Hope it's ok to jump into this relatively old thread, but hey, I was told about this thread by a cop (seriously). Just a few random comments ...
They're certainly trying, as the USA has the world's highest per-capita incarceration rate.
The incarceration rate has nothing to do with the police TRYING to put everyone in prison. We try to put people in prison who have committed serious crimes. If less people committed serious crimes less people would be in prison. I'll leave it to smarter people to determine why so many people commit serious crimes or to change the laws so less of them result in prison sentences if thats what society wants.
It surpasses the Soviet gulags and South African apartheid at their worst. And the majority are non-violent offenders. Certainly there are SOME non-violent offenders who deserve to be in prison; like the financial folks who crashed the world's economies a few years back - but guess what ? Not a one of them has been prosecuted.
Cops dont decide who gets prosecuted. Blame in the wrong place again.
I think this is a big reason that people don't like police. Surely they have a hard job to do, and it's gotta be done. I'n heartened to read, on the thread about legalizing marijuana, from cops who also believe it's ridiculous to prosecute it, and even that they (or colleagues) have been known to let marijuana "blow away".
Actually, it makes me like them even less, because they've never done anything for me. Yes, I am pushing 60 years old, and I have NEVER been helped by a cop in my entire life.
You have never helped me in my entire life either. That doesn't mean I don't like you. You only like people who help you?
Fortunately I've never needed them for anything serious, and maybe I'd feel differently if I had. (A younger friend, student radical and communist, was mugged and so impressed by the help he got from the police that he decided to become one. He actually joined the USMC to try to get into police academy - as unbelievable as that may seem - and enjoyed saying "yes, I was a communist Marine"). But I have asked fro help on some less serious matters and gotten absolutely none.
Knowing nothing about the situation in which you got no help, maybe it had something to do with your attitude towards cops and authority in general? In all seriousness, you come across as some sort of anarchist in your posts. You recently started a thread that got deleted by mods almost immediately because it was offensive and obviously meant to start a fight
Yep. I heard some cop/school administrator/judge type on NPR who was piloting a program where they no longer harass school kids for minor things. As a consequence, the kids trust the school cops and administrators a lot more and actually help them with the serious stuff - because, you guessed it, they're no longer afraid to talk to cops. As a result, the school system has had a reduction both in arrests and in serious crimes. Perhaps there could be a lesson here for society at large ??
As far as lawyers versus police, I think there are two sides to this coin, as usual. I know police like to villify lawyers for "keeping them from getting criminals off the streets". But how about this story. Years ago, a good friend was raped. The perp was known and had committed crimes in two towns that are very very close together. I forget the details, but basically based on the crimes in one town alone, that town's police were unable to put a case together. And the two police departments didn't like to talk to each other. So she hired a lawyer, and he single-handedly forced to police to communicate and put the guy away. This is the kinda thing that makes people crazy, and one of the many things that fuels my contempt for the police.
I once had a bus driver in Chicago refuse to tell me what bus I needed to get on to go where ever I was trying to go. He was a jack ass. AM I supposed to hate all bus drivers now? One story means nothing. For every stupid or incompetent thing you could tell me that a cop did, I could tell you 10 heroic things that a cop did. Why don't you tell everyone what you do (did) for a living? I'm sure whatever it is (was) we can come up with plenty of incompetence in that profession. I doubt that will cause anyone to dislike everyone in that profession.