Yahoshua |
02-20-08 02:05 AM |
After conferring with multiple retired LEOs' over the years on various incidents (such as this one), it is now an understood situation that Law Enforcement in U.S. society is actually of inferior quality than officers were a mere 20 or 30 years ago.
There has been a disturbing trend in which the quality of candidate and current officers has been compromised in the name of "diversity" and due to an increasingly short list of applicants that would pass under standards that would've been applied to applicants 20 years ago. While the equipment officers have been given are of admirable quality and performance, the training to effectively use the tools at the disposal of current LE and the lack of encouragement to individual officers to familiarize themselves with their equipment is dismal at best.
As a result, we are reaping the harvest of a grossly undertrained, underpaid, unappreciated, and compromised program in LE. It is becoming a frightening picture in which LE is quickly forgetting how to interact with fellow citizens, succumbing to a looped "Us vs. Them" mentality within LE circles. Combined with repetitive and near-continous scandals, it comes of little surprise that those who perceive themselves as being unfairly treated by members of LE efforts often have little appreciation for LE and almost no motivation for assisting the LE community.
Worsening the situation is the apparrent militarizing of LE in both dress and behavior. The terror attacks on 9/11 had the unfortunate side-result in the "gearing up" of LE depts, most small towns now have SWAT gear and heavily armored APCs'. When in reality, the funds spent on this gear would be better used in overhauling and instituting more rigorous and frequent training for LEOs'. The militarizing of LE departments is critically endagnering the proper role of LE in American society, threatening to transform our current LE into a paramilitary occupation force more willing to intrude on the private lives of citizens and flaunt the rights guaranteed by the constitution.
As the situation is now, it is a dismal spiral into the future of a police-state.
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