Police corruption is a very serious problem in America today with many social consequences. It’s important to note that there are many excellent police officers who are competent, cordial and professional. However, there are many bad apples in the bunch who all too often get protected by the system instead of being disciplined and brought to justice. In fact, many of these criminal-minded officers who victimize people routinely remain on the force, and sometimes even get promoted. Corrupt departments have forgotten that the force belongs to the people and instead make it their business to protect lunatics prone to illegal activity on the tax payers dime. Below are a few of the most common types of police corruption and ineffective police programs incessantly being swept under the rug by the powers that be.

No sensible person with a clear understanding of human rights would ever justify Stop and Frisk. Regardless, there have been people, including former NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly, who painfully tried to advocate for it, but it just doesn’t pass the smell test. Surprisingly, there are still many people in favor of it despite all the obvious negative statistics associated with Stop and Frisk. Naturally, many of these people in favor of Stop and Frisk are not in a town or the profile type to ever be stopped, so of course they don’t care what’s happening to scores of victimized teens and young adults who are humiliated and patted down in the street like criminals.

A few years ago the Stop and Frisk statistics for 2011 show that out of 685,724 stops 53% were black, 34% were Hispanic, 9% were white and 88%, the vast majority, were completely innocent. And of the paltry 12%, most of them were nonsensical drug related  things that people shouldn’t be arrested for in the first place. Any intelligent person can see according to the statistics that the results of the program are not worth the unnecessary violation of human rights.

It’s as simple as this: Where there is no crime, don’t bother people. Stop and Frisk is so obviously un-American, un-Constitutional, unreasonable, and uncalled for that it will never survive without the stigma of being extremely controversial. Raymond Kelly tried to explain that it reduced crime, but only ever so technically—so would locking up everyone in town. In fact, crime would be brought down to 0%, goal achieved. At only a 12% success rate, and most of them insignificant cases that people shouldn’t be dragged to jail for, Stop and Frisk doesn’t make a realistic dent in crime statistics whatsoever. Hardly anyone dangerous gets taken off the street. However, if one unlucky person happens have a nickel bag of weed—he’s going in.

History has shown us that many times individuals in powerful positions can go through a form of mental retardation and lose sight of what’s humane and practical, crossing social boundaries that should never be crossed. This is when the American public should reestablish the peripheries of a so-called democracy and prevent an elite minority from dictating things into law that are overly ambitious, idiotic and obviously pushing too far into human rights violations that threaten freedom.

Stop and Frisk is not only fascist and overzealous, but it produces more human rights infractions than it fights crime. Giving American police the power to randomly stop anyone to be checked out and patted down is insane. The last thing American cops need is more authority to obstruct and complicate the lives of people going about their business.

Police states aren’t formed over night. They are slowly formed in very careful small increments. The powers that be use fear and safety in order to take away more rights on an unsuspecting, sleeping public. Slowly, they want us to become more and more comfortable with police or military presence in our day-to-day lives. They want us completely accustomed to being stopped randomly by law enforcement and “checked out.” It’s eerily reminiscent and akin to being asked for your papers.

Stop and Frisk is not the answer and anyone in support of it should question themselves. People who aren’t intellectually on the right side of important issues are unwittingly harmful to the rest of society in a variety of ways. Unenlightened people who are slow on the issues and rationalize things incorrectly help keep things that are negatively affecting many people in practice. With institutions like Stop and Frisk given a thumbs up, America takes another huge step away from the land that it’s meant to be. If Stop and Frisk was ever put to a vote, the answer from every American citizen should be an uncompromising and resounding “no.”

This is an interesting one because what clearly qualifies as acts of entrapment, the legal system chooses not to view as entrapment. Legally the definition of legitimate entrapment has been limited and redefined, but it still is what it is. Entrapment is so obviously wrong, unethical and unconstitutional on so many levels, but police in certain parts of the country still do it routinely anyway. Entrapment is basically the act in which law enforcement baits unsuspecting civilians into criminal activity that they would not have committed had they not been baited into it. For example, in many cities female officers are sent out to parade themselves around as “working girls.” They try to engage men and if and when the men agree to what is offered, police officers waiting in the wings come out and arrest them. Cops creeping around pretending to be prostitutes could stalk people exiting night clubs when they’ve been drinking, try to solicit themselves to people, and then arrest them. No one in the top tier hierarchy of law enforcement felt that this might be a tad bit overly ambitious. So yes, someone authorized this as acceptable routine police work. As obviously off as it is, there are, unfortunately, more forms of entrapment attempting to rear itself into common practice. This is all aside from the fact that removed from sex trafficking and underage encounters, the act of prostitution should not be illegal in the first place. What any two grown consenting adults agree to is between them, not police officers spying on them.

Entrapment tactics are also used for drugs cases. In an idiotic failed drug war, drugs are still incessantly used to try and throw more citizens in jail. In some cities many cops are dispatched to pose as drug dealers, and when an unsuspecting victim agrees to purchase what an undercover cop was pushing on him, again the cops come and arrest them. Cops shouldn’t be wearing costumes attempting to trap anyone and everyone without prior notification of criminal activity. This is all regardless of the fact that police accomplish absolutely nothing arresting drug dealers. All drug dealers are quickly replaced. In stark contrast, legalizing certain drugs completely eliminates the criminal market for it.

In NYC, some police pretend to be regular civilians in the subway, but not for the purpose of fighting crime. In a busy part of a New York day while people are rushing, under cover officers in teams of two or three open the gate instead of paying and going through the turnstile. If anyone follows them through, they turn around and arrest them. I’ll explain how this police tomfoolery can go wrong. This is the account of someone I’ve met. A skinny, young, well dressed, non-violent man who had never been in trouble with the law was thrown in cuffs and walked out of the train station in front of scores of people because of this subway trick. The interesting thing about his situation is that he did attempt to pay but his metro card was dysfunctional and it kept instructing him to swipe again. He was running late and as the train arrived, he observed the men who seemed like respectable people, maybe even doctors or lawyers walk through and he walked through behind them. Think about the psychological trick in play. If a teen-aged thuggish character walked through no respectable people would follow him. If decent men in suits walked through people would be more apt to follow. This young man saw them and only walked through because his card was not working. When they cuffed him, he explained that he had money on his card, he wasn’t a turnstile jumper and that he intended to pay in the first place, but they didn’t care. These officers employed by tax-payer money, were not fighting crime or doing anything constructive. They were using him to make their numbers. He was cuffed in public and taken to jail where he spent the night and awaited trial the next day. One innocent person routinely going about in the city ended up behind bars for no good reason. This is “police work” out of control.

No matter what some representative of law enforcement or the justice system tries to sell you, this type of entrapment that they refuse to call entrapment is never acceptable. It’s unconstitutional and especially for drugs or prostitution.

Entrapment exposes a contaminated agenda. The objective for all law enforcement is supposed to be to serve and protect. Law enforcement is not meant to go out and try to tempt and trip people up into criminal activity for revenue. It’s an exhaust of police time for the wrong reasons. It only serves the hidden agenda for increased arrests.

Law enforcement is a much needed part of our society, but it must know its limitations and peripheries. Cases of entrapment is not crime fighting, it’s creating criminals.

A common occurrence with arrests is having cars and pockets searched with or without permission. Many people are unaware that they have the right to refuse searches and unwittingly allow officers to rummage through their belongings for the sole purpose of trying to find drugs, drug paraphernalia or illegal items. Many times officers play off of people’s unawareness of their rights and behave as though you have to submit to their requests when you don’t.

Perhaps the biggest exhaust of police time is drug arrests, primarily marijuana and prescription pills. The drug war has already been lost, the times have changed, and no one thinks of small amounts of drugs deserving of punitive action anymore—except the police fiddling in people’s pockets.

Everyone knows the days of weed being illegal are numbered. Forget drugs. The continuous ushering of meaningless drug cases in and out of court that allows real criminals to float out of custody is what needs to be prohibited.

It’s abundantly clear that it is illegal and unconstitutional for law enforcement to have quotas for arrests, tickets and citations, but they do anyway and simply never publicly admit to it. Largely because of money, this is the type of corruption that is destroying the country and the American quality of life.

You can never assume crime and set performance quotas for police for many obvious common sense reasons. What happens when months are very slow and criminal activity is at a low point? I’ll tell you what happens. Police start to become petty, overreaching and bag people for trumped up trivial things. So the societal reward for a reduction in crime becomes the stalking and antagonizing of innocent people. With pressure to maintain ridiculous unconstitutional arrest quotas, police are put in the position of hunting for criminal activity whether there is crime or not. This is obviously extremely dangerous and problematic for countless reasons. Law enforcement should never have quotas because you simply can’t make projections on crimes that don’t exist yet and force cops to maintain “numbers”. That is a perfect recipe for potential human rights infractions.

Quotas are not only unconstitutional, they are also completely illogical. For example, how can we truly measure crime rates with quotas in tact? How can we know if crime goes up or down as far as statistics are concerned with performance quotas for arrests maintained?

There are many ominous reasons why a quota system is secretly maintained that would disgust and shock the American public. A large part of maintaining a quota system is to ensure a certain amount of revenue coming in at the expense of victimized American citizens. There are several entities that are interested in increased arrests. They serve very small factions of people seeking profit and create a huge exacerbating disservice to society at large.

Police knowingly operate under an unconstitutional quota system and no one has put a stop to it yet. Rights can continuously be taken away from a society asleep.

Nothing puts this problem on Front Street more than the case of Eric Garner. Eric Garner, 43, was the Staten Island man who wasn’t guilty of a crime, but was still surrounded by a gang of overreacting police officers who ended up choking him to death in July 2014. The police were not listening to the man or the crowd explaining that he had nothing to do with anything.  Consequently, the police proceeded to tackle the man to the floor as they choked him and put knees on his head. The asthmatic Garner who was yelling that he couldn’t breath died on the spot. More and more,  police all over the nation are acting like poorly trained gangs of thugs resorting to unnecessary, unprofessional force and violence.

This seems to be a growing situation for American cops that may begin to shed light on the training of US law enforcement. For example, there is a huge disparity between the amounts of shots fired and fatalities from US cops versus cops in several other first world countries. US cops seem to resort to over-the-top deadly force far more than what many feel is necessary or called for compared to other industrialized nations. US cops have had several stints of bad press for having killed unarmed people in a hail of bullets from scores of cops firing wildly.

In addition to this all too common occurrence, the display of police force and gunfire during the suspicious Boston bombing has put the issue of what should be necessary police force on front street. The alleged suspects both young, unarmed and cowering were surrounded by multitudes of cops and fired at like a scene from Die Hard when they could have very easily been called out and walked into custody by a single cop. Instead the town was locked down with tanks, helicopters, and swat teams with guns drawn running around shouting orders to people and searching homes. 

There are several videos going viral on YouTube in which cops can be seen shouting and pouncing on handcuffed people already on the ground in submission and compliance.This overzealous and spirited shoot-to-kill police mentality is causing the deaths of countless people unnecessarily. Safety measures are necessary and appreciated. However, there is such a thing as too much.

This is not as common in big cities like NYC, but it happens all over the country. Corrupt versions of Civil Forfeiture is one of those things that should never happen in a modern civilized society, but somehow it does anyway. Here is a breakdown of how this works. Mostly in small towns, police officers cruise around hunting for new victims. They either have or create a reason for pulling someone over. Soon they ask if there are drugs or weapons in the vehicle. Naturally, most people would say no. Eventually the officer asks if he can search the vehicle. This is where everyone should politely say, “No.” Still, however, unsuspecting people under the false notion that they can trust the police and that compliance is a good thing allow the police to search the vehicle, and that’s where the problem sometimes happens. Questionable police officers who find money or valuable items confiscate them and make up false claims for confiscating the items, like claiming they fit the description of drug suspects. Some corrupt police stations absolutely love this loathsome drug war and what it can sometimes enable them to do. After the victims of the shady police are taken to the station, they are given the option to either sign off their valuables and leave or risk staying in jail to face felony charges. Of course, people who are tired, afraid and want the situation to end will opt to leave their items to be set free. Yes, this actually happens in America and it happens a lot.

This is such a blatant example of corruption and an illegal misuse of power. Police officers who have the audacity to do this should be stripped of their badges and thrown in jail like common criminals, only it comes from above. The police departments that allow this enjoy collecting the money. They know many of the people they victimize are innocent American citizens, but they don’t care. They’re out to collect money for the force.

Police officers who do this are without a doubt one of three things: Either they are too weak, afraid or indifferent to acknowledge the corruption and object or work against the system, or they’ve adopted a cultist delusional perspective and rationalized this practice to themselves as acceptable, or they truly are fiendish degenerates who know exactly what they’re doing.

Dealing with this problem requires educating the masses. When more people become aware of their rights, fewer occurrences like this will happen. Know your rights and just say, “No.” People need to stop letting shady police officers do whatever they want. When police stop you, be polite, but assertive. If you’ve committed no crime, you don’t have to do address a bunch of unnecessary questions. Force the police to stick to the reason for which they stopped you and nothing more. Do not agree to any searches. If you get pulled over for a broken taillight, for example, why would you agree to have your vehicle searched? Is a broken taillight a sign of criminality? You’re not a criminal so do not let the police ever treat you like one. They’re on your time so help them get the matter over with as quickly as possible. They don’t need anything else from you but what is relevant to the reason you were stopped. If you’re not a criminal, you don’t have to be inconvenienced to prove to the police that you aren’t one.

These practices should be opposed and condemned as they demote our country from a respectable first world nation with values, to a backward, primitive and corrupt nation that empowers mentally deranged criminals with badges and guns.

Police officers are slowly becoming public enemies and nuisances instead of our protectors because certain entities are allowing this to be a reality. Police should be involved with their communities as they familiarize themselves with the neighborhood and the people. Instead, mean-spirited mentally sick people keep infiltrating the force and are degrading the badge. What’s worse is that the crimes these bad cops commit many times aren’t being dealt with as they should. Many people in high positions ignore the serious infractions or try to explain them off no matter how blatantly criminal it is. These bad cops, corrupt DAs and judges don’t have a sense of honor and integrity, and are too lost and mentally diseased to realize they do not belong in the positions they sit in. We as a society should never tolerate this and there are many things we can do to restore power to the people.

When dealing with officers, it’s important to remain calm and be polite. Even though you should maintain a level of cordiality, be strong, clear, aware of your rights, and don’t let cops chat you up in other directions. Speak as little as possible.

Recording with phones and cameras has also been very helpful in curbing the behavior of rogue cops. Cops are aware that most people understand that they have a legal right to film them. Many of the officers do not want to have themselves on footage violating rights or going against procedure that could be exposed and used against them. Bad cops may try to bully people and threaten you for filming, but reminding them politely that you are aware of your legal right to do so will let them know they are not dealing with an idiot or a flake. As is the nature of most salivating beastly predators on the hunt, they may end the chase of prey that is too strong, fast and smart and go for something weaker, compromised and easier.

Never under any circumstances agree to searches or things unrelated to why you’re stopped if you’re not being detained or given a valid reason for being held up. Cops should not be comfortable with searching people’s car unless there is reasonable cause. The more people politely refuse, the less common it will become. A verbal nudge of, “Am I free to go,” will help speed things up and get you on your way sooner.

If you’ve already been violated, make as much noise as possible. Reach out for legal representation. Many law firms will take on cases free of charge if they feel your lawsuit can succeed. Never walk away a victim. Contact the media, non-profit organizations and do whatever you can to expose the criminal behavior. Many of these bad cops haven’t rationalized that they are, in fact, loathsome criminals themselves who need to be removed and dealt with. People in high positions are prone to sweep things under the rug until they understand that they must contend with criminal activity both in and outside of the force because a proactive community demands it. We don’t pay them their salaries so that they can antagonize people and then protect themselves from discipline.

It’s important to remember that police who violate you are criminals and helping yourself get justice means helping countless others. There are both positive forces of good and negative forces in the world. Whenever forces consumed in negative energy and imprudence expose themselves amidst the ranks of those empowered with authority who are meant to protect and serve society, it is our duty to act. We don’t allow people who expose themselves to be drunks fly planes or drive buses because it’s dangerous for society. Communities don’t allow people with a criminal history of child abuse to become teachers or coaches. In the same manner, police officers, judges or DAs who have a history of unacceptable behavior and questionable infractions should be snuffed out just as quickly because they do not belong there another millisecond longer for everyone’s sake. Fighting crooked cops and officials may sometimes seem difficult, but it is the furthest thing from impossible, and it must be done.