The biggest problem police officers face is that they are hammers,
and everything looks like a nail...
Neh, everything is an egg.
The life of your average middle class person is so fragile, like an egg, that anything the police do is life threatening.
Whereas, to all of the hoodlums,low-lifes and scum, who, in our anaolgy have already had their shells cracked, there is nothing the police officers can do. There lives are already broken, and there is no amount of whisking that will make the eggs less scrambled.
Good people believe the TV. They think that a person's life is ruined after they have been tried and found guilty in a just court system.
However, that is far from reality.
A good person's life is destroyed the moment they get arrested. They can be held in jail for three days and never charged with any crimes, and their lives have pretty much been destroyed.
Imagine going back to your job, where you have been missing for three days, and trying to explain why you were in jail. No matter what you say, the boss (a good person who believes the TV) will think "where there's smoke, there's fire".
Imagine going to your next job interview (because your last place found some reason to lay you off, then explaining to the interviewer why you have an arrest record. And you do, have an arrest record, because you got arrested and anyone can get access to it on the internets. The arrest record is almost impossible to get rid of. So, you are sitting there, trying to explain how you are a good person and the arrest was false... to a person that doesn't know anything about you.
And, you are lucky you got a call back for the interview. Usually the HR department would have round filed your resume after doing a background check on you.
BTW: If you worked in the banking industry, you will never get a job again. Banks cannot hire anyone with an arrest record. (not conviction, not sentencing, not jail time. arrest record.)
Now, the young mobster, the gang member, what can the police officer do to these people? Nothing. Police officers and jailers are not allowed to beat up prisoners, so most people won't have their lives directly threatened. They get three hots and a cot. They get street cred. They basically get harassed and put back out on the street.
The legal system has absolutely nothing they can do to these people. You can't fine someone who has no money. You can't scare them with what basically is paid vacation.
These people's lives have already been destroyed. They aren't qualified for any jobs that ask for a resume. They have no hope of ladder climbing. There is nothing that a police officer can do. They can't even scare them.
They have already had their shells broken.
So, the police officers are hammers, and the population is eggs. There is no more spending a night in jail, and calling your daddy to come pick you up. The police have lost everything. They can no longer serve or protect. They have been reduced to destroyers of lives and randomized taxation givers.
As more people wake up to reality (instead of TV) the police officer will be seen as pariah.
To get out of this mess, many things need to happen. More police need to come forward and tell of the actual policing and how it differs greatly from the TV shows.
Then, the people need to have a discussion about what policing should be, and how to bring the current system into alignment with those ideals.
I hope we can do this, because what has transpired before is that the police become more and more militant bring about a police state. Then, all of the police officers die. And thus the lawless period starts. We would like to avoid this, but we also have to avoid the police state.