GOOD COP, BAD COP

Television shows and movies often depict scenes in which police
officers, in order to get a criminal suspect to talk, take turns
interrogating. One officer acts like an angry beast, about to explode
in violence, while the other is reasonable and sympathetic, befriends
the suspect, and suggests ways to appease the beast's anger, such as
by telling the truth.

They call the ruse ``good cop, bad cop.''

Our society has developed a pernicious case of a deadly malady that
results in the same officer being, simultaneously, both a good cop and
a bad cop. This is because in carrying out some of his orders, he must
violate the rights of citizens whose rights he is sworn to protect. We
began putting our police officers in this impossible bind when we
decided that it was the job of government to protect us not only from
others, but from ourselves (and our own bad judgment) as well.

I refer to laws against various recreational drugs, gambling and
sex-for-pay - victimless ``crimes.'' Unfortunately, in trying to
police ourselves this way, everyone becomes a victim, not of vice, but
of the vice squad. Because to do their job, vice-squad officers must
become the all-seeing eyes of Big Brother - snooping here, entrapping
there, decimating our Bill of Rights everywhere.

SPECIOUS INVASIONS

This country has witnessed numerous instances over the past decade of
police breaking into the homes of innocent citizens and killing them,
all because of our nation's ``Drug War'' hysteria. Recently we have
seen our national ``drug czar'' send our military troops and $1.6
billion overseas to ``help'' Colombians by poisoning their marijuana
and coca crops (``Drug czar visits jungle,'' Tribune-Review, Feb. 25).
Scores of innocent people are killed every year in the cross fire of
drug war-induced urban gang turf wars. Drug dealers, spurred on by the
promise of large future profits, peddle drugs to children to get them
hooked. And the seizure of the private property of those merely
suspected of illegal activity, who aren't even charged with a crime
let alone convicted of one, is now a multibillion-dollar source of
revenue for police departments across the United States.

The latter was made possible by the RICO (Racketeer Influence Corrupt
Organization) anti-racketeering laws designed for use against
drug kingpins, but which are now used mostly against average citizens.
(An organization called FEAR - Forfeiture Endangers American Rights -
has a Web site (www.fear.org) that is chock-full of useful, and
blood-boiling, information.)

You may wonder how it is that here, in the supposed land of the free,
we're not even free to enjoy our vices anymore? Even during our
Victorian era, personal vices were viewed as something to be corrected
by a minister's admonitions, not by a policeman's club. Our situation
seems to be due less to residual puritanism than to our progressive
move toward socialism throughout the 20th century, such that now
everyone is responsible for all and no one is responsible for
anything. With unemployment benefits and welfare being paid by
everyone's taxes, it's now everyone's business when anyone isn't
working. With Medicaid and Medicare, it's everyone's business when
anyone endangers somebody's health. (The current bete noires are
smoking and doing drugs, but skydiving, eating fatty food and other
risky behaviors can't be far behind).

So, with the best of intentions, we're enforcing laws against
prostitution, gambling and recreational drugs that put police in the
following bind: If they choose to enforce the law, they must use force
against people who are minding their own business and not hurting
anyone else, which goes against common decency and the basic moral
tenet of ``live and let live.'' But if they leave them alone, they're
not doing their job.

To see the immorality of the law, ask yourself if you'd feel
justified, as an ordinary citizen, in trying to physically subdue and
handcuff people who were off by themselves, peacefully smoking
marijuana cigarettes, snorting cocaine, or even shooting heroin into
their veins. By contrast, would you feel justified in trying to
physically subdue and handcuff someone who was mugging an elderly
person? I hope the latter, and not the former!

DICHOTOMY OF STATE

Getting back to our police officers' dilemma, they usually can't just
ignore people who are openly engaged in vice activities, because
citizens, quite reasonably, complain about prostitutes soliciting in
their neighborhood, open-air drug markets, etc. And state lottery
officials complain about illegal gambling operations cutting into the
state's take. (Gambling is so bad for us, you see, that the state has
to run it and get us hooked on their benign form of it. It helps
senior citizens, don't you know?)

And so police officers can't always look the other way, even though
their best instincts tell them they should. To keep citizens'
complaints down to a minimum, and to keep vice out of the public eye,
officers sometimes reach informal agreements with those in the vice
business, such that the latter conduct their activities out of public
view and the police leave them alone - often for a price.

And, for their money, these officers provide not only noninterference,
but can also arrest the competition of their favored vice-dealer and
keep other officers in line (like that jerk Serpico, who thought he
was being good by not taking bribes, but who actually upset an
efficient operation with which everyone was reasonably satisfied).

So, when people speak of a ``good cop gone bad,'' they're usually
mistaken, because being ``bad,'' or ``on the take,'' is more in line
with basic morality - not using force against those who aren't using
force or fraud against others. Bad is now good, good is actually bad,
and we've turned our criminal justice system upside down.

Of course, some officers really do turn bad, as disclosures in New
York and, more recently, Los Angeles have revealed, doing things like
cold-bloodedly killing and stealing from drug dealers. But, with some
of our laws so at odds with basic morality, it's no wonder that cops
occasionally get confused about right and wrong behavior.

Do we as a society wish to continue putting our police officers in
this impossible bind, where to do their assigned job they must violate
the Bill of Rights and all standards of common decency? Or, do we wish
to recognize that if there's no victim there's no crime and begin
putting our vice squad officers to work stopping real criminals, like
murderers, rapists, muggers, and thieves?