BPD officer arrested on domestic assault-and-battery charge, allegedly after fight with brother at West Roxbury funeral home the day after their father died

I mean, you and I both know that a large percentage of people DO go into jobs that have a lot of power over people for relatively little required formal education because, well, they want to have power over people. We can't ignore that this is a thing that happens and is a problem.

The combining thing is an interesting idea, and I do think you're right that it would weed out some of the outright bullies, but I still don't have a lot of faith in it. We actually see it played in out in the child "welfare" world when we compare states that have very high rates of intervention vs. those with low rates.

(For those less familiar with this system, the government stats are released as "rate of abuse/neglect," and Massachusetts has the highest. We do not in any way shape or form actually have anything like a high rate of actual harm to children; we have the most substantiated cases per capita, because this state routinely and proudly substantiates things like disagreeing with a provider over a non-life-threatening issue, tweens walking to school, or all sorts of nonsense. The rates of physical and sexual abuse of children are pretty consistent across the U.S. Most cases in the system anywhere in the U.S. are neglect, which is essentially poverty.)

In the states with high rates of involvement, such as this one, the culture in the system and in those adjacent to it is one in which most people working in it truly believe that DCF involvement "helps people." I constantly am in meetings in which DCF workers will say "no one is accusing anyone of anything, but we just want to make sure appropriate services are in place." Of course, there isn't a legal construct for this, and what DCF does is substantiate families for neglect when they've decided "we're going to open a case to make sure you get support" and they use all this language around "support" and "services" in most cases other than the rare horrendous ones, and so many of them truly believe that's what they're doing, and that they're doing people a favor by opening a case against them. These people aren't the aggressive playground bully types, but they are savior types who think they are helping people by giving them a record and forcing services on them. We are also the state with the highest rates of reporting to DCF, and so many teachers and providers truly think that they're supposed to report any time they're "concerned." I literally interview people for court investigations who tell me they don't think there's anything remotely like abuse or neglect occurring, but they reported to DCF to make sure the child is getting services. Which, no. If you think a child needs services, you suggest that to the family and you help them find them. So many problems are caused by these people who use their positions of power to make sure a parent is mandated to put their kid in speech therapy because they decide they know better than them (and often without even starting by DOING THEIR JOB and explaining to the family how it might help and listening to why they are reluctant before calling and alleging neglect).

My belief, and the belief of most progressive clinicians and those who deal with these systems is that they should not in any way be connected to any sort of "support" or "help." There should be completely separate systems that can help people access services and navigate systems. It's completely unethical that DCF has pull with providers and agencies that families don't, and can access financial resources that the family can't access by just going to an agency and saying they need childcare or rent assistance.

If DCF continues to exist at all (and again, for those unfamiliar, there is quite the robust mainstream movement by several law schools and social work schools to abolish it completely, as it hasn't resulted in increased safety of children), it should be an extremely barebones system, in which families are only involved if something serious has happened or is likely to happen, and which removes the blurred boundaries of "providing help." Also, this barebones system should only employ graduate-level clinicians, attorneys, and forensic folks, rather than the current system in which most employees making decisions have a bachelor's degree. This isn't to say that more trained folks are better or don't do harm, because we certainly do, but that families deserve to interface with people who truly know their shit and have the critical thinking skills to reflect. Hell, policing, should it continue to exist, should also move toward requiring graduate education and strong critical thinking skills. With great power comes great responsibility, and so forth.

I’m not virtue signaling. I’m pointing out how many cops are maladjusted, cowardly losers with shit judgement who can’t handle their own business, let alone others. In a system (plus peers and bootlicking supporters) that excuses their bad behavior instead of holding them to any sort of higher standard.