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I've thought for a long time that a lot of the police brutality problem is a sentencing problem. To be a police officer in some places, for example, you've had to be ok with sending people to 25 year sentences for burglary or even drug possession. And US prisons are awful.

What kind of person signs up for that? What kind of person *can't* sign up for that, for crisis of conscience reasons? Sure, the bad apple cop is the one who pulls the trigger. But it was the voters that decided to select heavily for lack of empathy.

Then we grouped all the low-empathy people we selected together. "In social psychology, group polarization refers to the tendency for a group to make decisions that are more extreme than the initial inclination of its members." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_polarization …

Harsh sentences create another problem. Cop A sees Cop B commit a crime. Cop B is his buddy. Cop A thinks, sure, what Cop B did was wrong... but my buddy doesn't deserve e.g., 10 years in an awful prison. Cop A's reasoning isn't fair to those he arrests, but he's only human.

If we had more humane prisons and sentences, Cop A would be more likely to hold his buddy accountable. 100% likely? No, but more likely. Even in people who are not saints, unjust sentences and prisons create crises of conscience.