A former police officer and prosecutor, Dale Carson, has written a book offering his pointers on how to avoid police trouble. It’s both scary and depressing. Via Mike Riggs at Business Insider:

“Law enforcement officers now are part of the revenue-gathering system,” Carson tells me in a phone interview. “The ranks of cops are young and competitive, they’re in competition with one another and intra-departmentally. It becomes a game. Policing isn’t about keeping streets safe, it’s about statistical success. The question for them is, ‘Who can put the most people in jail?'”

His book includes tips on how to “be invisible to police,” and seemingly reasonable things one should never do when a cop is talking to you. The theme, at least as presented in Riggs’ article, is the importance of compliance over any issues of personal pride. Being questioned by police is likely to be humiliating, Carson says, but getting arrested is worse, so suck it up.

The other day, Clark at Popehat wrote about a police chief who thinks cops should be prepared to tackle nearly any suspect:

[U]nless the citizen is “bracing for submission” and maintaining eye contact, the cop should consider “tackling” him.

On light of that, being invisible seems like the better course of action, but I’m still looking around for someone with an idea of how to actually improve things.