Originally Posted by BishopMVP
I think it's a serious problem, and erodes the authority of the state, when you make things illegal that a majority of the population doesn't think should be. It sure feels like the majority of police work is tied up in drug enforcement or traffic stops.
I'll take traffic because it's the easier one - (almost) everyone drives, and (almost) everyone breaks at least one traffic law every single day. So it would make a lot more sense imo for the speed limit to be like 80 on the highway, with harsh penalties for going above that. Instead it's set at 65, with pretty much everyone including police officers I know saying there's like a 10-15 mph grace period they won't pull you over for. So now 95% of the population is breaking the law, they're conditioned that it's okay, and whenever anyone does get pulled over they think they're being unfairly or unluckily targeted or the cop is being a dick "because everyone's doing it". Then you throw in that a large part of moving violations are there for revenue generating purposes and not safety, and it's no wonder there's an adversarial relationship between police and drivers. If it was set at like 80 and you only ever saw the police pulling over the asshole going 100 or weaving between cars, people would be applauding them.
Drugs are trickier, but it certainly doesn't seem to make sense to punish people for marijuana when the majority of the population disagrees with that. Most people drank for 150 years in this country and saw nothing wrong with drinking. A vocal minority did, convinced the government to enact prohibition, and did it result in alcohol consumption going down? No, it just made millions of Americans criminals overnight and led to the biggest decade of lawlessness in the 20th century, because everyone who drank was effectively lumped in with and put on the same side of the law as all the really bad criminals. That's basically where marijuana is at this point - at least with the 15-40 year old crowd that are responsible for most police interactions.
The key to effective policing is to separate that 5-10% that is really bad from the much bigger middle group of people who may cross a line here and there, but aren't going to kill, or rape, or burn shit down.Yup, which is why it's really frustrating when dealing with any asshole in a position of authority. I've experienced firsthand the disparity from the same groups of police officers to the same person (me!) based off how they perceive me. I went to HS in the town I coach in now, and now multiple officers know me as a Responsible Member of the Community or whatever, so when they see me at a football game they'll say hi or just have a normal interaction. Then I see them barking at or giving HS kids dickish glares, just like they did at me and my friends when I was in HS - and I'm really not that different a person than I was then. And some of those HS kids are assholes, and all do immature shit here and then, but for the most part if you treat them like a normal person and give them some responsibility and respect they'll return it. You treat them like they're beneath you, and they'll resent you and your interactions with them will be adversarial.
I went to UMass and the same shit happened. You do have a semi-hostile community from the start because the police spend most of their time enforcing a policy (no drinking under 21) that literally everyone was breaking, but it still came down to attitude. I lived off-campus in 2 different places. One of them was a pretty residential neighborhood and we actually met the cops who usually patrolled it and were able to have a great relationship with them. We'd throw parties, but we'd make sure no one was wandering through the neighborhood, do our best to make sure no one drive drunk, and then if there was a noise complaint we'd make sure they didn't have to come back a 2nd time -and everything worked out. The other place I lived at the cops would come in like stormtroopers, all hell would break loose, and the same shit would happen every weekend.
I then worked as a bouncer for 3 years in Boston, and again I know it's not an exact parallel, but I could've provoked a confrontation and started a fight pretty much every night if I wanted to. But I never felt I had anything to prove, so I managed to go 3 years with nothing more than a couple shoves against me, because I adhered to two rules. If a person was doing something borderline, I'd talk to them and usually whichever of their friends looked most sober calmly and gave them a warning. Then if someone had to be thrown out, we'd make sure we went with more guys than they had in their group, but we'd still talk calmly, but insistently.
Back to Ferguson, I'm not in the group that thinks he coldly executed some black kid or even thought that was a potential outcome going in, but some of the actions only make sense if it's done by a jackass who thought he could boss people around and treated Brown like he was beneath him. Even if Brown did try to reach for the gun (while the officer was in the car?) or he charged the officer (after being shot/shot at?) that's how you turn jaywalking into a national news story with a dead person.
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