• Fired Utah police officer charged with sexual abuse of teen girl
• 22-year-old left brain dead from ‘days-long brutal torture’ in Alabama prison, lawsuit says
• New York Governor orders firing of 14 officers involved in prison death
• Former D.C. police intel chief found guilty of tipping off Proud Boys leader ahead of capitol attack
• Family sues over Michigan man's death at Bexar County jail
• Excessive force, negligence claims can proceed in case stemming from 2020 death of man in custody
• Hmmm: Man found dead in police vehicle apparently became trapped
• How a ‘blue wall of silence’ let Central NY prison guards get away with day of terror
• Indiana jail workers believed Louisville woman who died in custody was 'faking it,' records show
• Missouri Governor commutes sentence for cop who killed black man
• "Excited delirium": How cops are trained to get away with killing people
I like the idea of reform. Not a "retrain" sense, but a "purge every department and train the new department to the same standards as MPs, with regular auditing and oversight".
The problem is that the culture attracts new, awful cops.
Kids grow up and see the news, the movies, the jokes, the memes, the entire culture surrounding police officers getting away with murder and think, "if I want to hurt people and get away with it, I should become a cop".
Even if you purge every department and train new cops, all of the new ones will be bad too.
Reform won't work. Abolition will.
Too many years ago, this light bulb came on in a eureka moment for me: If someone's a bully, gets great joy from cruelty, meanness, keeping people afraid, and causing pain for anyone insufficiently afraid and 'respectful', there's no career more appealing and secure than becoming a cop. That's what most cops are.
And any hypothetical 'good cop' who isn't like that certainly knows the names of all their co-workers who are, but says nothing, is a collaborator, certainly not a 'good cop' in any fair assessment.
Honestly, especially since abolition is politically impossible, I'd be pretty happy with genuine reform. It's never genuine reform, of course, if cops, ex-cops, and cops' buddies are in charge, or even allowed in the room.