We train police to be warriors — and then send them out to be social workers
“Cops are very equipped to be the hammer and enforce the law,” says Arthur Rizer, a former police officer and 21-year veteran of the US Army who heads the criminal justice program at the center-right R Street Institute. “They know how to use those tools forcefully and effectively; for everything else, they are lacking. Of course that’s going to end badly.”
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“What excites police is action, and that means ultimately applying violence,” says Rizer. “The people attracted to police work want that type of action — they are giddy about it. The people who don’t want that type of action either never make it in the first place or are ridiculed for it if they do.”
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“The reason I think we need to rethink policing is because I care about police,” says Rizer, the former officer and R Street researcher. “I want to make policing prestigious again — not the prestige of power, but the prestige of respect. But in order to do that, we need to stop underfunding everything else and leaving the police holding a bag of shit.”
