Ferguson- the elephant in the room

Great Debates
1

Not race, but police culture.

Each country chooses (usually unconsciously) many of their social outcomes. Looking at other countries can illuminate what choices have been made.

The US has chosen to allow its police officers to shoot to kill as a matter of course. This has been allowed because of general sentiment and hard positions on gun control, gun usage and views on individual responsibility and rights.

The result is that in the USA in 2011 over 150 people were killed by police fire. No other advanced western country has anything like that problem.

The UK has chosen not to arm its police generally. Crime levels are not incredibly different between the two countries. Although the UK is only a fifth the size of the USA in population, care to guess how many people were killed by police gunfire in the same period?

Two!

Countries choose their social outcomes.

2

Well if their police force isn’t armed with guns then I wouldn’t expect many to be killed. That isn’t saying much.

When Britain needs protecting, who protects it? The USA.

3

…How does this make any sense?

4

What a silly answer. Are you saying we send our police over to handle their crime?

5

I’m glad I’m not the only one confused by the comment.

Also, the last time Britain needed “protecting” by the US was almost 70 years ago.

They’re an ally and there’s no reason to insult them.

6

The USA has nothing to do with crime and crime prevention in the UK.

What a silly defensive comment that goes to prove my point about assumptions.

7

Americans are awful. Just the worst.

8

I used to find weird that UK police wasn’t armed, wondering what they do when they need weapons.

Then, someday, following the death of some guy killed by french police, I read the figures for weapon use by the police. The previous year, in the Paris area, police had fired about 20 shots. Assuming that when police open fire, several shots are fired, I guess it means that in one year weapons were used by police a handful of times in an area of 10 millions+ people.

I guess that much more often than that, weapons are used to threaten (although it might be very rare too outside of planned operations, for all I know). Nevertheless, it means that a police officer in France (and I suppose by extension in western Europe, criminality isn’t that different from one country to another) is probably extremely unlikely to ever need a weapon (a very rough estimate gave me something like a 1 in 500 risk in his whole career).

Then the lack of weapons of the British police began to make sense. Especially since I suppose that when weapons are actually used, it’s likely to be by some specialized units, in charge of, say, raids, or drug traffic, or whatnot, who would be armed too in the UK. So, a regular police officer doing regular police work might be more likely to be struck by thunder than to need to draw his weapon.

Of course conditions in the USA are quite different, a lot of people, including bad people, being armed, and the local culture promoting the use of weapons. Still, I can’t help but wonder whether all this weaponry is really necessary for ordinary officers or just believed to be necessary, and much more importantly, if the “rules of engagement” in the USA aren’t absurdly laxist.

9

But are you happy that US police kill far more people than any comparable country?

10

So when a violent criminal is wielding a knife, what do the cops use?
Fists? Tasers? Baton?

11

Having lived though Chicago’s West Side being burned down after King got killed, I don’t give a flying fuck. Fuck 'em.

12

No I’m not, but taking away the guns from police before we take them away from the criminals would be like putting the horse before the cart.

13

Correct. Very efficiently and skilfully. Not seen as a problem. The police themselves regularly vote not to carry firearms normally.

Firearms are held by special units and only rarely deployed on the streets. Airports and some at risk facilities and persons have armed guards. In the year quoted firearms were discharged on five occasions.

It is all to do with mind set.

14

There is gun crime in London and Manchester and some other large cities. This is dealt with by special units who are trained to fire only in last resort. As I have noted above, this happened five times in the year quoted.

Because only highly trained officers working as a member of a group, under Silver command (fire only with permission from a senior officer) have firearms, few peel are killed.

I am not saying that it is easy, but it is possible- the US is an outlier because of its approach to use of weapons by citizenry and by the state.

There are always choices.

15

It is that sort of mind set that causes the problem.

Militarisation of the police is not necessary, merely a social choice.

16

They use the USA of course.

17

You’re able to do this because you have stricter gun laws there. Here, they give you guns for signing up for a new bank account.

Your gun crime and our gun crime are nowhere near the same neighborhood.

18

Hopefully this doesn’t need explanation. Let me know, though.

My reference was to WWI, WWII, the Cold War, … Not to policing, but to protecting.

19

But US society has made the decisions that lead to their current problem. Those decisions include:

Right to bear arms
Acceptance of using violence to settle social problems (stand your ground, home is your castle)
Jury unwillingness to concict
Over use of self defence arguments
Jury support for maverick police because of police worship.

All social choices. Other countries have chosen differently.

Choices have consequences.

20

I will have to check the figures but very few police officers are killed or wounded by criminals in the UK compared to the US.

UK
2007 one
2008 none
2009 none
2010 none
2011 none
2012 three
2013 none.

USA
2013 thirty two.