once, even though he had offers for well-paying, non-cop jobs.
they’re a weird bunch alright, and the one thing they have in common is their lives really revolve around that job. it’s all they talk about, and they tend not to have friends outside the force. and how could they? how could anyone be friends with someone who’s sworn to bust anyone, even friends or family, if they disobey some arbitrary, majoritarian edict?
I can never look at a cop again … without seeing them through Dale’s eyes and pen. ack
> this one did it for the power, not because he “loves the law”
What’s the difference?
> I can never look at a cop again … without seeing them through Dale’s eyes and pen. ack
My plan is working!
Reason #5 – They don’t like criminals and want to lock them up (the real criminals, not the statutory ones).
That was the reason I was interested in Law Enforcement. They tell you in your CJ classes that when they ask you during your interview, the response you’re supposed to give is #4. I can count on one hand the people who would have said #4 honestly.
I once applied for police officer. I didn’t get the job, mind you. I was poor, unemployed, and >30k a year sounded really nice to somebody who’d never made enough to be legally obligated to file an income tax return due to income levels. I hated the idea of busting people for traffic infractions, detested the idea that I’d be pretty well required to bust on drug charges, but thought that at least I’d be in a position to maybe one day be able to do what’s actually beneficial about police work. Then again, I wasn’t an anarchist at the time. These days I’d like to just plain abolish police as a whole and switch to private security. The way police departments are set up, if you start out an idealist they grind you down on the trivial crap until you don’t give a rat’s ass about whether someone deserves to be victim of the legal system. Just filling the quota.
The funniest thing is, the psych test? I cannot imagine being able to flunk it. The questions are obvious, and a sociopath would have to be borderline retarded not to catch the implications of the questions. I’ve never ran across a psych test I couldn’t have made say whatever I wanted it to.
I’m aware quite a lot of police officers get in because it’s the fastest and easiest way to get authority over others. Power. Control. In a way, it’s the same thing with soldiers. Those who don’t get in for the benefit package, are in it because it legally entitles them to shoot people. If they had to keep the customer in mind, sociopathic organizations like our current police and military would be gone in a heartbeat. Either because no one will voluntarily hire them, or because somebody would hire a good company to defend them against the sociopaths.
My sister has a boyfriend who is a cop, and from what I’ve seen he is in it because he likes the job, whatever that entails. His attitudes seem to indicate that he’s not one of those who love the law. He actually said he wouldn’t pay taxes if he was in a different job because the fines are too low (not sure about that, but it’s interesting coming from a cop
).
Worst of all though, my sister wants to become a cop and she applied, but apparently doesn’t think she’ll be admitted. The reason? Mostly the benefits, but there also seems to be a bit of that she wants to help people. Specifically she wants to specialize for working with deliquent kids, the troublemakers… I doubt she understands that probably most often calling a police on a kid is the last freaking thing one should do, but there we go.
So… there we go. I’m a voluntaryist, perhaps the only one in this country, living with a wannabe cop who has a cop as a boyfriend who visits every other day. Isn’t that fun?
I sometimes feel out of place. I was supposed to be born in NH.
5. To get paid to bully people.
5) Bitch dyke who hates men and feels a need to “prove herself” in a male-dominated profession.
6) Flat-out crook who knows where the real action is.
7) Ex-jarhead (containing pickled brain) with no other marketable skills.
http://digg.com/comics_animation/Reasons_People_Become_Cops
Great question! I actually have some personal experience with this issue that I’d like to share with you.
Now don’t get me wrong, I am a hard core Market Anarchist and I don’t like the police one bit. But I am also a realist and I think it’s unfair to dismiss or demonize everyone that becomes a cop.
Obviously different people become cops for different reasons. But I have two good friends that both became cops, and I’ve had lengthy discussions with each of them about their reasons for joining. In each of their cases, they joined because they want to “serve” their community and do good, and they honestly and truly believe that joining the force will allow them to do that.
Of course I tried to talk them out of it, and I tried to explain to them how, despite the (assumed) good intentions of most cops, they nature of the police force ends up producing the opposite effect of what they intended. Unfortunately I was unable to convince them.
I don’t think everyone joins the force with noble intentions, but I think the majority do. Far too often it is a case where someone wants to do good, but due to incorrect premises they end up doing something evil instead. This is what happened in the case of my two friends, and its a sad thing to witness.
Aaron, I said that in #4. I sincerely do believe some enter with good intentions until the system corrupts their goals. I’m not optimistic enough to say “a majority” though.
Bleh!
9) Gets high off doughnut powder.
10) Really likes the feel of a long hard stick riding in a leather belt.
Ha Ha Ha. This one was funny.
You know… I have never liked authority.. cops included. In my opinion cops are like salesman, except they don’t sale anything and they only go out and write tickets.. and fines.. etc.