Is police subculture to blame?

All careers, no matter what they are, have a type of culture that the employees are a part of or learn to be apart of. It is no different for the police. People who become police officers are made different by the culture of the job. The police culture is a way of understanding or thinking about things. In the police culture, every officer deals with the different situations the way they know how. To the public they are being insensitive but it is just how the officer handles it. The police culture is learned through socialization, this is a process where they gather the knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes of policing.

When the police are out on patrol they protect one another. In an article written by Christopher Cooper, Entrenched Subculture Is at Root of Police Brutality and Bias Cases, he explains that the police are taught that if a citizen runs from them they are to be beat severely. If a citizen was to hurt them they are to hurt that citizen even more before they bring them to the station. They are also taught if a citizen kills a cop the citizen shouldn't make it back to the station alive.

http://www.commondreams.org/views/072100-105.htm. A lot of times we see this in the media, there have been a few times in the last couple years when the police were on man hunts for citizens who have shot and killed officers. No matter what agency they were from all of the police agency’s get together to search for the killer. This shows that they are there to protect each other.

Knowing this kind of information and understanding it helps to see what the officers are thinking. It doesn’t justify their actions when they beat a citizen who is already detained. The police are there to protect each other and from this article they will do just about anything to do so.