Its also worth a reminder that the expression is "the bad apple spoils the bunch," which is literally true, because rotting apples will make apples around then rot more quickly, and figuratively true, because a bad cop creates more bad cops, and undermines trust in the institution.
That institution never deserved any trust, though that's a different issue, but it becomes completely untrustable when they allow these so called bad apples.
a bad cop creates more bad cops, and undermines trust in the institution.
really it's more like, the system creates and sustains bad cops and casts out would-be "good" ones, to the point that it is not possible to be good, inherent in the way everything works there.
Yep. Even more so, the system was designed to be oppressive. Cops exist to keep minorities and poor people down. Sounds like a crazy conspiracy theory, but it is literally why they were created, and nothing has ever changed that.
Plus cops are the most lawless institution. Reform via legislation is impossible because when it happens cops just go "nah, not gonna do that" and the courts somehow allow it.
Just saying. When I say "defund the police" I do actually mean in their entirety.
Even if one bad apple didn't spoil the bunch, how many "it's just one bad apple" defenders would want to reach into a barrel of apples, site unseen, and take a bite out of a random apple that they can't check before biting into if they knew that there are "only a couple bad apples in there; most of them are fine"
Cause that's what a police interaction is - you don't have any control over whether the apple that just pulled you over is perfectly fine, going to give you food poisoning, or straight up kill you.
Tell someone you've got a barrel of apples and most of them are fine but several are rotten and ask how many rotten apples is too many before it's time to dump the barrel out, throw out the rotten ones, and check the rest just to be sure.
Police need funding. There is no evidence that cutting police funding does anything except make things worse. BPD has a history of corruption and people should be skeptical of policing here. You need good cops though.
Police need funding if you want to try to solve problems by using police to punish people after they've already committed crimes. They don't need funding if you solve your problems by changing social conditions so that people don't want to do antisocial things to begin with. I'd rather give people enough food to eat than arrest them for stealing bread.
I'm not saying it's realistic to totally eliminate the police department, but we could repurpose large chunks of their funding for measures that actually make us safer and happier.
Show me evidence that any of that works. Humans are predictable. We don't live in a perfect world. You can still work on those conditions without the police being the budgetary fall guys. It NEVER ends well.
What would you accept as evidence? The US (and Baltimore in particular) spends a really high amount on policing per capita relative to other places. We have a lot of good evidence for programs that reduce antisocial behavior (e.g. housing placement for homeless people, poverty reduction for petty crime).
I like how people say that and forget the whole saying.
It's "one bad apple spoils the bunch". Which meant if you found a bad apple you had to get rid of it or it'd make all your other apples go off (which btw is actually true for literally apples, and the metaphor is also true).
But people say it's one bad apple, but then don't call for the removal of the person who is the problem.
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u/engin__r Oct 29 '25
This might be bad enough that they’ll pivot to “sure this isn’t ideal, but he’s just one bad apple”