I've been somewhat critical of law enforcement here at EW, mostly because of what I see as a system that has gradually morphed over time from one that protected liberty to one that erodes it. Indeed, as individual LEOs became "professionalized", American law enforcement ceased being a system in which citizens secured justice for themselves, on a level playing field, facilitated by law enforcement and the courts, to a literal "us" versus "them" arrangement on a steeply tilted playing field where the massive resources of government are brought to bear against presumably innocent individual citizens. In other words, ownership of the laws and the law enforcement process shifted from individual citizens to an amorphous "the people", thus divesting individual citizens from the justice process except as a collective (when enforcing the law), or as an isolated defendant (when targeted by law enforcement). This divestiture is so complete that jury nullification, that foundational right whose pedigree extends back as far as the Magna Carta, is viewed with contempt and hostility by those in the justice system and those who publicly profess this right are persecuted, pilloried, and/or proscribed from jury service.
It is in this context which LEOs, people just like any of us,* find themselves at odds with the interests of their neighbors while simultaneously being exposed to the worst pathologies of their neighbors. Rare is the person who is truly happy to see a cop in an official capacity.
I believe it was at Chronicles that someone mentioned how many police officers differentiate themselves from "civilians," using that term rather pejoratively. Peter Hitchens has done so as well.
I will be writing a post elsewhere about outsiders being mere functionaries for communities of which they are not really a part. If it is just commutative justice regulating their interaction with people in that community and not love and affection, should we not expect abuses and other problems? Too many LEOs do not live in the communities in which they work.
At the end of his entry EW links to the other posts he has written on the topic of law enforcement in the U.S. See especially A Brief History of Early American Law Enforcement, Part I and Part II. One should also consult what Peter Hitchens has written about traditional British policing.
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