Criminal Justice

uh, if you want to, do it. What kind of advice did you expect to receive? What kinds of questions do you have about the profession?

>>18609638
>uh, if you want to, do it
I'm asking if it would be wise to do it.

>What kinds of questions do you have about the profession?
Is there anything I should know about criminal justice and/or forensics that isn't readily apparent?

@everyone

>>18609643
Well, for one, it's a LOT more boring that it looks on TV. A ton of crimes just go unsolved. Forensics in particular is a pretty boring job. You're basically like an undergraduate-level lab rat doing repetitive lab tasks all day.

Becoming an officer is better, but dangerous. Especially in the current climate. Cops are getting killed in the streets, which makes them jumpy, then they get a little too jumpy and kill and innocent person and go to jail. It's fucked up for everyone involved. I have a great deal of sympathy for the officers.

But, if you become an officer, you can maybe one day become a detective, and that's where shit is more comfy, but again, pretty boring and frustrating and sometimes unfulfilling. You will leave a lot of cases unsolved.

In all three jobs, you'll see a lot of shit no one should ever see and probably have nightmares about it. Eventually you'll become desensitized and feel numb to it, which is maybe even scarier.

All-in-all though, it's a decent living and a necessary job for society. It's a true service.

>>18609663
I read online that there is a forensics title: "blood splatter analyst." That sounds really horrible and fascinating at the same time. It doesn't sound the same as being an undergraduate "lab rat." I had a professor who was a drug forensics analyst for the military, and he said that a lot of his job was spent in military court, helping to prosecute people who almost always did drugs they weren't supposed to during their service. Point is, forensics doesn't seem *quite* as boring and normal as you put it.

Anyway, thank you very much for the feedback. I would consider being a police officer, but I have a mild heart condition, and a chronic injury that affects mobility.

>>18609614

>I think anyone who says, "You're a cop, maaaaan? That's not coooool," is being simple, and having trouble grasping the difference between making the laws and enforcing them

I don't think it has much to do with having trouble grasping the difference as it does refusing to morally absolve someone of responsibility for enforcing unjust laws on the basis that they didn't create them. There have been many, many dark moments in human history where foot soldiers tried to absolve themselves of responsibility by claiming "I was just following orders".

The U.S. justice system is broken. The laws are outdated, punitive, ineffective and expensive. The war on drugs has been a monumental failure and the privatized prison system has motivated underfunded states and counties to turn the imprisonment of its citizens into a business. Every study ever performed shows that treatment, education and community support is the best deterrent for criminal behavior yet the old guard of lobbyists and career politicians continue to push laws that imprison American citizens at unprecedented rates while at the same time allowing the police to violently enact these policies without consequence or accountability.

In my eyes, I don't care if you didn't create the laws. If you voluntarily choose to act as an agent of an unjust system then you hold a great share of the responsibility. The system is broken. "Im just following orders" isn't an excuse.

>>18609689
>I don't think it has much to do with having trouble grasping the difference as it does refusing to morally absolve someone of responsibility for enforcing unjust laws on the basis that they didn't create them
Great idea. We should allow each officer to individually decide which laws are worth enforcing and which aren't. What could go wrong?

>>18609689
Most people working in the justice system can't pick and choose which laws to enforce. The same person who enforces the laws against murder will be enforcing the laws against smoking marijuana. The ends justify the means, except maybe not to a person who is completely silly and doesn't understand the necessity of law.

>>18609700

>Great idea. We should allow each officer to individually decide which laws are worth enforcing and which aren't.

Poor strawman. I didn't even remotely suggest such a thing.

>>18609711

>The ends justify the means

That point is debatable, anon. While catching murderers is great and all you can't just use "but the justice system catches murderers" as a way to justify all of its cruelty and inefficiencies. I don't know why you're trying to imply that the only choices we have is to either accept the entire justice system the way it is, flaws and all, or start letting murderers go unpunished. I don't understand how on god's green earth you got the idea that I was suggesting the solution to our broken justice system was letting murderers go free. You didn't just create a false slippery slope argument you created a sheer cliff.

>>18609738
>Poor strawman. I didn't even remotely suggest such a thing.
Let's follow your logic here, fag:
>officers are morally responsible for the laws they enforce
>in order for an officer to be seen as moral in my eyes, he just not enforce certain laws that I see as immoral
Therefore, one of two things is true:
>a) no officer can ever be seen as moral, therefore people shouldn't ever be officers, therefore we should live in an anarchy where rules aren't enforced since some rules might be seen as immoral by someone
>b) officers can be moral as long as they choose to not enforce certain laws, and then we can have a society of partially-enforced laws, but I still might see officers as immoral if our moralities don't align 100%, therefore, every officer can still be viewed as immoral from some perspective, so see a).

So I guess you're actually arguing for anarchy.

The way out of this logical trap is simple: officers enforce ALL laws handed down to them and they CANNOT be seen as personally responsible for lawfully enforcing laws. If an officer punts a sick grandmother back to Mexico, he is neither immoral nor responsible for that. The lawmakers are, which *should* mean that society as a whole is. End of story. You can't dislike cops for doing their job. Therefore OP is right to criticize fools who say shit like
>COPS ARE PIGS

The establishment man is keep us down man they keep people who murder other people in prison down with the establishment man , we need communism so everyone will be equal man it's good man just look at commie Russia man they were good man , down with the establishment man

>>18609738
>>18609738
>the prison system is privatized
>strawman
I hope you're not trying to convince us of anything using these memes. Personally, I already agree that the justice system is too harsh on disadvantaged people, and that having illicit drugs for personal use shouldn't be illegal.

>that point is debatable
My point was that enforcing unjust laws is, unfortunately, necessary for maintaining order. like the other anon said, people can't choose which laws they want to enforce and/or obey.

>false slippery slope cliff
I worded it that way to point out the inevitability of officers enforcing laws that morally wrong. Do you have any suggested way around this? If so, the state would like to hear about it.

People are caught in a machine they don't necessarily agree with, Anon, and they keep operating it because they're (rightfully) afraid to make it stop. What percentage of officers really think the laws about possession are morally okay? What percentage of church-goers actually believes that homosexuality is a sin? Society is afraid to rewrite the laws, and afraid to rewrite the old texts. At least, unlike the Bible, laws are changing all of the time. I'm not a political scientist, but I get the general impression that almost any law can be rewritten or written off, in a democracy. If you want to learn more about the machine, read Kafka or something, and check out writers who don't like bureaucracy in general.

I'm trying to be helpful to you, by using reason.

>>18609785
>I guess you're arguing for anarchy.
He's not, in his posts at least. He's just saying that officers aren't morally absolved of enforcing laws that are morally wrong.

>>18609802
>>18609802
>He's just saying that officers aren't morally absolved of enforcing laws that are morally wrong.

If that's true then every officer can be seen as being immoral, right?

>>18609785

>officers are morally responsible for the laws they enforce

In part, yes.

>in order for an officer to be seen as moral in my eyes, he just not enforce certain laws that I see as immoral

That is not what I implied in the slightest. This argument is going to continue to go nowhere if you insist on creating my opinion for me instead of asking me what it is.

>>a) no officer can ever be seen as moral, therefore people shouldn't ever be officers, therefore we should live in an anarchy where rules aren't enforced since some rules might be seen as immoral by someone

Another strawman. I didn't imply any thing of the sort.

>>b) officers can be moral as long as they choose to not enforce certain laws, and then we can have a society of partially-enforced laws, but I still might see officers as immoral if our moralities don't align 100%

Third straw man.

>So I guess you're actually arguing for anarchy.

Fourth straw man. You simply created my opinion for me instead of asking me what it was. You couldn't be farther away from understanding what my actual point was.

>officers enforce ALL laws handed down to them and they CANNOT be seen as personally responsible for lawfully enforcing laws.

Performing an unjust act with your own hands makes you personally responsible for the consequences of that act, end of story. You don't get to pass that responsibility on to your employer.

Our broken justice system isn't being sustained by millions of evil people; its being sustained by a handful of evil people and a million complacent people who don't care enough to fight or change it.

>>18609812
Tell me, how can an officer simultaneously be morally responsible for the laws they enforce and seen as being moral actors in your eyes without selectively enforcing laws? Let's hear it.

>>18609793
>don't like three strikes laws? pff WOW what a cucked commie faggot
Why don't you find something nice and heavy and swing it upward toward your face a couple times.

>>18609812
Officers are meant to enforce laws end of story , these laws have wiggle room however if you were doing 26 in a 25 zone you are in the wrong and could get a ticket but no officer is going to stop you for 1 over considering the law allows wiggle room simple

>>18609833
> satire
What is it ?

>>18609812
>>18609809
He hasn't really elaborated enough.

>>18609812
You said strawman three more times, really?

Regardless, I see what you're saying. You wish people would just put their guns down, like they did with the laws against sodomy and homosexuality. The reversal of the war on drugs is happening, but it's very, very slow.

You realize that the cops can somewhat turn a blind eye, that the judge can stick to minimum sentences, and that the jury can find people not guilty (regardless of evidence), and that the government can abolish mandatory minimum sentences.

I just don't see how any of this makes swearing an oath to enforce the law immoral. It's an integral part of being an officer, and someone *needs* to be an officer so that there is order, because this isn't an anarchist society.

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You know I'd tell you that you're enough of an arrogant blowhard to do very well as an attorney but frankly it's a pretty desolate field in terms of job opportunities.

LEOs are seen as civil servants, and you're going to have to bust your ass with overtime if you want a six digit salary. Try medicine instead, and specialize in something.

>>18609849
> english
What is it ?

>>18609853
How does debating the silly guy make me a blowhard? I'm not the one calling him a faggot or a communist. I'm giving him reading material.

>being a civil servant sucks
Because of the low salary and lower amount of jobs? Yeah, I would have to spend like a sane person, and maybe relocate. Is that all you mean? You're scaring me.

>try medicine, and specialize in something
I'm going to dip my toes into medicine and see if I like it. I'm already registered for some courses. Thanks for the advice, man.

>>18609828

>Tell me, how can an officer simultaneously be morally responsible for the laws they enforce and seen as being moral actors in your eyes without selectively enforcing laws? Let's hear it.

My point was about complacency. Morality is not so simple as to say that inherently good people can't do bad things or inherently bad people can't do good things. While its a very simplistic thing to say "Those who are following orders aren't morally responsible" that just isn't multi-faceted enough to address the issues with the justice system.

Not only are good officers frequently forced into situations where they have to be complacent to injustice to keep their jobs they are often enabled to perform these deeds under the guise of the "greater good" and discouraged to question their superiors, report fellow officers or advocate for change.

I think our country needs to start holding bad officers more accountable for their actions and create a system in which people serving in all aspects of law enforcement are given an opportunity to speak about their experiences because the great disconnect between law enforcement and legislation is that bean counters and ideology chasers create the legislation and law enforcement officers enforce that legislation with little to no communication between the two factions. The problem is not the moral responsibility of the officers its the system we've created that forces those officers to sacrifice their moral responsibility for the "greater good" without actually getting to decide what that greater good is.

The bottom line is, statistically, drug laws hurt people. Privatized prison hurts people. Mandatory minimum sentencing laws hurt people. We need to be having a conversation about the larger picture of law, complacency and responsibility, not instilling into our children and communities the narrative that its ok to do something wrong as long as its the law. We all need to stand up to injustice, officers included.

>>18609856
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqH_Y1TupoQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVLsH3HmuKE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkPR4Rcf4ww

Hey man, cool your jets and enjoy some personalized YouTube videos.

>>18609856
He doesn't even know what satire is
Kek

>>18609850

>I just don't see how any of this makes swearing an oath to enforce the law immoral.

Me neither because that isn't what I said at all. If you actually took the time to read my opinions instead of create my opinions you wouldn't think thats what I was trying to say.

The word "immoral" nor "anarchy" appeared once in any of my posts. It doesn't take a lot of evil people to sustain a system of evil, just one evil person and a lot of complacent people. Swearing an oath to enforce the law doesn't make you immoral but at the same time you can't claim moral immunity when you do something you know is wrong just because its in your job description.

The whole point of my post was that I wished officers, judges, juries and law enforcement professionals would speak up about the injustice and the damage they see these laws doing to their communities instead of just collectively saying "I'm just doing my job". It may be wishful thinking, yes, but that was my point, not that all cops are evil.

If you'd stop strawmanning for 5 minutes you might actually see that we essentially agree with each other.

>>18609875
>type like a microcephalic Pakistani woman
>expects me to catch his subtle alt-jokez
ooookay bud

>>18609884
You countered me (OP) in >>18609689, but in >>18609884 you're saying you agree with me. Swearing an oath to enforce all of the laws is not a mark against a person's morality, so long as the 'bad' ones don't obscenely outweigh the 'good' ones, on the basis that some people have to maintain order.

>>18609867
>My point was about complacency. Morality is not so simple as to say that inherently good people can't do bad things or inherently bad people can't do good things.
Obviously true, but completely irrelevant to the topic at hand. Misdirection.

>Not only are good officers frequently forced into situations where they have to be complacent to injustice to keep their jobs they are often enabled to perform these deeds under the guise of the "greater good" and discouraged to question their superiors, report fellow officers or advocate for change.
You've moved to discussing an ENTIRELY different issue. Are you talking about having to look the other way when UNLAWFUL things happen? Abuses, drug planting, weapon planting? Yes, that's all illegal, and yes officers have to sometimes ignore it to keep their jobs, but that's entirely irrelevant to the topic of whether officers should enforce all laws without restriction. Or are you implying that officers should ignore drug laws?

>I think our country needs to start holding bad officers more accountable for their actions
Again, you're discussing an entirely separate issue.

>The bottom line is, statistically, drug laws hurt people.
And it comes out. I even agree with you here. Drug laws are stupid, but officers are not bad or wrong to enforce the drug laws that we as a society have agreed upon.

You basically just dodged around the issue and spoke about other things, so let me ask you plainly: Do you believe that officers should enforce ALL laws without reservation or not?

>>18609936

>Obviously true, but completely irrelevant to the topic at hand. Misdirection.

False. It is absolutely relevant. You claim that my opinion is that to do an unjust thing automatically makes one immoral and my counter point was that morality isn't so black and white.

>>18609936

>You've moved to discussing an ENTIRELY different issue.

No I haven't.

>Are you talking about having to look the other way when UNLAWFUL things happen? Abuses, drug planting, weapon planting?

No. That isn't what I'm talking about.

>Or are you implying that officers should ignore drug laws?

I'm implying that instead of blindly following drug laws all members of the law enforcement community should stop pulling the wool over their own eyes as you would suggest and help put a human face on the injustice and inefficiency of the war on drugs instead of claiming moral immunity because they didn't write the law. You're claiming that the only two options are either accept all laws or accept none of them as a police officer and I'm asking why

>You basically just dodged around the issue and spoke about other things

I didn't, you just falsely claimed misdirection and spoke at length about a bunch of shit I never even remotely implied instead of the things I actually said.

>Do you believe that officers should enforce ALL laws without reservation or not?

I'm going to start by saying this is a very one dimensional question with a multi dimensional answer. The simple answer is no; no one should do what they are told without any reservation. It breeds complacency.

By your logic, every police officer who ever dragged a black person off of a bus, stopped black students from entering a school or arrested a black person for drinking from the wrong fountain gets to claim moral immunity. It was the law, so because they made an oath they're obligated to uphold the law and hold no moral responsibility, correct?

>>18610008
> lets just have 20 pounds of cocaine on every street Corner
What could go wrong ? It's not like cocaine alter you perception of of reality of anything >>18610008

>>18609924
> blatant satire
> still doesn't understand
You probably here autism

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>>18609936

Up until the 1900s it was still legal to punish your wife with violence. Segregation laws made it illegal for non-whites to use the same restaurants. During the post-civil war era black people were legally obligated to cross the street whenever a white person walked by. During the great western expansion they put bounties on the heads of Native Americans and it was completely legal to kill them simply for being Native American in the wrong territory. Hundreds of years ago it was illegal to be Christian and the punishment was death.

All of these people in positions of power upheld these laws because they were laws. They took oaths. So what you're saying is that all of those people get to claim moral immunity, correct? Because one can't "pick and choose" which laws to enforce even if those laws are the literal torture and murder of innocent people, correct? And if these people can't claim moral immunity then where is the line drawn? Is it not okay to enforce a law that enables murder but okay to enforce a law that subjects a person to cruel and unusual punishment for smoking marijuana? Is not okay to enforce a law that lets men beat women but okay to enforce a law that sentences people to 20 years in prison for shoplifting a pair of pants under the "3 strikes you're out" law?

Where is the line, anon? I'm curious. If we're following your logic here to the letter then all of these people have done nothing wrong because they were simply following the law.

>>18610008
What we're saying is that police officers who enforced segregation of minorities might have been overall morally positive in their effect on society, which would excuse them for the harm they did while following orders, because following orders is an essential part of their job.

Short answer, yes.

>>18610008
>I'm going to start by saying this is a very one dimensional question with a multi dimensional answer. The simple answer is no; no one should do what they are told without any reservation. It breeds complacency.
That is exactly what an officer swears to do: to uphold the laws created by our congresses without reservation. He is a *servant* of the *public*, not an independent actor. He becomes a tool of the state, and I do not mean that in a derogatory fashion. It's an honorable position.
.
>By your logic, every police officer who ever dragged a black person off of a bus, stopped black students from entering a school or arrested a black person for drinking from the wrong fountain gets to claim moral immunity. It was the law, so because they made an oath they're obligated to uphold the law and hold no moral responsibility, correct?
Yes, they do. The officers did nothing wrong. If it was a law passed by a congress with jurisdiction in the area, then don't lay the blame at the officer's feet, lay the blame at the feet of the law makers and those that elected them. In that regard, officers can be blamed for the immorality in their capacity as a voter, with the immoral act being the vote, not the enforcement. Don't blame the guy who is providing *you* with an invaluable service that enables your entire way of life.

What if an officer decides a law is immoral. Should he simply not enforce it? Do you believe that this is a tenable
strategy for the continuance of an orderly society?

>>18610019
I am great big dick gorilla fack u .

>>18610030
Your front of pretend intelligence is only superficially convincing. For example, you said strawman about five times, and can't hold a coherent point throughout the argument. Your delusional little front of pretend intellectualism and moral superiority won't protect you from your own incompetence and weakness, and you definitely aren't going to swing a bat at anyone.

>>18610024

>Oh, you're pancaking me. Pancake fallacy.

No I'm using your logic you imbecile. You claim that officers don't get to pick and choose which laws they enforce because they took an oath. Your words, not mine. The ends justify the means because, again in your words, they're still taking murderers off the street and doing good. All of these are your words. You're just sperging out and claiming fallacies because your ass backwards logic doesn't make sense when viewed through the eyes of an informed adult who can extrapolate it in a context bigger than the context of this specific argument.

>If the good actions of an officer outweigh the bad, then they are justified.

THERE you go. There it is. That's the heart of the problem there, isn't it? Who decides what is good and how much it weighs? I'm sure white people of that era would tell you that the good absolutely outweighed the bad because they weren't the victims of the injustice. The same thing happens today. Who speaks up for people who have been falsely imprisoned? Who speaks up for people who have suffered rape and tortured in our broken prison system for victimless crimes?

You claim that the ends justify the means because you've never been at the blunt end of the means and thats my ENTIRE argument about complacency you ignoramus. Someone like you who has never had to slip through the cracks of our broken justice system saying that the ends justify the means has been and always will be the reason injustice will continue to exist unaddressed.

It will continue to exist because people like you will always be willing to sacrifice someone you don't know or care about for the greater good instead of asking how we can negate the need for a sacrifice.

>>18610030
>So what you're saying is that all of those people get to claim moral immunity, correct?
Yes, that is correct.

>>18610030
>Is it not okay to enforce a law that enables murder but okay to enforce a law that subjects a person to cruel and unusual punishment for smoking marijuana?
Again with this irrelevant shit. You can't have a law that enabled murder. You can't have a law that enables cruel and unusual punishment. They are against the constitution. If the constitution was amended to allow those things, then the immoral action is the vote to allow them, not the enforcement of the law.

>>18610030
>Where is the line, anon? I'm curious. If we're following your logic here to the letter then all of these people have done nothing wrong because they were simply following the law.
There is no line. If the law is fully constitutional and the society has voted for it, either directly or indirectly, then there is no moral issue with enforcing the law.

If you take moral issue with a law, it is your choice to not become a cop or to stop being a cop. You can always make the choice to stop being a a cop if you no longer want to enforce the laws, so it's either you enforce none or you enforce all. There can be no middle ground in such a pragmatic problem. This is not philosophy, it's government.

>>18610057
that guy wasn't me, by the way, just someone trolling

>>18610034

You're an idiot of the worst kind. "Following orders" is not a justification for being immoral no matter how you frame it. And, obviously, the segregation of minorities did not have a morally positive effect on society except for anyone but the whites. Basically you're saying that it was ok because they were following order and because the moral foundation of white society was more important than black people's human rights, correct? As long as one group was benefiting then it was morally justified to harass, torture and murder the other, correct?

I feel like this conversation needs to be moved to /pol/ at this point.

>>18610057
We can keep restating this to you, and we have for an hour (God help us), but enforcing all laws is an integral part of being an officer. Sure, an officer can turn a blind eye if nobody is watching, but eventually it will be required of his position to do an 'immoral' arrest, because the laws don't exist on the basis of morals alone, but you're too much of an alt-right Facebook retard to know that.

You aren't really a retard, though. You're just ignorant. You think that if you can build yourself a false sense of moral superiority and then just become as illogical and indignant as possible. Your point here isn't to argue a point, or to understand someone else's point, it's just to piss and point fingers like a little child. Please go do something with your life, or shitpost Facebook up instead.

>>18610068
> Rusaian troops follows orders which lead to the downfall of the third Reich
But fuck that killing is immoral

>>18610068
You can't see it in a philosophical light. You can only see it in a political light, because you're a memer and not intelligent enough to think in terms other than that. You can't fix stupidity with puffy language, ie: "oh what a pompous buffoon!" Please become an adult.

>>18610057
Liberals are always so funny to me. They claim to believe in moral relativism then spend their energy arguing against moral relativism.

>>18610089
I'm the one saying officers were just doing their job when they segregated blacks and arrested pot smokers, and I'm a liberal. You're all a bunch of /pol/ memers and we killed the thread by engaging any of you in conversation

Im a walking oxymoron, im anti-establishment and have a deep rooted hatred for governments but still want to join the police force. Why? Because I hate what drugs did to my best friend.