Law Enforcement

Law Enforcement will be greater in need and add more jobs for Mainers. The problem with law enforcement is the power of authority tends to be abused by those who have more power than your typical person. The issue becomes when the individual officer chooses to act on his own beliefs and has a warrior mentality. The warrior mentality creates a belief that what the officer believes and not what the law states, and then acts on his beliefs is what causes the problems of abuse of power.  A law enforcement officer is always acting as attorney, mediator, and enforcer at the same time. How to stop the warrior mentality we will need to change the structure of how we train our officers. Often bullying is allowed during training, and this unfortunately does create an environment where abuse becomes naturalized. Removal of harassment during training will help create better officers. Augustus Vollmer had studied that more educated officers with AA degrees and Bachelor degrees are less likely to be abusive based on more cultural education, and a clear understanding of proper law enforcement procedures. In layman’s terms more schooling equals less bad cops. 

Maine needs bigger and better prisons, and we can make this possible through the Union Act.