The problem with the police - it's not just about race

[NCcoast]

I haven't seen anything posted about the Zimbardo experiment at Stanford as it relates to our current policing problem. Forgive me if this is repetition, but it does bear repeating.

If you're anywhere close to my age, mid 50's, your psychology 101 text was most likely written by Philip Zimbardo. Zimbardo became very famous for an experiment gone awry at Stanford Univ. in 1971. Two groups of male students were randomly selected to serve, one group as guards, one group as prisoners for I believe a week. The guards were given the trappings of authority, uniforms, mirrored glasses etc. and they were given a scheduled of tasks to preform. Take a look for yourself and see what happened.


<iframe width="420" height="315" src="

" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>


What this experiment says to me is that we all have the potential to slip into abusive behavior given ultimate authority over others. People who seek out that authority are probably more inclined to be abusers. When people are put in the position of having ultimate authority over others they have to be constantly checked and monitored.

After 9/11 the Bush administration took the gloves off of policing in America. From that time forward, we the public have been expected to acquiesce to all official authority immediately and without complaint. Any resistance is an open invitation for the abuse of power. And that attitude has caused the mess we're in. It's not just a race thing, although race can always be an element and accelerant.

Authority must be reasserted over beat cops by their upper command to let them know that abuse of the public is unacceptable. That's assuming that it not longer is.

[HassleCat]

1. I know that tune

I worked for TSA, and some of the cop wannabees were really annoying. They wanted to dress up in SWAT uniforms and carry firearms. "Take those shoes off, or you WILL be tazed!"

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Police "authority" and power has been an issue for decades.

Tagging adolescents as "juvenile delinquents" in the Fifties gave them justification for arrests, harassment, etc.

Tagging adolescents as "punks" and "hippies" and "Yippies" in the Sixties gave them continued permission to declare they were protecting the peace and stopping riots.

If you really want to go back, police were unofficial employees of corporate fiefdoms and attacked strikers.

And to make things more ironic, if you call the police for assistance when you are endangered, there is no legal duty for them to respond.

[cherokeeprogressive]

4. If they aren't on the books already...

There needs to be laws written about "Improper Use of Violence Under Color of Authority" that will allow prosecutors to go after violent cops. These laws could set more severe punishment for cops than what is normally handed down. They could also disqualify convicted cops for ANY further involvement in law enforcement.

[DetlefK]

3. This experiment was famously flawed: The experimentator influenced the test-subjects.

Please look for better examples when trying to make a point.

While other experiments yielded similar results, when the BBC reproduced the experiment, they found that wardens and prisoners bonded and discarded the old system.

Evil is not that simple.

[MisterP]

5. not all

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment#Criticism

[hifiguy]

6. It is largely about race, but far from exclusively.

The "us against the world" mentality of kkkop culture is something that HAS to change.