On Other Random Things about Police

These are some random things I’ve found when researching the police that I thought was insane about police culture in the United States that didn’t really fit into the reform or defund blog posts.

An Aside: Domestic Violence

This is something I’ve learned about researching this but isn’t directly tied to the protests and it’s about domestic violence in police families. There hasn’t been a lot of studies on this and most seem to date back to the 90s, but it seems that the percentage of domestic abuse among cops is high. As high as 40% of police officer families experience domestic violence,

The main things that come from are:
– Cops know how to use the system and obviously the partner of a cop is obviously reluctant to report things.
– Cops will have their convictions expunged (see things about police union reforms)
– There is little repercussions to domestic abuse in police departments. Most don’t face charges and only 20% of departments would be terminate their officer if they were second sustained allegation (I wish this became part of early intervention systems).

Chicago’s reforms: Chicago seems to have at least addressed this through a 24 hour-complaint desk and support resource for all families run by civilian body. This is part of the Office of Personal Responsibility. Counseling is offered and the superior of the cop in question is immediately told. I don’t know how effective this has been.

Military Response

Two professions exempted from gun control legislation involving domestic abuse passed in the 90s (it’s was the Lautenberg Amendment) are cops and the military. What’s crazy is that the military has much more stringent rules about soldiers who commit domestic violence.

The policy of the military is that anyone convicted of a domestic violence should be:
– Non deployable to any situation that requires weapons
– Cannot attend any trainings with the use of service arms
– Are not allowed to re-enlist and are not eligible for permanent re-enlistment.

This is all what the Army says it does. I haven’t done any research into whether it happens or not. The fact that the military have more rules about than many police departments is a ridiculous to me.