Speaking of bad/incompetent cops and prosecutors, let’s not forget the medical “experts.” Here’s a story from today about a doctor whose exploits I’ve read about several times (and covered in this article). It’s a bit of a long story so I’ll post the link and summarize it here.
This top pathologist has messed up several important abuse and murder trials due to incompetence, carelessness, and likely some psychological disorder (maybe he’s a psychopath? I’m betting on that one, given his apparent lack of conscience and failure to learn from past experiences). Anyway, he’s been reprimanded several times for his bad work yet still remains the top pathologist/witness in such cases! In one of the worst cases, he kept evidence (pubic hair of a boy who may have murdered a girl he was babysitting–it was found near her vulva) in his drawer for FIVE YEARS, even though that evidence could have (and eventually did) exonerated the mother, who was charged with her daughter’s murder.
And in many of these cases, since kids are involved, child protection agencies come in and take other kids and it can take years to get the kids back, even when the parent is exonerated! Of course, these parents are often put in JAIL as well (one had to put up a child for adoption while wrongly festering in jail). AND THIS DOCTOR STILL KEEPS HIS JOB!!!
I don’t know how it is in the US, but in Canada, there are literally thousands and thousands of cases of doctors fucking up their patients through incompetence or mailce, medically, sexually, and psychologically, but they rarely ever get more than a slap on the wrist–and most of them have REPEATED complaints but keep on doing what they do b/c they know there is very little accountability. And, of course, there are the thousands who over-bill and essentially get away with it (one doctor was billing for about 30 hours/day (something like that), 7 days/week, 365 days/year), with the chance of being investigated for fraud or the other crap very slim (I think fewer than 5% of complaints are investigated, and random billing checks are not so common). And again, when something bad DOES get revealed, the consequences almost never equal the crime, thus doctors in Canada have great incentive to fuck over their patients and tax payers.
Now, I’m not saying all doctors are corrupt, but I am saying that we have a system that practically begs doctors to wreak havoc on those they are supposed to help (and it doesn’t help that our system of payment means a lot of doctors end up taking home far less pay than they deserve–though they shouldn’t complain, since psycholgoists get a far worse deal than doctors/psychiatrists when it comes to salary, employment, length of study, and complaints by patients/clients (our College, which is supposed to assist us, does a great job of helping baseless complaints make it through the system and costing psychologists thousands of dollars and years of anxiety…of course, that’s not to say that some (many?) psychologists aren’t deserving of punishment–they ARE. But the College is so insecure (our field has a massive inferiority complex) that it goes out of its way to show that it makes its members accountable, even when many of the charges brought against us are without foundation and are just clients trying anything to win their case or get revenge after already losing (e.g., a parent whose kid is taken away b/c she went out drinking for two days straight and didn’t leave anyone with her child–she can have a history of lying and doing whatever she wants, and when she’s found to be an unfit mother, she accuses the assessor of sexually assaulting her!! BTW, I’m just making up that particular example, but such things can and do happen all the time).
Now where’s my coffee… 