Originally Posted by
tkey75
Hey, man, I was one of those kids once. So were you. I happened to be pretty good at not getting caught.
But kids will unwittingly bow to authority. Every time I got pulled over and the cop said in his cop-authoritative voice "Open the trunk", I did without question. Again, I happened to be clean on those occasions, but they were for sure fishing expeditions, completely unnecessary and only served to put me off to LEOs and made me better at the game.
And that's where the issue is deeper than just dealing with kids, who are far too easy to catch wrongdoing. If you're willing to trample the Constitution and prey on kids, why should I trust you now that I'm older?
Mostly because I don't prey on kids. Kids, for the most part, don't know any better. By that I mean they know what they're doing is wrong, but only because people have told them it is. They don't think it's bad.
And yeah, I was one of those kids once. And I bent the rules as a kid and yeah, I got caught. And the cops that caught me weren't nearly as nice to me as I've been to the kids. I got ran in and put in the pokie.
So when I've rolled up to kids looking shady, late, late into the night somewhere they're not really supposed to be, I've slapped their wrists and sent them on their way. But I don't browbeat them and I don't pull that "respect my authoritay!" crap. I do try and put a little fear of consequences in them, but I can only do so much.
Adults I don't cut near as much slack, but do look the other way on what I consider piddly crap. But with adults I pretty much follow the book, because with them I'm always anticipating charges being filed, and the process has to be clean.