“3) Enter Serpico, who like many before him was exceptionally naive, and insists that the system work when it clearly doesn’t. And they are always willing to try and force others to do what they want.”
So your answer is go along to get along? Become corrupt like everyone else? My understanding is that he didnt try to force them to do what he wanted. Other cops were insisting that he accept graft and eventually tried to get him killed when he refused. At that point he turned rat. IMO he should have just quit the force.
The NYPD isn’t the only police force in the country.
Again, if you use the military analogy, here we have soldiers stuck in a demoralized unit with bad leaders, that results in a war crime. What should a private assigned to that unit do?
The last answer was the best: he should have quit the force and gone to a better one. Even bad organizations usually realize that forcing someone good to stay won’t work, because they won’t play ball. So they let them go.
Leadership problems are solved at the leadership level, not below. The NYPD stayed bad until Giuliani came along, not before.