Police are NOT scientific [Note: Content Warning - discussion, and links to reports, on bigotry, violence, and abuse - including of power. Reader discretion is advised]

Note: CONTENT WARNING - some of this content is about upsetting, disturbing or triggering events & attitudes. Seek competent help - including professional - if you need it. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that linked articles may contains names and/or images of deceased people. READER CAUTION IS RECOMMENDED! For anyone distressed by anything in this post, or for any other reason considering seeking support, resources are available in Australia here, here, and here. In other nations, you will have to do an Internet search using terms such as “mental health support - <your nation>” (which, for instance, may lead to this, this, and this, in the USA, or this, this, and this, in France [biased towards English-language - my apologies]), or perhaps try https://www.befrienders.org/. 

Note: in my “from the news” posts, quotes are shown italicised and blue, my comments are in a different shade of blue, and “good” items are (when I remember) shown in green.

 

One of the aspects of police mythology/history that needs to be challenged is that it is about the use of science. 

Yes, there are police investigators who use scientific methods and principles, and any court cases are supposed to be based on an approximation of “scientific” (or, perhaps more accurately, “seemingly objective”) assessment of evidence, but, in my opinion (based on my [sometimes good] and others’ experience), too many so-called “front desk” police are NOT scientific, and rely on biases disguised as “experience”. 

Every time such a member of police has made an amathiac statement along the lines of “I know what you’re thinking”, or “what this is really about is ...”, they are being unscientific. 

One example of that is when I made an enquiry to police about whether it was legal for a motorbike using a bike lane, and got a rubbish reply along the lines of “tell your mate ...” 

I was NOT “making the enquiry for a friend”: I was doing it out of genuine concern, and to be treated with derisive dismissiveness was enraging - and gave me valid cause to wonder how police would act if I went to them with a complaint. (I had the number plate of the bike, and sent it to the police and told the to take action, but the unprofessional cowards didn’t.)

Based on the past dismissiveness of police to rape complaints and domestic violence - both now being addressed in my home state’s force - others also have similar valid reasons to doubt the professionalism, let alone the ability to be scientific - or even objective - in fulfilling their duties.

I am also concerned that there may be a touch of arrogance in how the force is addressing these problems. If they are not extending their corrective to all members of the force, they may be doing so on the basis that someone who is not satisfied will push against the obstinance of front desk staff and get it pushed up the chain, whereas what does happen is members of the public are intimidated by unfamiliarity with police - many of whom deliberately try to be intimidating (which they mistakenly think is “establishing authority/control”) - and will not pursue a complaint ... which will then be MISINTERPRETED by those police as “no basis for a complaint existed”. 

That misinterpretation of data is probably most apparent in anything to do with race - or any minority group. 

Let’s say there is a group of whom 1% or so get into trouble when they are younger and being overwhelmed by the reality of endemic discrimination that too many police - blinded by their white privilege (I know former police members who left because they could not stand the racism) - deny exists.

Police may then wrongly tar all members of that group with the troublemaker label, creating mental barriers within their police minds to being professional. 

This is false weighting of evidence, various logical fallacies, and condemns those police who use it as utterly unfit to wear the uniform. 

There have been a couple of media reports of late on this issue:

“Queensland Police NAIDOC stall asked children to get into the back of a paddy wagon”   https://nit.com.au/04-07-2024/12342/queensland-police-naidoc-stall-asks-children-to-go-into-the-back-of-a-paddy-wagon   “Last year, Police Union president Ian Leavers wrote an article in the Courier Mail which pushed several racist tropes, was factually incorrect, and was described by Queensland’s Human Rights Commissioner as “reprehensible”.”   (And that it was published says nothing good about the newspaper concerned)     

“Victoria Police presentation on youth crime criticised for ‘racist’ focus on ‘African gangs’”   https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-27/victoria-police-youth-crime-presentation-labelled-racist/103877374     

 

There is another aspect of police “thinking” that is concerning: 

their belief in discipline as a way to overcome everything  

This, in my opinion, shows in their approach to youth misbehaviour, and their abusive derision of anyone with a disability (especially if they claim something does not exist). 

This “thinking” is psychologically indefensible - or, to put it another way, such “thinking” is unscientific. 

People are all different, and externally imposed discipline is often just traumatic, abusive, and forces people into hiding behind masks - making them, to use other words, compliant puppets rather than their authentic selves. 

Do police want people to be compliant puppets because that is what they have been made and “misery loves company”?

I am pushing this a lot harder and more aggressively than I normally would: that is because police have created a massive, self sustaining, out of touch with reality group mind. 

Police are not alone in this, however: many media outlets share exactly the same problem (and, given their power - which is major, but not as strong as that of police - also need to be held to account over that), and members of the public. 

When members of the public say all police are “X” (including corrupt, bigotted, violent, or unscientific), they are simply following the same line that those police who are unscientific have been following ... 

And if police want to correct that amongst members of the public, for the sake being viewed as credible, they need to first fix that problem within their ranks ... (which I hope they do)

 

 

Assumptions / basis 

In writing this, I have assumed / started from the following: 

• this blog states quite clearly that it is about political and human rights matters, including lived experience of problems, and thus I will assume readers are reasonable people who have noted the content warning in the post header;

Possible flaws 

Where I can, I will try to highlight possible flaws / issues you should consider:

• there may be flawed logical arguments in the above: to find out more about such flaws and thinking generally, I recommend Brendan  Myers’ free online course “Clear and Present Thinking”; 
  
• I could be wrong - so keep your thinking caps on, and make up your own minds for yourself.
  

 

 

If they are of any use of interest, the activism information links from my former news posts are available in this post. 

 

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Note that, as with my main blog [see here], I am cutting back on aspects of my posts.

Remember: we need to be more human being rather than human doing, and all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk & accept that all insistence on the use of “trans” as a descriptor comes with commensurate use of “cis” as a descriptor to prevent “othering”.

Copyright © Kayleen White 2016-2024     NO AI   I do not consent to any machine learning aka Artificial Intelligence (AI), generative AI, large language model, machine learning, chatbot, or other automated analysis, generative process, or replication program to reproduce, mimic, remix, summarise, or otherwise  replicate any part of this post or other posts on this blog via any means. Typo’s may be inserrted deliberately to demonstrate this is not an AI product.     Otherwise, fair and reasonable use is accepted under Creative Commons 4.0 on an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike basis   https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/