# Do any other wealthy, developed nations have the level of police violence in the US **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 8, 2015, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-other-wealthy-developed-nations-have-the-level-of-police-violence-in-the-us/717153 "2015-04-08T20:32:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2015, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-other-wealthy-developed-nations-have-the-level-of-police-violence-in-the-us/717153/1 "2015-04-08T20:32:09Z")
I have read the US has upwards of 1000 citizens killed by police per year vs something like \<10 per year in Australia, Germany, Japan, UK, Canada. Does any wealthy country have this problem other than the US? What about France, Italy, Spain, New Zealand, Israel, etc? ---
**Author:** ![pdunderhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4bbf92/32.png) [@pdunderhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pdunderhill)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2015, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-other-wealthy-developed-nations-have-the-level-of-police-violence-in-the-us/717153/2 "2015-04-08T20:52:13Z")
No, thank Og not in the UK. peter ---
**Author:** ![Grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b782af/32.png) [@Grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grey)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2015, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-other-wealthy-developed-nations-have-the-level-of-police-violence-in-the-us/717153/3 "2015-04-08T20:58:45Z")
No. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2015, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-other-wealthy-developed-nations-have-the-level-of-police-violence-in-the-us/717153/4 "2015-04-08T21:03:25Z")
Better to compare with other **[American](http://www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/insight-crime-2014-homicide-round-up)** nations. It’s not so bad if you measure against Venezuela, Honduras and El Salvador. I think Pakistan may be a contender too. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2015, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-other-wealthy-developed-nations-have-the-level-of-police-violence-in-the-us/717153/5 "2015-04-08T22:27:16Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > Better to compare with other **[American](http://www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/insight-crime-2014-homicide-round-up)** nations. It’s not so bad if you measure against Venezuela, Honduras and El Salvador. > > I think Pakistan may be a contender too. Your cite doesn’t mention the number of civilians killed by police in any of those countries. But it does for Brazil and there’s a mention of a sharp reduction in Jamaica with a link to numbers for that country. And yes, the US is better than both those. ---
**Author:** ![GreenElf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@GreenElf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenElf)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2015, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-other-wealthy-developed-nations-have-the-level-of-police-violence-in-the-us/717153/6 "2015-04-09T04:45:38Z")
The Lichtensteinian police are notorious for their brutal treatment of Oktoberfest revelers. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2015, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-other-wealthy-developed-nations-have-the-level-of-police-violence-in-the-us/717153/7 "2015-04-09T06:25:26Z")
The Economist reported zero police shootings in France, zero in Britain, eight in Germany and 458 in the US. [http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21636044-americas-police-kill-too-many-people-some-forces-are-showing-how-smarter-less](http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21636044-americas-police-kill-too-many-people-some-forces-are-showing-how-smarter-less) US figures are underestimated because no authority tracks them. ---
**Author:** ![Donnerwetter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Donnerwetter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Donnerwetter)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2015, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-other-wealthy-developed-nations-have-the-level-of-police-violence-in-the-us/717153/8 "2015-04-09T07:56:44Z")
In post-war Germany, this is totally unheard of. In the last couple of years, the number of persons shot to death by law enforcement officers was lower than 10 annually. Since firearms aren’t that ubiquitous, these cases usually revolve around aggressive individuals brandishing knives. There was a controversial case with some racial undertones in Frankfurt in 2011 when a woman (from Africa) acted aggressively in a welfare center, produced a knife and demanded to be paid her welfare in cash. The police were called, she attacked and injured a police officer (using her knife) and was subsequently shot and killed. The DA started prosecuting this case against the police officer (who was a woman, BTW), but the charges were eventually dropped. It is, however, still a _cause célèbre_ in some (left wing) circles. There was a very famous case in 1967 (→ [Benno Ohnesorg](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benno_Ohnesorg)) that is vaguely reminiscent of the current case in South Carolina. I remember reading a travel guide for the United States issued by the ADAC (the German AAA) decades ago giving detailed instructions on how to act when being stopped by the police in the US. They warned that every encounter with the police in the US should be regarded a potentially life-threating situation (with race not even being an issue). ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2015, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-other-wealthy-developed-nations-have-the-level-of-police-violence-in-the-us/717153/9 "2015-04-09T08:18:37Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > Better to compare with other **[American](http://www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/insight-crime-2014-homicide-round-up)** nations. It’s not so bad if you measure against Venezuela, Honduras and El Salvador. > > I think Pakistan may be a contender too. The OP quite properly asks about “other wealthy developed nations”. Why would it be better to measure US police violence against violent third-world backwaters instead of culturally and economically similar first-world nations? What one sees in comparable developed nations is that police are not immersed in a culture of gun violence and at constant risk of being shot as they are in the US. > [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > The Economist reported zero police shootings in France, zero in Britain, eight in Germany and 458 in the US. [Don’t shoot](http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21636044-americas-police-kill-too-many-people-some-forces-are-showing-how-smarter-less) > > US figures are underestimated because no authority tracks them. That’s very true as well. It’s been suggested that they’re _ **seriously** _ underestimated. ---
**Author:** ![Mops](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mops/32/16494_2.png) [@Mops](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mops)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2015, 8:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-other-wealthy-developed-nations-have-the-level-of-police-violence-in-the-us/717153/10 "2015-04-09T08:23:57Z")
To expand on Germany as a point of comparison: see graph on page 4 of [this PDF](http://www.schusswaffeneinsatz.de/Statistiken_files/Statistiken.pdf) (blue bars: persons killed by police officers, red bars: police officers killed by criminals). To adjust for population for comparison with US: multiply by 3.9. And yes, our police officers _are_ armed (and shoot ~ 10k animals/year in the last few years) ---
**Author:** ![willthekittensurvive](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/91b2a8/32.png) [@willthekittensurvive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/willthekittensurvive)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2015, 9:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-other-wealthy-developed-nations-have-the-level-of-police-violence-in-the-us/717153/11 "2015-04-09T09:10:38Z")
A study from 2009 shows that the Netherlands have an average of three deaths by police violence… It is considerded high in comparison with our neighbors ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2015, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-other-wealthy-developed-nations-have-the-level-of-police-violence-in-the-us/717153/12 "2015-04-09T09:18:57Z")
After watching the latest video, I wondered whether Americans, while rightly shocked, realise the absolute astonished horror that we in the UK feel about incidents like this. Similar to the feeling we get when some schoolboy takes his mother’s gun and shoots up his school, or a three-year-old shoots their parent. Our police are no saints and there have certainly been a few instances where people have been shot/killed by them who should not have been. The advent of everyone with their own video camera has, I am sure, done a lot to curb the [mis]behavior of the police. We have also had well publicised instances of men who took it into their heads to kill a few random people, most of them stand out because they are so rare - thankfully. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2015, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-other-wealthy-developed-nations-have-the-level-of-police-violence-in-the-us/717153/13 "2015-04-09T10:38:54Z")
Jeez, I’m from a less-developed nation with a _very_ high incidence of gun crime and amongst the world’s highest murder rates, and even I go “WTF, America?” I mean, apartheid taught me _our_ police force wasn’t to be trusted, and they still live up to that 21 years after apartheid fell, but…it’s not like that’s surprising, you know? Whereas the outright racist shit going down in America right now is…somehow. I think it’s not just that it happens, but that they just get away with it again and again and again. That’s what a police state looks like - believe me, I know. ---
**Author:** ![desertmonk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@desertmonk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/desertmonk)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2015, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-other-wealthy-developed-nations-have-the-level-of-police-violence-in-the-us/717153/14 "2015-04-09T11:15:09Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > The OP quite properly asks about “other wealthy developed nations”. Why would it be better to measure US police violence against violent third-world backwaters instead of culturally and economically similar first-world nations? What one sees in comparable developed nations is that police are not immersed in a culture of gun violence and at constant risk of being shot as they are in the US. > > That’s very true as well. It’s been suggested that they’re _ **seriously** _ underestimated. Because that poster was making the point that the U.S. is far closer to a violent 3rd world nation than Western Europe style democracies. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2015, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-other-wealthy-developed-nations-have-the-level-of-police-violence-in-the-us/717153/15 "2015-04-09T11:43:41Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > I have read the US has upwards of 1000 citizens killed by police per year vs something like \<10 per year in Australia, Germany, Japan, UK, Canada. Obviously, citizens in Australia, Germany, Japan, the UK, and Canada do not resist. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2015, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-other-wealthy-developed-nations-have-the-level-of-police-violence-in-the-us/717153/16 "2015-04-09T11:52:07Z")
Police in the United States killed more people in [March 2015](http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/04/01/3641143/use-of-force-incidents-march/) than police in the UK have killed in the last [115 years](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_in_the_United_Kingdom). Here’s how the per-capita math works out: The US has a lot more gun violence than the UK – the US has about 9000 gun murders per year, and the UK has only about 30 gun murders per year – adjust for population, and we find that the US has about 60 times the gun homicides per capita of the UK. But this is not even close to the difference in killings-by-police: 12 months \* 115 years \* ~300 mil/~60 mil = 6900… multiply that by ~3 (the US killed 3 times as many in March 2015 as the UK killed in the last 115 years) and the US has about 20,000 times more killings by police per capita than the UK. How about per-gun-murder? Back of the envelope math… US police kill more than 300 times as many people _per gun murder_ as UK police kill. There is way more going on here than just a difference in gun amounts, or gun violence. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2015, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-other-wealthy-developed-nations-have-the-level-of-police-violence-in-the-us/717153/17 "2015-04-09T12:32:43Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > But this is not even close to the difference in killings-by-police: 12 months \* 115 years \* ~300 mil/~60 mil = 6900… multiply that by ~3 (the US killed 3 times as many in March 2015 as the UK killed in the last 115 years) and the US has about 20,000 times more killings by police per capita than the UK. > > How about per-gun-murder? Back of the envelope math… US police kill more than 300 times as many people _per gun murder_ as UK police kill. I think the multiple between US (March 2015) and UK (since 1900) is closer to 2 than 3, so it’s more like 14,000 times more killings by the police in the US per capita, and 200 times more killings _per gun murder_ in the US. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2015, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-other-wealthy-developed-nations-have-the-level-of-police-violence-in-the-us/717153/18 "2015-04-09T13:29:28Z")
> [@desertmonk](#): > > Because that poster was making the point that the U.S. is far closer to a violent 3rd world nation than Western Europe style democracies. My bad. If I had followed the link I would have caught the intended sarcasm. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Joker\_and\_the\_Thief](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e79b87/32.png) [@The\_Joker\_and\_the\_Thief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Joker_and_the_Thief)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2015, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-other-wealthy-developed-nations-have-the-level-of-police-violence-in-the-us/717153/19 "2015-04-09T14:07:35Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Jeez, I’m from a less-developed nation with a _very_ high incidence of gun crime and amongst the world’s highest murder rates, and even I go “WTF, America?” I mean, apartheid taught me _our_ police force wasn’t to be trusted, and they still live up to that 21 years after apartheid fell, but…it’s not like that’s surprising, you know? > > Whereas the outright racist shit going down in America right now is…somehow. I think it’s not just that it happens, but that they just get away with it again and again and again. That’s what a police state looks like - believe me, I know. [“South Africa has one of the world’s highest rates of recorded homicide by police”](http://www.economist.com/node/21526932) and has more police homicides than the US (566 in 2010) with just 1/6 the population. Pot calling the kettle black, eh? For what its worth, I don’t think there are any statistics on what percentage of police homicides are justifiable (please correct me if I’m wrong). We each bring our biases and perspectives into analyzing the number of deaths. Perhaps the US has more violent police, or perhaps we have more dangerous criminals, citizens with less respect for authority, etc. There really isn’t enough evidence to say that the high rate of police homicdes is due to violent law enforcement. And reading over [the list of people killed by police](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_in_the_United_States), it certainly seems as if most of them were criminals who got their just deserts. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2015, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-other-wealthy-developed-nations-have-the-level-of-police-violence-in-the-us/717153/20 "2015-04-09T14:22:27Z")
> [@The\_Joker\_and\_the\_Thief](#): > > [“South Africa has one of the world’s highest rates of recorded homicide by police”](http://www.economist.com/node/21526932) and has more police homicides than the US (566 in 2010) with just 1/6 the population. Pot calling the kettle black, eh? Can you _read_? > [@](#): > > I mean, apartheid taught me our police force wasn’t to be trusted, and **they still live up to that** 21 years after apartheid fell, but…it’s not like that’s surprising, you know? Where in _any_ of that did I say jackshit about South Africa being any better than America? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-other-wealthy-developed-nations-have-the-level-of-police-violence-in-the-us/717153.md?page=2)