People are using “it’s a few bad apples” to say that we shouldn’t try to make major changes to policing, but a few minor reforms at best. And I don’t understand why people say that.
The saying is not, “A few bad apples give the other apples a bad reputation,” or “A few bad apples shouldn’t be used to think about the bunch as a whole.”
The saying is, “A few bad apples ruin the whole bunch.” The metaphor means that, once one apple starts to rot, it starts a process that will quickly rot all of the apples. If that rotten apple has been there a while, the whole bunch is rotten.
Putting a rotten apple on suspension doesn’t make it any less rotten.
If people think that police brutality and racism is a “few bad apples,” then they should be advocating for more firing of police officers, a more rigorous selection process, more thorough investigations of accusations of abuse, punishing of police officers and administrators who balk at firing abusive officers. In other words, people who are saying things like, “There are always a few bad apples” are saying the bunch is rotten.
That isn’t solved through reform. It means, at least, massive re-imagining of how policing works.