Malpractice Insurance ... for Law Enforcement Professionals?

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One of the men in my ham-radio club is an auxiliary police officer. He told me that within the next year, conditions will make it necessary, if not mandatory, for individuals on the force to acquire malpractice insurance. The cost for the insurance may have to come out of each individual's own pocket, unless the unions successfully negotiate some type of subsidy with the employers.

According to This Article at the Wisegeek website ...

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This type of delegating work-related responsability issues on the workers(blue collar), financial and responsability-wise has spread for some time, in private companies, and looks often like fragilizing the security of holding a job.
Pressure, more pressure and ignore complaints about materials or circumstances and when something collapses blame the worker by sending a letter of blame usually, stating the worker will be fired at the next accident.

Other.

After reading On Combat, by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, I believe that the greatest benefit would be derived by working to improve the support, empathy and understanding offered to law enforcement professionals from within the communities they serve. It is true that there are professionals who behave in a corrupt, unfair, or violent manner, but it is also true that there is a disconnect and a lack of understanding between the community at large and the professionals who serve it, often by intervening where most of us do not wish to step in (and probably shouldn't, without training and legal backing), and putting their own safety at risk.

He does offer training, and not just to professionals.

thttp://www.grossmanacademy.com/courses.html

Incidentally, in the case of malpractice lawsuits, it has been shown in the medical professions that this kind of rapport building between the service provider (physician, surgeon, etc) and the consumer (patient, family members, etc) reduces the likelihood that a malpractice suit will be filed even where error has resulted in harm to the patient.

Also, while still controversial, body cams have been shown to have the effect of reducing citizen complaints against law enforcement officers, although the data is still sparse as the implementation of these is very limited. Still, they could protect against frivolous or unfair accusations of abuse by providing context which might otherwise be contested as biased when provided by eyewitnesses.

I think that having law enforcement professionals pay for malpractice insurance out of their own pockets will impress upon them the mindset that they need to be very careful when dealing with the public, since their insurance premiums would likely become more costly to them personally the first time they get un-necessarily rough with someone.