The world is a dangerous place, which is why civilians have depended time and time again on the police force to keep themselves safe. However, in these dark times, it seems police who choose to break the law are in grave danger of facing repercussions for their offenses. As pressure mounts to charge officers with the crimes they have committed, it is vital to keep one glaring issue in mind: if we fill our jails with cops who have broken the law, where will we imprison the people who do not want cops to break the law?
America is the leader of the free world when it comes to incarcerating citizens. We simply could not have achieved this magnificent feat without the help of the police, especially the ones with no regard for the law. Unfortunately, not everyone thinks the disastrous campaign of mass incarceration is worthy of praise. Dangerous propaganda videos of police breaking the law have circulated widely online, radicalizing a large portion of the general population into denouncing this behavior. The amount of people who oppose cops breaking the law is growing by the minute. In fact, there might even be more people who don’t want cops to break the law than available jail cells. That is why it is so crucial we do not waste precious jail space on cops who have committed a crime.
Let’s explore a hypothetical. In the past week alone there have multiple reports of police SUVs being damaged by the bodies of protestors they plowed through. Say we arrest a cop for breaking the law that says you shouldn’t run over someone with your car. That’s one more jail cell that could have been used to detain someone who thinks cops should not be allowed to run over people with their car. Not to mention if the officers who drove vehicles into a crowd are removed from the force, it is far less likely justice will ever be served for those brutalized squad cars.
Furthermore, when an officer faces criminal charges, they are often subject to the cruel and devastating punishment of paid administrative leave. That is taxpayer money wasted on them to sit at home on the couch, when they could be out committing more crimes. In addition to the expenses of paid leave, trials are costly, and it is essential to allocate that money to buying the police military-grade assault weapons and chemicals banned by the Geneva Protocol of 1925. Plus, by the time the officer is acquitted of all charges, days or even weeks have gone by — valuable time which could have been used to break the law.
Police take a sacred oath to serve and protect those they feel like serving and protecting. If they are penalized for cherrypicking which laws to abide by, who can say who’s next? Billionaires? Politicians? The entire ruling class is placed under immediate threat of having to follow the rules they created. The facts are simple: the more law-breaking police who remain outside of jail, the more police there will be to arrest those who think police should not be allowed to break the law.