I'm rather forthright with my opinions of our servants in blue. They're all bent as a peg. My reasoning here is that I've seen enough petty and very serious corruption, whether it's collusion to suppress evidence to cover up for cops who assaulted people (there's names for that: conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and plain old perjury), passing a blind eye over major offences, letting off their mates and the like, to allow me to reason that every NSW copper has either been bent, or has witnessed and not reported bentness.
Yes, I hold coppers to a high standard. A higher standard than for ordinary citizens. I think that's reasonable when you consider the enormous amount of power we give them individually and organisationally.
Now we see a report showing coppers in revolt because a number of them have been accused of very serious dodginess. These are the same fuckers who would use the "if you've got nothing to hide..." argument, so why are they scared of a little investigation?
One line from one of the coppers describing the Police Integrity Commission (hmmm, just like Military Intelligence) could just as easily describe the NSW Police Service: "It's damaged careers and reputations, for what? Someone needs to pull this organisation into line."
I don't know what the solution is to the bentness of coppers, but certainly the government should back the PIC to the hilt. I doubt they will though. A Wood-scale Royal Commission every five years would probably be a good idea.
The key problem is that the sort of people who want to become coppers, low-intelligence frustrated bully-victims-turned-bullies, are the last people you want as coppers. NSW Police recruitment processes have an upper as well as lower IQ range, from what I've heard, with the excuse that smart people would get bored being coppers. My interactions with most coppers bears this out.
As BDP put it: You were put here to protect us, but who protects us from you?