John Oliver Takes On Police Accountability And The Colossally-Stupid 'Bad Apple' Defense
from the 'good-apples'-pretty-much-unicorns dept
John Oliver has now taken on police accountability -- the second word of which should always be enclosed in scare quotes.
The whole thing is worth watching (of course) but the key bit is his skewering of the constant, incoherent twisting of an old adage by police officials and supporters when attempting to portray police misconduct as an outlier, rather than the everyday output of an insular, overly-powerful culture.
"It's just a few bad apples…"
But the original adage isn't an excuse. It's a warning.
"A few bad apples spoil the barrel."
And that's exactly what has happened. Officers -- sheltered by extra rights, less-than-strenuous internal investigations, policies that allow for the destruction of discipline records, civil immunity, revolving door policies that allow "bad apples" to infect new law enforcement agencies -- basically answer to no one.
In rare, rare cases, police officers have been convicted and jailed. But this is usually the end result of outside pressure or behavior so repulsive and toxic the agency housing the officer can't bring itself to defend them.
As Oliver points out, when officers are caught committing criminal acts, they're often given the option to resign rather than face an investigation. In other cases, they're swiftly cleared of serious charges and allowed to desk job their way back into their old positions.
Until recently, the DOJ and FBI expressed zero interest in compiling data on police use of force -- to say nothing about regular, non-deadly police misconduct. Years of neglect have resulted in a data gap, with private citizens picking up the government's slack to produce more credible numbers about civilians killed by law enforcement officers.
Slight movements toward better accountability have been spotted, but in general, most policies meant to add accountability have met stiff resistance from police unions, police departments, and legislators who seem to believe good, non-abusive policing is less effective than cracking skulls, seizing cash, and ensuring every officer makes it home for dinner -- no matter how many people they have to kill or injure to achieve that goal.
It's gotten to the point where it's absurd to hedge remarks about bad cops by saying "most police officers are good" because there's simply no data out there to confirm that foregone conclusion. At best, most officers are indifferent: not evil, but unwilling to make any effort to rein in those that are. The culture of law enforcement encourages the ousting of good cops, as any officer that would step up to stop misconduct or deployment of excessive force is viewed as untrustworthy.
True accountability is still a long ways off. Small steps are being made but even these tentative movements are being heavily contested. A full overhaul is what's needed to fix this in the next several years. Unfortunately, that's an impossibility, so we'll have to work with what we're given. The first step in any major change is admitting there's a problem. And, as John Oliver points out with his "bad apple" commentary, most law enforcement agencies haven't even reached that point yet.
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Filed Under: bad apples, john oliver, police, police accountability
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Only a few... at first
Likewise, while there may have only been 'a few bad cops' at first by not only leaving them in but protecting them the rest become rotten as well, such that while only a handful may be obviously 'bad' on the surface they are all rotten, with the 'good' in the minority before they get 'tossed out'.
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If you're a cop who doesn't publicly call out bad cops...
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Re: If you're a cop who doesn't publicly call out bad cops...
Michael Dornan tried this...
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And kudos to his staff of researchers.
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He got all puffy and said "That's different." I said How? Of course he couldn't answer, and I really wanted to say it's because you are an asshole now. But I walked off to get a drink and let it go. There is no reasoning with someone that thinks no matter what they do it's ok but when others do the same it's wrong.
Cops may want to change the system from within, but once in, it's them that gets changed.
There are no good apples left. They all protect and lie for each other.
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love this show
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I am not talking media I am talking about regular citizens who record this and usually get beaten up or murdered for daring to record the police.
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"The whole thing is worth watching (of course)"
Cheers for that, Last Week Tonight.
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Re: Re: "The whole thing is worth watching (of course)"
You also missed the perfectly reasonable option of waiting until the copyright owner decides to make the content available in the relevant parts of the world (ie- never).
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Re: Re: "The whole thing is worth watching (of course)"
Geoblock tried and geoblock failed.
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Are you saying it should read:
John "Oliver" has now taken on police accountability -- the second word of which should always be enclosed in scare quotes.
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Remember this at the Jury Box.
Trust is earned. Make them earn it back again.
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(I guess he didn't have to; I heard the audience laughing at that line without him needing to call any attention to it.)
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More cameras
Year-long study of almost 2,000 officers across UK and US forces shows introduction of wearable cameras led to a 93% drop in complaints made against police by the public – suggesting the cameras result in behavioural changes that ‘cool down’ potentially volatile encounters.
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Re: More cameras
https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/use-of-body-worn-cameras-sees-complaints-against-police-vi rtually-vanish-study-finds
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If you want facts, then go to copblock.org where they dish out the facts on a daily basis.
What is up with TD rapidly devolving into leftists regressive biasm?
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If you want facts, then go to copblock.org where they dish out the facts on a daily basis.
Everything that is wrong with our current generation of law enforcement is not because of a lack of accountability, but rather the fact that they're hiring an entire generation that was trained, in the Middle East, to treat all civilians as potential threats. I mean, even the latest BLM riots are based on a Black cop shooting a black man yet they're still purporting it as a hate crime...Sheer insanity!
On another note, what is up with TD rapidly devolving into leftists regressive biasm?
I come here to read original and unbiased articles but lately, I've been getting dished pseudoliberal rehashes of other pseudoliberals.
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Police departments are hiring almost exclusively people who got their training in the middle east? Where did you get this information? Or should I say "information"?
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I love how these mad conspiracy theorists come dashing in here all a-froth, shouting out their fact-free declarations, and in case we're in the least bit incredulous, they shore their statements up with epithets.
Protip: your opinions have more merit when they're backed by provable, checkable facts. And there's no need for name-calling. Most of us don't bother to subscribe to particular political orthodoxies because they don't work out for us in practice.
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and i bet he nods and smiles if he can.
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And this is in despite of the fact that most of the victims that Oliver listed, were shot by either black cops or a combination of black and white cops...Under a Black Commissioner, Black Mayor, and to top it all off, a Black President.
I fail to see where this is a race issue and not an issue with the vetting process at academies and how cops are brainwashed *cough* I mean trained...
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Got any references for your statistical claims?
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Giggles
Let's toss out the bad apple defense. So now, when a pro basketball player does drugs, we know that EVERY DAMN ONE of the rest of them are druggies too. Murder? Indict all of them!
Holding all police responsible for the acts of a few is silly. Trace the bad acts down to the people who support, tolerate, and encourage them and punish them - don't punish all of the police.
I would expect crap like this from the extreme left.
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Police, pro basketball players, same thing right?
Really, I wasn't aware that any time a pro basketball player got caught doing drugs or murdering someone the other players, team managers/owners and pro-basketball union(s) made a habit of supporting them, either by staying silent and pretending nothing happened, voicing their support more directly, and/or pressuring those that exposed the drug use/murder to quit for not being 'team players'.
I also had no idea that prosecutors and judges treated pro-basketball players drastically different than anyone else, giving them special considerations such that even getting past the grand jury stage is an extremely rare occurrence because the prosecutor often has no interest in bringing charges. Or that pro basketball players were allowed to employ in-house 'internal affairs' to investigate any accusations of drug use or murder, such that it rarely even reaches that point.
Or that pro basketball players can simply resign/quit rather than facing charges.
Or have disciplinary records scrubbed after a year and a half, such that anything that happened two or more years past effectively didn't happen at all as far as the record is concerned.
When police unions stop trying to justify the inexcusable as not only no big deal but completely acceptable, even to the point of fighting to get the rare cop that violates the rules/law to the extent that they managed to get fired re-hired...
When one of the near mythical 'good cops' reports misconduct by a fellow officer and gets a commendation for it rather than harassment and pressure to quit...
When police start pushing for transparency and accountability rather than against it...
When stories of police misconduct/abuse of power are consistently followed by denouncements of such by other officers, their superiors and unions...
When the above becomes the norm rather than the rare anomaly then I might buy the 'only a few bad apples' joke of an argument, but at this point it's pretty clear that the barrel's rotten through and through, with 'only a few good apples' still in before they get thrown out by the rotten.
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Re: Giggles
It's like copyright abuses, right? All exceptions! Exceptions that happen everyday, almost every time the MAFIAA sends some dmca notice. But alas, exceptions!
Bad apples may be a defense when it's about very isolated incidents and the 'bad apples' are tossed out. It's clearly not the case. But hey, let's twist and distort the things to defend the establishment, no?
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Re: Giggles
That is all of the police.
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Totally agree - let's start with NOT allowing them to investigate themselves for a change. Are you on board with that?
Because seems like the police always seem to look at the bad apples and agree nothing was wrong.
Would you afford a criminal the same privilege?
Or is it just because you can't fathom a cop ever doing something wrong?
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Re: Giggles
Real upstanding community you're rooting for here. Par for the course for Whatever, authoritarian lapdog.
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Piss and moan, bob and weave, that's your definition of punishment.
"Trace the bad acts down to the people who support, tolerate, and encourage them and punish them"
So in other words... you?
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To use a political statement...
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Also: forcibly disband police unions
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The uploader has not made the video available in your country.
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Re: The uploader has not made the video available in your country.
... I dunno. Why in the name of all that's holy would you do that? Am I going to go and buy some kind of HBO cable deal just so I can watch that clip? What are they trying to achieve?
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