Professionalism is a character trait that allows a person to exercise his or her profession with the greatest efficiency and effectiveness and ethical behavior. A person can be a ‘consummate professional’, but so can an organization. When you hear about a single unprofessional actor, one bad apple if you will, in an organization, often that is exactly what you have, one bad apple. However, how the organization that is responsible for that apple deals with the apple speaks volumes about it’s professionalism. Sweep the bad apple under the rug, or shuffle it around, and the bad apple is still there, spoiling the bunch. Ignore the bad apple and you’ll soon have more.
Professionalism is as much a top down function, as it is a bottom up one.
So when you read and listen to this NPR interview with the two (actual) journalists who relentlessly hounded after a cadre of dirty cops in Philadelphia, remember that the leadership of the department was not ignorant of this.
Of course, considering who the current Mayor of Philadelphia is, it’s no surprise that the police leadership seems to lack professionalism.
Michael Nutter is still a stupid liberal politically, but far less embarrassing for the people of philthadelphia than his predecessor.
His predecessor was worse?!
John Street was way worse than Mike Nutter. Street was the guy who got into fistfights as city councilman and wasn’t competent to be in charge of scraping bubble gum off sidewalks. Maybe you’re mixing the two?
Well that would certainly be more entertaining, although not very effective government.
I’ll give Nutter credit for assigning a independant commission to investigate police misconduct.