From Wendy McElroy's excellent article entitled The Thin Blue Lie:
'The police' is an institution designed to enforce the law, whatever the law may be, and to process those suspected of violating it. Only if the law is just does an individual policeman stand any chance of 'producing' justice. To a large degree, current law is designed to produce morality (e.g. enforcing victimless crimes), social 'ideals' (affirmative action) or the protection of political power (gun control). As long as the well-intentioned policeman uses the institution's materials - the law - and complies with its procedures, he will not produce justice. All he can do is to minimize the viciousness with which unjust laws are enforced.
I do not belittle the importance of reducing police brutality. Yet I believe attempts to reform this aspect of the problem are doomed as well. I do not use 'bad apples' like Officer Justin Volpe, who sodomized suspect Louima with a broom, as a paradigm around which to level criticism. I am willing to believe that Volpe's sort is as unusual as the idealistic policeman who treats suspects with real compassion. The vast majority of people in any profession fall in the middle of the bell curve, not at either end. I think most officers simply wish to process the goods - that is, the suspects - with as little trouble as possible. When the goods resist processing, the police respond with the same frustration anyone would feel. Only police carry guns. They often view suspects as less than human. And, as with domestic violence, their brutality has the protection of occurring behind a closed door.
The example I use to argue that a few well-intention officers will not reduce brutality is Sgt. Michael Bellomo. He is one of the other four defendants in the Louima matter and the only one not charged with some form of assault. Bellomo went on trial for lying to the FBI about Louima. He is, more credibly, the typical policeman. He protected the unbelievable brutality of a fellow-officer rather than tell the truth. I believe Bellomo is the norm that good intentions will not overcome.
(emphasis and links mine)
Like McElroy, I'm not so much interested in the "bad apples" as I am in the normal, everyday policemen and -women who think they're doing the right thing by covering up their co-workers' misconduct. When the good cops don't stand up to the bad cops, they are complicit - after all, it is they who claim the power to uphold the supposedly inviolate state law, not us. Decent officers, acting out of an institutional loyalty that somehow trumps their conscience, are the ones responsible for the "blue wall of silence" - not the ones who are violent or mischievous.
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