Originally Posted by polonius

Every time a senior cop, or an FBI agent, or some other law enforcement person makes the news -- sometimes because they were involved in crime themselves, sometimes because they were a crime victim, or sometimes because they solved a crime of some sort -- and some details of their lives come out as a result, they almost invariably have the most conventional personal lives imaginable. I'd be willing to bet that if you were able to slip into the parking garage at the J. Edgar Hoover building in Washington and attach a tracking device to each and every vehicle, come 17:00 you'd see every one of those vehicles heading out to some house on a cul-de-sac in a lily-white suburb in Maryland or Virginia. I know that no one has been curious enough about this to go and commission a proper, scientifically-based study on the phenomenon, but I would be very surprised if it didn't turn out that the law enforcement field attracts people who are naturally conformist, who not only resent people breaking the law and want to do something about it, but also don't like harmless eccentricities, either, and are probably more likely to perceive something suspicious about individuals with day-glo green hair or other overt signs of non-conformism.