It doesn't seem to actually explain anything. I was in the military and have some cop friends so maybe I can explain the divergent sociology:
Post police academy, AFAIK police never experience collective punishment. In the army its normal if someone loses a weapon to have everyone doing a few pushups. When you saw your squadmate without a rifle, why didn't you ask them wtf they're doing? From large to small scale cops experience punishment alone and military suffers as a group. Small crime breeds large crime and (pardon the pun) military simply self-polices more than cops as a leadership style.
I can't blame cops too much as they have to deal with demographics where saving face is important and one cop dropping another cop for pushups because they lost their summons-writing pen is impractical. Which brings up sociological difference where the enemy for cops is 40% to 100% of their daily interactions and is up close and personal, so screw these guys I'm breaking bad, whereas 100% of human interactions in the military is with buddies and the bad guys don't speak our language and the firefights are at 25 or more yards in a very abstract sense. Essentially cops spend most of their time with people who hate them so "getting even" makes more sense, whereas military spends nearly 100% of their time with friends and why would you want to screw over your buddy?
The military bakes corporate style reorganization into the cake, you can expect a PCS move around the world every two or so years, its very unusual to have TV or Movie style old timers who've been in the unit forever. Even in the Reserves if you are in long enough to get E-5 or E-6 you're almost certainly going to have to move to get that next promotion and higher level leadership always rotates even in the reserves. Noobs don't even know HOW to be corrupt for the first quarter of their time on station. Its a valuable learning experience and filters out people who can't learn quickly on the job, which for military is good. Cops on the other hand will have some old sgt who's been sitting on the same desk for 25 years and the good ole boys network of questionable activities formed decades ago and ...
The military is highly paid; civilians don't understand that when I got out (a quarter century ago) the current pay rate for me would be just under $3K/month, but that's not before tax like civilians, that's after getting housing, food, insurance, essentially all I have to pay for $3K/mo would be bar bill and car expenses. Cops on the other hand get paid approximately as much as public school teachers aka F-all not much in a pyramid scheme where people scream about the top of the pyramid making $100K but realize the top of the pyramid is incredibly small (like pro sports salaries) and the base of the pyramid is an immense number of people making $50K/yr or often far less. Speaking of pyramids, in the military every 5-yr experience E-4 makes the same $3K/mo after all expenses are paid, whereas with both cops and teachers its a pyramid where everyone has to compete to get up to that $100K/yr contract, there's a different attitude when you're competing vs when you all get the same paycheck.
Edited to add another important sociological point: Cops usually work alone or in a very small group like two people. Two people can keep a secret, even three. The smallest "working group" I can think of in the military would be special forces teams with at least 4 people, but the rank and file work in groups who can't keep secrets. You can't expect to catch a cop who works alone or with a buddy, so things get worse and worse until they make the news in a big way; whereas the first time someone screws up in the military they generally get caught and kicked out so things rarely get worse over time.
Note that outsiders think the military to cop pipeline is smooth. It CERTAINLY is NOT, and my buddies complain a lot about the sociological differences mentioned above along with others. Outsiders think they just wear a different uniform, but its really a wild cultural shift to go from military to being a cop. Maybe its the smallest shift to go from MP to civie police compared to other vocations, but its still a big shift in an absolute sense.
Essentially cops spend most of their time with people who hate them
How much of policing is actually responding to violent crime vs traffic infractions or minor spats between neighbors?
That the general populace is afraid of cops is largely of the cops own doing. If they weren't power-hungry thugs, even when executing traffic enforcement, they wouldn't have this problem.
Imagine walking up to a group of people at work as your job.
If you're a cop, 99% certain someone in that group, if not the entire group, is VERY unhappy to meet you. Doesn't matter if you're shooting a bank robber in progress or handing out speeding tickets or infinite domestic violence cases, nobody likes you. Most folks can take being universally hated for an entire career plus or minus alcoholism and such, but a microscopic minority will fight back leading to massive unrest and social problems.
If you're in the military, with microscopic career field exceptions, every group you walk up to is your buddies you work and party with, who wanna hang out and have fun with you.
One job field is going to have occasional fatal anger issues, and the other job field is going to have DUI/party-hard issues.
Well they are certainly working hard to make it 99% certain that a member of every group hates them... It isn’t anywhere near that bad though; people come to the police for help. There are suburban and small town police that probably go days without actually interacting with civilians in an official capacity regularly. Maybe some sort of rotation system at the state or county level would help.
A stark difference is respect. The command of it, the teaching of it, really everything. OCS tends to not fuck around when drilling proper bearing in to potential officers. Enlisted salute officers, period. know them or not? It doesn't matter, they are an officer and you show that respect. Police arm themselves to demand that respect and authority, granted they are sometimes in hostile situations and need that but generally they really don’t.
I’m disgusted that unarmed people end up dead at the rate they do during interactions with the police. I will ask why we as a society didn’t care that much until now, it’s a deep culture that formed. Another gigantic difference between police and military is that there are safety valves and “turning on the military” to solve an issue is a major fuck deal, it’s a war fighting machine. The police are sort of like society’s janitor; they get called when a home owner doesn’t want a homeless camp in the park near their home. The police, generally, don’t have that many tools for dealing with homeless, mentally unstable, drug addicted, and otherwise marginalized people. There is supposed to be a crime to lock people up, we don’t fund mental hospitals, etc. if you watch some of the videos it looks like they’ve become very good at fabricating crimes to justify force and arrest which are effectively the only tools they readily have.
Police arm themselves to demand that respect and authority, granted they are sometimes in hostile situations and need that but generally they really don’t.
I've often thought that police should leave their firearms locked in the trunk (or locked in a safe installed in the center console area). If they're chasing a violent criminal, get it. Making a traffic stop, wellness check, or something else, leave it in the car.
This pretty much on the mark. I'd only add that even though the military is uber hierarchical, in good unit's it can be seem fairly flat. Everyone does PT together every day and when I was in the CO would be doing pushups and running with a section every morning. It's a closer team and less bureaucratic leadership so standards are kept in check by the collective. Even though there were pay and rank differences, everyone was in it together where in the police it seems very much like you're on your own.
Post police academy, AFAIK police never experience collective punishment. In the army its normal if someone loses a weapon to have everyone doing a few pushups. When you saw your squadmate without a rifle, why didn't you ask them wtf they're doing? From large to small scale cops experience punishment alone and military suffers as a group. Small crime breeds large crime and (pardon the pun) military simply self-polices more than cops as a leadership style.
I can't blame cops too much as they have to deal with demographics where saving face is important and one cop dropping another cop for pushups because they lost their summons-writing pen is impractical. Which brings up sociological difference where the enemy for cops is 40% to 100% of their daily interactions and is up close and personal, so screw these guys I'm breaking bad, whereas 100% of human interactions in the military is with buddies and the bad guys don't speak our language and the firefights are at 25 or more yards in a very abstract sense. Essentially cops spend most of their time with people who hate them so "getting even" makes more sense, whereas military spends nearly 100% of their time with friends and why would you want to screw over your buddy?
The military bakes corporate style reorganization into the cake, you can expect a PCS move around the world every two or so years, its very unusual to have TV or Movie style old timers who've been in the unit forever. Even in the Reserves if you are in long enough to get E-5 or E-6 you're almost certainly going to have to move to get that next promotion and higher level leadership always rotates even in the reserves. Noobs don't even know HOW to be corrupt for the first quarter of their time on station. Its a valuable learning experience and filters out people who can't learn quickly on the job, which for military is good. Cops on the other hand will have some old sgt who's been sitting on the same desk for 25 years and the good ole boys network of questionable activities formed decades ago and ...
The military is highly paid; civilians don't understand that when I got out (a quarter century ago) the current pay rate for me would be just under $3K/month, but that's not before tax like civilians, that's after getting housing, food, insurance, essentially all I have to pay for $3K/mo would be bar bill and car expenses. Cops on the other hand get paid approximately as much as public school teachers aka F-all not much in a pyramid scheme where people scream about the top of the pyramid making $100K but realize the top of the pyramid is incredibly small (like pro sports salaries) and the base of the pyramid is an immense number of people making $50K/yr or often far less. Speaking of pyramids, in the military every 5-yr experience E-4 makes the same $3K/mo after all expenses are paid, whereas with both cops and teachers its a pyramid where everyone has to compete to get up to that $100K/yr contract, there's a different attitude when you're competing vs when you all get the same paycheck.
Edited to add another important sociological point: Cops usually work alone or in a very small group like two people. Two people can keep a secret, even three. The smallest "working group" I can think of in the military would be special forces teams with at least 4 people, but the rank and file work in groups who can't keep secrets. You can't expect to catch a cop who works alone or with a buddy, so things get worse and worse until they make the news in a big way; whereas the first time someone screws up in the military they generally get caught and kicked out so things rarely get worse over time.
Note that outsiders think the military to cop pipeline is smooth. It CERTAINLY is NOT, and my buddies complain a lot about the sociological differences mentioned above along with others. Outsiders think they just wear a different uniform, but its really a wild cultural shift to go from military to being a cop. Maybe its the smallest shift to go from MP to civie police compared to other vocations, but its still a big shift in an absolute sense.