A new report adds to a growing line of research showing that police departments don’t solve serious or violent crimes with any regularity, and in fact, spend very little time on crime control, in contrast to popular narratives.
Police spend most of their day inserting themselves into the everyday lives of citizens who aren't doing anything wrong.
I have a criminal record. Minor drug charges. I still get pulled over constantly, for zero reason, just so the cop can take a look and see if they approve of my hair clothes etc, and whether or not they wanna ruin my life...because they can, without provocation. Ever get slapped with a resisting arrest because the other charges weren't gonna stick in court? Happens all the time.
When i was a kid, I was weird and from a small town. I had no criminal record, gifted program at school, but I had a weird haircut and liked to walk to dunkin' donuts late at night because after midnight their donuts were on sale. This was enough to convince the local cops that I was one of the bad kids and, obviously, on drugs. Any time they saw me, they would stop me and harass me. It was the 90s, so the police could do anything to anyone as long as they said "Where are the drugs?" while they did it. You'll notice that nowadays the fashion seems to be to yell "stop resisting" or "gun" before they abuse private citizens without probable cause, but at the time is was "where are the drugs?" So, after a while of being stopped and harassed every time I left the house, I eventually got fed up and talked back to them. "Where are the drugs?" "The guy you're ignoring while you fuck with me has them". For that, I got my face busted off the hood of the cruiser a couple times before they let me go. They never found anything on me, because there never was anything on me, but being small town idiot cops they were sure that every time they didn't find drugs it was because I was really good at hiding them.