I am not speaking here of police officers failing to show respect to supervisors, though there are indeed many instances of that failure.
The epidemic of which I am speaking is one of failure by police supervisors to show their subordinates the proper respect which they deserve simply for being the people that they are, especially in the position that their subordinates find themselves each day.
Folks are being spoken to as if they were adolescents. Small matters are being treated as if they were the end of the world. Second chances are being given less and less frequently. Perhaps most importantly, many Philly cops are growing more and more resentful, and that is directly affecting their performance on the job.
One basic reason for all of this is the poor attitudes of many police supervisors, in particular the poor handling of uniformed officers and detectives by supervisors with very few or no people skills.
In some cases this is due to inexperience. In others it is a basic lack of compassion. In still others, you simply have a man or woman on a power trip, constantly needing to feed their over-inflated egos.
