I agree with @larkenrose on this point. It takes a considered choice to become an employee of the police. Some do it, because they genuinely believe they can do good and protect the public. Once there and realising the truth, they can make a choice to continue or not. Suicide rates are high in the police force here in Australia, which says something about the job they're doing.
When Hitler did what he did, he couldn't have done it on his own. He needed a lot of people to support him in what he was doing and follow those orders. In the trials they reached a point where the excuse 'just following orders' was not good enough any more. Yes, there were some who were coerced and threatened into doing harm, but most weren't.
It is much worse than you imagine. Take Baltimore again, for an example: less than 50% graduate high school here. It is a huge institutional issue. A high school diploma is required to collect garbage in this city, for 15 bucks an hour, You can become a cop for 52K$ a year, leave the city, or flip burgers. It is a "choice" but if your options are limited it seems like a noble choice. Suicide is high here amongst our cops, they see a lot of people shot in the head, and they scrape a lot of children off of the streets and pout them in little baggies. The problem is not the low men on the totem pole: the cops; it is a societal illness and the cops take the brunt of the pain and worst of the sickness. This is why suicide is high in this profession, it is painful. While I appreciate @larkenrose for starting the conversation I see the violence first hand. The citizens who call 911 here and say "There's a black guy, I am scared" are more to blame than the cop who gets this call. The Mayor who appoints a Commissionaire because "we need a black man" is a racist. The cop who wants to make 52K a year on a high school diploma is the LEAST guilty in the violence. The tunnel rats, who pull me over for a bad blinker are not the worst problem. They are wrong, but not as bad as the gang who kicked my pregnant wife because they "wanted to kill a white" are far worse than the worse cop in Baltimore. I do not know where you are located, maybe the cops are worse than the criminals there. From where I sit, when an elderly lady is robbed, raped, and dismembered; I do not suspect the cops. I agree violence is implied, and without that constant things probably look different, but I will take the few dirty cops so long as I must chose a side, so long as there is a war on my streets.
The blacks call it "Polar Bear Hunting". its where a group of blacks gather and select a caucasian victim- isolate tem and beat them to death. However- they sometimes underestimate who they attack- and end up getting massacred by their victim- who has a conceal carry permit, and several full magazines as back up. Caucasians are infinately better with firearms than negros are. They often miss the intended target(s) and kill innocent bystanders- which only perpetuated the cycle of violence.
The life of a cop here seems mostly to be to issue fines and unfortunately corruption is rife. Because they have to meet targets on tickets issued, when they start falling short they get desperate and will issue them whether you were speeding or not. If you question it they'll threaten you with defaulting your car. The only polite policeman I've met was actually Scottish, not Australian.
Having said that, it's probably preferable to your situation. I wouldn't want to be a cop in any situation.
I have barely issued a single fine. I always warn that same person twice, then issue the fine for the third time around. I have mitigated thousands of drug arrests. I see the problems from a different perspective. The rookie cops who really want to run-and-gun are the problem on the streets in the US. The problem in my city is the corrupt politicians. There is no tax base and the better police should be building communities in the worst neighborhoods. The exact opposite happens though, the really bad cops are put in the really bad neighborhoods. If you are good, you can go work for a private agency, like I do. In between are community relations officers and prevention experts. The community relations officers get murdered and attacked in the bad neighborhoods, we saw one executed last month in Baltimore. If the area is so beat-up that there is actually zero community, it is the citizens and the government, who share in the guilt. America needs a new model for sure, one with a lot less idiotic cops, and one with a service oriented mentality. Once a cop becomes service-oriented he leaves the crappy city job, almost every time. The concept of policing is not what is broken here, it is the mentality of the police and the criminals. Also, we incarcerate an actual percent of our population in the US. The "correctional" system is really broken here! 5% of the world's population, and over 50% of the worlds incarcerated; that is much more "way off" than the various police departments. A corporation that runs the jails, charges more for empty beds, and gives kick-backs to the states.....that's the gaping chest wound of the American Justice system, not the cops.
NAILED IT!
The police get warnings from their bosses here if they give a caution instead of a fine. They aren't even allowed to use their own judgement.
It feels like everyone's hands are tied in some way. You're afraid to protect yourself for fear of reprisal from the justice system. Interference from bureaucracy only tends to make more problems because they aren't at ground zero to know how things work and you behin to think they don't really care anyway as long as it doesn't touch them.
It's beyond me why anyone thought privatising the prison system in the US would be a good thing.
Every dirt cop has a "throw down" pistol in his trunk. Sometimes he just gets tired of doing all the paperwork on the same dipshits he has arrested numerous times before.
They get tired of seeing the same criminal on the same street, punching women in the face and stealing their purses. They get out and do the same thing, all the time, every time. You cannot even legally argue that this same person has been invading homes in this area for decades he got out of jail 2 days ago, so I think it is him. In the US an officer must build a valid case, based on actual evidence. The "correctional" system was expected to "correct" once upon a time. I am about to make a career change. I got in trouble for not going to court after arresting a 70-year-old drug addict who was breaking into a house. There is just no hope for this particular case, he was pathetic and institutionalized so much that he only knew institutional life. I do not think cops carry a lot of "drop pieces" as they mostly have cameras now and the shootings are about the same here. Pretty sure the dropping of an old piece happens more in the movies, also pretty sure it must have happened in real life at some point. Planting of other evidence is just really really bad work, like go flip burgers if you are able to do that....do not plant evidence.
The US is being socially engineered to decline. the police in baltimore were LYNCHED by the mayor- without trial, same thing in St louis and other areas.