Anarchist Police

It's something (that I'm rather loathe to admit) I've considered at various points...
IMHO, since I think it would take about 20 years of being a committed and serious anarchist not to have one's beliefs jeopardized by participating in such an institution (and about that long to have built enough trust with comrades that they would work with you whilst inside such an institution... you'd want to be able to share information gleaned from the inside wouldn't you?), it becomes something of a non-issue as at that point you're too old to join most copper academies anyways.
Like the military they prefer their recruits be young and brain-washable (and I suppose more physically able... most fire departments don't take people over 35 either).
trivia: the first Anarchist Free School in Britain was founded by a policeman (but that was a cop infiltrating anarchists, not the vice versa you propose).

*Edit*- not really what you are asking about but another sketchy job option I've considered is that of a civilian oversight board investigator... which only some citys operate (basically the lame paid official government version of doing copwatch ... interviewing complainants and officers, etc. )

A few other thoughts...

What do you mean by "working for it"? To be clear: It is the social role of police that is the problem, not the fact that they are paid with taxpayer monies (Or do you think anarchists couldn't be postal employees, park service workers, etc.as well?). Police enforce the laws of a Capitalist State, which generally means a rabid defense of property rights (to the point, as I'm sure you're aware, that they often preemptively beat you on the head for peacefully walking down public thoroughfares if they suspect you might break a window or move a newspaper box a few feet).

I don't think an anarchist would have much success dismantling the state from within the police force. Mostly I'd imagine they'd try to get a position which would be less soul crushing for themselves (perhaps... putting parking tickets on bougie cars in posh neighborhoods, working special victims or domestic abuse cases, homicide, ?, ...). Even in such situations where one could finagle somehow to do policework that compromised one's principles least, the oft-repeated refrain of the police officer "I don't make the laws I just enforce them" would eventually wear down any anti-authoritarians mental health (and we haven't yet broached the inherent hierarchical system or the racism and sexism stereotypically encountered in the copshop culture).
IMHO the best one could do for 'the cause' would be a slight possibility of counter-surveillance of redsquads, whistle-blowing any illegal shenanigans, and maybe running license plate numbers of fascists and scabs for your friends so they could find out where they lived and pay them a visit.

also see this thread

bottom line is if you're sent to suppress a strike you have to choose between your politics and your job. And that's only the most obvious situation.
Yeah, some cops may have their hearts in the right place, but that makes no difference; what all of them do for a living is to protect the interests of capital at the expense of the workers, through organized violence.

Well personally I don't think strike suppression is "the most obvious situation". I'd say well over 90% of police would never have to suppress a strike throughout their entire careers (unless you count directing traffic around some pathetic picket as "strike suppression"). ... I don't think I disagree with your sentiment, I just think your rhetoric is running away with you. I think the more obvious situation would be busting kids for graffiti or selling marijuana or the fact that one's mere presence in a community is associated with intimidation and control (rather than say... safety and security) would be where a disconnect between ones (anti-)politics and job would develop.

By "most obvious situation" I meant that situation in which the conflict between one's supposed anarchism and one's job is most obvious, not that the majority of cops are daily involved in putting down strikes.
Busting kids from poor neighborhoods, which usually involves a good amount of brutal racism, is of course much more common police activity.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8060943.stm

look at this.....says it all really.

This one too

My guess is that even if you were savvy enough to pass their various personality tests to become the "anarchist cop," it would only take a matter of time before you were found out. Your skills would be better spent elsewhere methinks.

Well... at any rate... it's good that we keep talking about the impossibility of anarchists serving as police on public internet forums...
...it puts them off the scent of our super secret anarchist infiltration cadre organization in various departments and law enforcement agencies around the world...
the special People Organizing Libertarian Insurrectionary Communist Egalitaranism group.

...woops...

haha yep I am thinking about infiltrating baltimore police as we speak. Im not even that clever, so I will have no way of being sniffed out that way! woohoo!

fuck...

beating the shit out of someone who'd just hit your colleague with a car. I can see how it happened even though beating an unconscious man isn't right.

Actually I think historically most cops will have done their share of putting down strikes and hassling demos. Just because there have been so few strikes in the last 20 years doesn't mean that it's always been the case.

I think a distinction also has to be made between the police function, which exist in one form or another in most societies, and the police as an institution. In an anarchist society it is the responsibility of everyone to stop anti social behaviour etc. Currently it is a responsibilty abdicated to the institution of the police and honoured mainly in the breach.

Regards,

Martin

During the first part of the German revolution the head of the Berlin police force was an USPD militant and when the attempt by the government to get rid of him caused a massive protest by the Berlin working class.