I'm neither an enabler or apologist but yes, I do want to give the cops the benefit of doubt....Just as much as I want to give the accused the same.
There are over a million cops in the US. Maybe some one should do a study on the % of bad vs good cops.
As for prosecutors, they are lawyers, enough said.

There was actually a study done about the statistics of "bad cops" - Conducted by National Police Misconduct Statistics and Reporting Project

http://www.policemisconduct.net/2010-q3-national-police-misconduct-statistical-report/

Scroll down and look at the Bar graph for excessive force - wow

Wow scroll down a little further and look at the sexual misconduct

That was an interesting article. Although 5 years old with trends like that, it makes me uneasy. And I noticed that the area in WI that was the worst was Milwaukee and I would guess that the area as well, Manitowoc county is just north of there in what I consider an area where no one committing a sex offense wants to get caught and where any registrant wants to steer clear of.

I am not surprised that the kinds of offenses that are listed and seem most prevalent are those where the need of power over someone else and then abusing that power.

I would like to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, as I have known cops, correctional officers and offenders (from a variety of offenses). Family and friends. Even they say in each of their respective experiences that there are good people, there are the ones that just 'get by' and then there are those that manipulate and abuse the systems they are either sworn to uphold, protect or follow. Some admit to being soured by their positions if they have been in them for decades. But what seems to be the consensus though is that there are fewer of the good folks than there are of all the others. And while those that do nothing and are neither being good people or bad, are only adding to the feeling that they just don't care, which in many ways in those positions is just as bad as those that manipulate the system to their own agendas.

As for the attorneys.... it seems their ratio is different. There are different motivators and things. The good defense attorneys I know believe that everyone deserves a good defense, period. Then there are those that are on the prosecutorial side who seem to be very much about getting the convictions more than finding any truth. It is probably the nature of the way the legal system works with the two sides vs finding truth.

Advocate,
Using you link there were 3,814 misconduct reports involving 4,966 officers. That was in 2010. I don't have the number of cops in the US in 2010 so I will use the current figure of 1.1 million(approx) Using, and I think my math is right(I suck at math) and using the higher number of officers involved, it comes to 0.45% of cops are involved in misconduct. I know, that's just reported, but I am using your link.
OK, it is accepted here and in US DOJ statistics that the recidivism rate for RSO's is 3-5%.
There are somewhere around 800,000 RSO's in the US. Using that number and the lower number of recidivism, 3% is about 2,400. If we use the higher 5% and add 300.000 it then comes to 5,500, so in other words the number of bad cops and SO recidivism is pretty equal.
I left out the lawyer issue and go with Wisconsin on her post about them.

Sorry, I think I meant 4.5 % for the cops.

Yeah math is not my strong point either! lol However, it would be nice to get a run down with newer numbers. I saw on one site where someone better with numbers did a comparison of new crimes committed by RSOs compared to this article which had the cops committing more new crimes than the RSOs - in fact that is the only reason I knew about this study lol

We have had this conversation before, it seems that only Coastie understood and agreed with what I was trying to say before about the comparison between sex offenders and LE. You would not think there are many comparisons to be drawn, however, the way the media sensationalizes both is similar. By reading the paper it is tough to tell what the media likes more a juicy story involving a sex offender(s), or a juicy story involving police officers. Both receive an inordinate amount of press and thanks to our 24-7 media these stories tend to stick in our minds much more so than other stories. This gives the general public a distorted picture of sex offenders and police officers. The only way to cut through the bias we have is to look at the overall picture.

Let’s start by looking at the big picture of sex offenders because there are numbers here we can all agree on. Studies show that sex offenders have the 2nd lowest recidivism rate of any crime besides murderers. Certain types of sex offenders have much higher recidivism rates but overall since 93% of sex crimes are committed by people known to the victim, once that person is convicted their family and friends can help hold them accountable and they don’t have the same opportunity to commit crime. We know this all to be true, and we can all cite the studies to show this is truth.

Now compare the actual statistics to the public perception of sex offenders? The public sees story after story on the news, in the paper and on social media about sex offenders. The stories the public consumes are not representative of all sex offenders, and as we can see based on the 5% recidivism rate they are not even close to telling the truth on the topic. Yet what does everyone believe? They believe that all sex offenders reoffend because they see stories on the news of sex offenders reoffending.

The question I’m asking is this: Is it possible on this forum that because we have several people who are innocent of the charges they were convicted of, and many more that were significantly overcharged and treated badly by LE and prosecutors that when we see stories of LE misconduct we tend to harp on them the way the general public harps on sex offenders? That we are falling prey to the same media phenomenon that has handicapped the country’s ability to think when it comes to sex offenders? I would say it is not only possible but likely.

Looking at the police survey of misconduct one thing that stood out to me was sex on duty. I had an acquaintance from high school that became a police officer and he was eventually thrown off the department for having sex on duty with another officer. Both were the same rank and both consented to the sex, and it occurred while on a break in their police car. Looking at the methodologies of the studies I have seen on police misconduct these types of situations are included. I asked him how often police officers had sex on duty and he said he had never had done it with anyone but the female officer but he had certainly gotten many offers from civilians. Now if a police officer is using their badge to get sex by looking the other way on crimes or tickets that’s misconduct, but I don’t think all sex on duty meets that standard. Nor do I think including off-duty cops getting a DUI is official police misconduct unless they are not getting arrested for it. Or off-duty cops involved in recreational drugs that did not stem from official police work. I see several issues with the study Advocate posted in that regard, but I think point is that police make mistakes. They are not infallible and their actions should be held up to immense scrutiny.

It really then becomes a question of how much police misconduct is too much? The same question is asked when we as a RSO community say that we have a 5% recidivism rate and everyone from the media to politicians to the general citizenry yells back, “IF IT ONLY SAVES ONE CHILD!”

When it comes to innocent convictions it is sickening to me that we have innocent people in jail. I am so thankful that we have several groups fighting to free the innocent. Conservative criminologists believe we have a 1% innocent conviction rate, more liberal criminologists believe 5-7%, and most people in the middle agree on a 2-5% innocent conviction rate. The question I have here is what is acceptable to us as a nation?

In statistics when performing a survey there is something called the confidence interval. It is how certain we can be of the results of the survey. To decrease the level of uncertainty and increase the confidence of a survey you need to have a higher sample size. The same is true in the justice system. If we want to decrease the number of innocent people in prison we would increase the number of guilty people walk free. This would likely mean that the rich who can hire the best attorneys now and usually escape with even less damage then peons like us would get even better treatment from the justice system, furthering the idea that money = not guilty (see OJ Simpson). Can we stomach that?

Last thing I will say for now is that I think we need to publicly fund and increase the foothold the innocence project has in the justice system. Make them a part of the public defender’s office or something. If 2-5% of innocent people are in jail that is a really big number based on our number of people who are incarcerated!

-Independent

This documentary is catching the attention of the national media. Chris Matthews on MSNBC's Hardball interviewed the creator's of this movie I think either Thursday or Friday of last week. People are really talking notice. Our System of "justice" is really screwed up, that I can concur on.

I myself intend on watching it before I put another comment on here about the documentary.

Ya'll have a blessed week.

Yes it is getting National attention - unfortunately some negative things also. For instance I have seen at least 2 things that are saying that it is made up Hollywood and it did not help that the governor (I think) refused to even consider the petition that was submitted about the case ... the sheeple will think the case must not be valid

Rew: In general I think Justice is driven by local prejudices/ mores. Before the Exoneration list numbering a mere 300 something? (what a tiny % that is compared to the actual number of people unfairly convicted and imprisoned for one reason or another.) Used to, whenever anyone 'claimed" they were innocent, people simply dismissed the possibility by saying , "They ALL say that!"

Regarding the 'Police Misconduct Report' ' do these statistics include Prison guards or just street cops per se? I found the comparative # of LE sexual assaults on adults and minors interesting.
And I assume these are statistics are drawn from official reports made by people allowed to report and upon police entities willing to accept a report against LE. In my opinion the statistics are probably the tip of the iceberg? Until recently there was no national data base on police killings. (wonder if that;s just subsumed under excessive force?)
During the Civil Rights Movement, it was pretty well accepted that the White Supremacists and the KKK had pretty much owned local law enforcement and represented the power structure who wanted to keep running the counties to maintain their own better than position and the $$ and status that accrue to the self-righteous.
.In the case where the KKK murdered Andrew, Schwerner and Goodman and buried them in an earthen dam in Miss. It was the sheriff himself who led the mob. Even taking LE to trial is a long process (requiring FBI, US Attorney's Office pressure) and then in many cases the local juries and grand juries refuse to convict LE nullifying the evidence in favor of their own prejudices. Look at the way present day LE rarely faces consequences. (Even with cameras and cell phones)
Some follow-up story came on TV recently about the 11 year old boy, playing in the park with a toy gun who was shot and killed 30 seconds after LE (with active shooter training) got out of the squad car.
Anyway the person talking to me sided with the officer saying, "Well, the kid should have expected to get shot. Who but a criminal would draw their gun on a police vehicle?" Guess stand Your ground goes for Cops driving up on a playground too? If it's OK to kill someone just because you claim they scared you, then does that mean that all those brave LE shooters are just the most scared/ cowardly lions of all? But cowardly lions with guns?

As far as the Innocence Project, I think the people they 'represent' are just the tip of the iceberg. Even in cases of exoneration by DNA a lot of DNA has never even been tested or has been thrown away. And "eye witness" testimony shifts depending upon memory and expectation and quite frankly pressure and the "desire to be helpful" to LE. "Maybe, but I'm not sure." is not the correct answer as far as the prosecution is concerned. Trauma does funny things to memory in the case of PTSD (and for that matter spite and revenge do not very funny things also)
I think one of the reasons there aren't more exoneration's even when it is an obvious miscarriage of justice is because the power structure fears having to pay compensation. In the Netflix program mentioned all hell broke loose once $$$.was involved.
As far as the Netflix show, I dare any actually innocent person to watch that show without throwing their TV
Getting innocent people's head back into their own case makes some so angry at what LE did to their life that they can't focus on making a good life now...in spite of their own non-exoneration. In spite of injustice.
The best revenge may be a good life but It's darn hard to manage on the Registry.

Is this about what the media likes to publish or is this more about what the consumer likes to consume or find entertaining. The public's demand of more sensational stories is what drives the bias and selection of stories to run.

Of course we are falling prey to the same things that suck in the general public about SOs, just our focus has a tendency to be about LE and the mistakes they make. It is human nature to react like this, I would say that without conscience continual effort we will react no other way.

An excellent question how much LE misconduct is too much? I guess we should hold them to the same level of expectations that we hold everyone else to. Which from what I understand of human nature, we thing any misconduct is too much, otherwise people wouldn't be calling for a new law every time something horrible happens to ONE individual. So I would have to say the same applies to all LE, if it saves one child, if it saves one life, if it saves one person, because anything less would be failure. right?!?

This reminds me of the Blackstone's Formulation, "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than one innocent suffer" This is what our legal systems need to aspire to, because there is more to life than just punishing the guilty, it is the duty to make sure that the innocent get trapped with them.

For those that are religious there are biblical examples as well. Abraham for example, said, "Will you consume the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous within the city? Will you consume and not spare the place for the fifty righteous who are in it?[3] ... What if ten are found there?" He [The Lord] said, "I will not destroy it for the ten's sake." Genesis 18:32

For those that favor Islam, quotes Muhammad as saying, "Avoid legal punishments as far as possible, and if there are any doubts in the case then use them, for it is better for a judge to err towards leniency than towards punishment". Another similar expression reads, "Invoke doubtfulness in evidence during prosecution to avoid legal punishments".

It is the basis of our American Criminal system. John Adams expanded on Blackstone's rationale when he stated, "It is more important that innocence should be protected, than it is, that guilt be punished; for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world, that all of them cannot be punished.... when innocence itself, is brought to the bar and condemned, especially to die, the subject will exclaim, 'it is immaterial to me whether I behave well or ill, for virtue itself is no security.' And if such a sentiment as this were to take hold in the mind of the subject that would be the end of all security whatsoever" Which if you look at our recent history, it has been the end of all security whatsoever.

Because of the way the legal system is set up, the innocence project has trouble getting a foot hold. The battles for innocence need to be fought upfront at the beginning of someone's case not AFTER they have been screwed by the system and now all that is really left is hope on a shoestring. Setting up a legal aid system of teams of attorneys that handle the defense of all the innocent people (until proven guilty) to ensure that only the guilty are punished, even if that means many guilty go free, at least we are not punishing the innocent.

Wisconsin is correct in that LE should be held to the same level of expectations as the general public.

We know that is a nice thought, but in practice it will never happen.

Prosecutors look at LE as "part of the team" that enables the state to garner convictions; DAs do not want to do anything that might impede on their precious conviction rate, so they will not upset the very group of people who enable them to convict people.

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Wisconsin said, "Is this about what the media likes to publish or is this more about what the consumer likes to consume or find entertaining. The public's demand of more sensational stories is what drives the bias and selection of stories to run."

I think it's human nature that the media is seizing on to make money. The question is a chicken and egg scenario of which came first. Nevertheless it's a cycle that had remain unbroken and led to the death of reason and logic especially in cases of extreme emotion.

We have to remember the media makes money off of advertising and they need to get as much viewers/readers/listeners as possible to sell ad space and commercials. Our human nature is to remember negative stories, and experiences more than positive ones. It is a perfect storm that has led to group think when it comes to big emotional topics such as sex offenders and police.

Wisconsin said, "Of course we are falling prey to the same things that suck in the general public about SOs, just our focus has a tendency to be about LE and the mistakes they make. It is human nature to react like this, I would say that without conscience continual effort we will react no other way."

I'm glad Wisconsin that someone else sees the same thing I am seeing when it comes to the similarities in media treatment with both RSOs and police.

And getting back to the question I posed, how much corruption is too much? I think that of course police should be punished for their crimes they commit. That to me goes without saying. But I get the feeling here that many people on this forum think that the police have a significantly higher misconduct rate than RSOs have recidivism. Everyone is entitled to their opinion but I do not see statistics to back that up. To believe that statement one would have believe that the misconduct report doesn't tally all the police misconduct. Much like our detractors say when they say that the official recidivism rates don't track all reoffenses by RSOs. Again do you see the parallels?

Independent,

I have no idea of the amount or rate of police misconduct or how it compares with the sex offender recidivism rate. It is also obvious that people who have been unfairly treated by the system will show a slight bias against LE. I do it, and it is human nature.

Here is my problem with the system----the entire prosecution team, not just law enforcement---have no problem convicting innocent men they know are innocent. I know that happens. I know police commit perjury sometimes, but I also know prosecutors are equally corrupt.

The public's big problem with police misconduct is this-----We pay these guys to be honest; we pay these guys to protect us; we do not pay them to abuse citizens or lie in court.

We do not expect them to come into a house during a raid against some 130 pound kid who they think has a few pictures of CP and knock the mother around, make her cry, shoot the family dog, and otherwise act like a bunch of hoodlums. When this happens, we feel betrayed and sad.

We do not expect them to take this naive young man and out and out lie to him----taking ADVANTAGE of his fear and naivety----and tell him, "just tell us what's going on and it will be OK," or "we just want to hear your side of the story," or "if you talk to us, we can get the DA to make it easier on you. THESE ARE DAMN LIES told to a kid and a family scared half to death!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ---and the police know it.

Pointing guns at the heads of 80 year old grandmothers or throwing the citizens around during these raids is also not necessary. These examples may not be police misconduct, but it sure is HUMAN misconduct.

Are LE ever held accountable when they enter a residence in a situation I just described and shoot up the place?? Or burn a hole in an infant's chest who was in a crib nearby? No, they are not. If you or I did something like that we would be serving prison terms, trust me.

We have put our trust in them to do "the right thing," and when they do not, we all feel terribly betrayed. Since many of us at one time thought that police were always our "friends", when we see that they are corrupt at times, it robs us of our innocence. We are angry----maybe at ourselves for being naive, but also at the police for basically living a lie.

We do not expect any trust from sex offenders. We do not pay sex offenders to protect us, as we do LE. We do not expect any goodness so we are not disappointed when there sometimes is none.

Any corruption is too much. DAs, judges, and police always talk about having zero tolerance for crime. Well, we should have the same zero tolerance if they do something wrong.

I know what cops and DAs are capable of; I also was in prison and lived with these guys so I know that most sex offenders are far from angels.

I don't really see the point trying to compare the two. One has betrayed the trust of the people they serve and the other group has broken the law---but they are paying for that indiscretion. Most LE never pay for their mistakes.

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