I’ve been sitting back trying to figure out how to best word my thoughts over the past several days. This is going to be a long ass post, so please stay with me as I’m going to be airing out a lot of my own dirty laundry in this as well.
I want to start off by saying that I am anti-cop and completely against our current prison/justice system. There are so many better ways of handling “crimes” and harm to others than what we currently have, and when it comes to things like DV and assault, cops are the last thing I want to see inolved due to just how many of them are abusers themselves.
I am someone who left the criminal justice field after seeing the horrors of what is promoted just in the EDUCATION side of things. While there were some classes that discussed restorative justice, it was something that was treated like this unreachable utopia rather than what we see in many cultures around the world. There was this constant us vs them mentality that was fostered and nurtured by the teachers, especially the “retired” cops, from day one. Abuse was common in the class, whether from the teacher or the students, and we were expected to either go along with it, or leave.
Those of you who have known me for a while know that I had a teacher who on day one had us all stand up, and told us to sit down if we had ever committed a crime as a child, even if we’d never been caught. Four of us remained standing. He pointed to us and called us all liars. When I called on him to prove it, he marched us up in front of the class, changed the parameters to “ever committed a crime in your life, including getting a parking ticket” and had students then proceed to grill those of us who remained standing of various “crimes” they could think of.
This is how they start it. They enforce conformity by creating an us vs them from the beginning. They do it to the students to show them that standing up and calling something unjust out will get you punished and othered.
THIS IS INTENTIONAL.
I managed to make it until I had 3 classes left (technically 2 but one teacher gave me a D over calling him out on things) before it started triggering my PTSD to a point where I couldn’t continue anymore. I couldn’t continue to overlook things that were being done and suggested to students. Keep in mind this wasn’t the police academy, this was a criminal…
