The Patriot Post® · Police Misbehavior Is No Excuse for General Mayhem

Writing in the Hoover Institution, Richard Epstein offers some perspective on the Baltimore debacle: “No one knows the exact figure, but a decent estimate tells us that there are about 900,000 police officers in the United States. Even in the best-run organizations, it is never possible to secure compliance rates of 100 percent. There are always some rogues. If only one percent of the police officers in this country disregard their basic duties, that is enough to lead to some inexcusable behaviors that can tear — and have torn — a nation apart. If it is exceedingly difficult to maintain high rates of compliance in well-run organizations, it is even more difficult to secure them in organizations whose structures are far from ideal, as is the case with police departments. As Ross Douthat has written in ‘Our Police Union Problem,’ one of the major problems with the police is that they are heavily unionized. … Of course, there is no rational justification for Gray’s death, which is why some form of criminal prosecution and departmental discipline are absolute necessities in this case. But it is not as though an appeal to order is misplaced when the police have misbehaved. It is all the more necessary to try to restore matters to an even keel before there are more killings, woundings, firebombings, and general mayhem. What else should these public officials say? That it’s fine to riot no how matter how much it undermines civic institutions?”