General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: police reform ideas anybody? [View all]jmowreader
(50,557 posts)There is a psychological problem called "compassion fatigue." In essence, it is a form of PTSD.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compassion_fatigue
You stick these guys out on the street dealing every day with domestic disputes, casualties, criminals, sovereign citizens and the like, and it's eventually going to get to them. Then add in people wanting to sue them for the slightest misstep (police brutality does not count as a slight misstep), hang a camera around their necks so every word they speak and every thing they do can be torn apart by Internal Affairs, and have civilians like you and I think of more and more awful things to do to cops if they cross the line even a millimeter...from what I can tell, Derek Chauvin was a decent officer the first few years of his career. And then after about 10 years (he joined the force in 2001) he became what he is now.
This is going to take A LOT more cops, and you know in our "tax cuts fix everything" society that will never happen, but do this: There are a lot of jobs that cops can do - and not just in the police force. Once an officer has been certified and has passed probation, have the officer serve the police force for two years then rotate the officer to a job that has nothing to do with policing for a year. And by that I don't mean "give the guy the shittiest job we can think of." It could even be a private sector job, as long as it isn't a security officer job - that's policing. Government subsidies can be used to bring the officer's pay up to his or her police department pay level if the other job pays less than policing because we don't need to trade the officer's worries and stresses about policing for worries and stresses about paying their bills.
Once the officer comes back to the force, a one-month refresher course will be in order before they resume their police duties.
A year away from all the crap cops are faced with will do them a LOT of good.