Any group with mutable characteristics is self selecting — that’s how groups work. Do some of them get off on the power? Undoubtedly. Do all of them? No… so here’s a webpage about police officers who buy homeless people food. These may be individual acts by individual officers — but so is any action by any officer both good and bad.
Can I say that the good ones are in the majority? I think so. I think the US would be a lot more chaotic if it weren’t the case. Consider police forces in less developed countries by way of comparison.
I think the incidence of the bad ones probably varies state by state and in micro-culture by micro-culture, no doubt as a product of the individual officers in charge and demographics. I’m not saying that they aren’t problems and a need for systemic change (because there clearly is)— but there’s a moral problem with painting entire groups as one thing, self selected or otherwise, it leads to simplistic ‘Us vs Them’ thinking.
Exactly the sort of thinking that needs to be overturned if societal progress is going to be made and able to be sustained. Jessica Valenti is writing what people want to read, not what people need to read. That’s a morally dubious stance to take when you’re in a position of influence.
