I’m trying not to poison the well here before the discussion starts, but I think that all Americans can agree, in the abstract, that American police kill people more often than they probably should, minorities in particular. They also tend to harass minorities more than they should. They have less training than most other First World police, they’re armed and oft trigger happy. And if YouTube is any indication, they regard Constitutional rights as an inconvenience (watch them flip out whenever someone invokes their right to remain silent).
Obviously outside of the US things like the First and Fifth Amendments aren’t things – by which I mean, they’re codified differently but they still exist. Do your cops routinely violate those rights, like demanding entry without a warrant, demanding you answer questions even though you have the right not to, etc. Do police departments routinely investigate themselves when there are accusations of wrongdoing (and usually find they did nothing wrong), like they do here, or do you have outside agencies investiage police complaints? Do your courts shield officers from accountability (see: qualified immunity) routinely. Do your police departments get angry and butthurt when they’re called out publicly and/or when people complain?
Also, UK TV License Inspectors: I’ve seen plenty of videos of people telling TV license inspectors go hit the bricks. Can these people just demand to be let into your home without a warrant, and they expect you to comply?? WTF? And also, how does the UK keep track of who should/shouldn’t have a TV license? Does the retailer send your name and address to some database when you buy a TV? And also also, the line between a TV and Not a TV is a thin one indeed; your iPhone is a TV, so is your computer monitor? Are you expected to purchase a TV license for those things as well? And if you don’t have a TV license where it’s supposed to be, do they confiscate your TV?
For this one, the US is statistically at number 29, with worse numbers than Mali, Sudan, and Rwanda relating to law enforcement-caused deaths.
I will note the casual observation that those countries with unarmed police appear well at the bottom of the list of countries with police-caused deaths. Altho, somehow, some of those with armed police forces area also low on the list.
One possible reason that the US looks so bad is that we have an extremely liberal criminal system.
In most of the first world, mental illness is relatively easy to diagnose and force interventions. The US did have this but when the Commies started to lock up capitalists and subversives as mentally ill, we illegalized most of this and the Supreme Court ruled that it violated due process.
Japan, last I looked, had something like a 99% confession rate among the convicted, with significant reports of police brutality being the cause of the confessions.
The US is, I believe, is among a minority of countries that uses a jury, and certainly the one with the strongest use of it. Most European nations use the Inquisitorial process where a judge (i.e. the government) uses his own judgement and a panel of his own forensic experts to decide who is guilty and who is innocent.
The UK does have, on paper, similar concepts as limits to questioning, searching, detaining, etc. But the hurdles for all of these are significantly lower. Police can much more easily get a pass for far more intrusive activities. I’d expect that this is true for the rest of Europe as well. There’s no greater Constitutional limit that citizens can point at to drive the courts to err towards as much caution as ours require.
While it’s quite possible - and likely - that US cops are worse trained than those of other nations, they’re working in an environment that makes it much harder to get to the bottom of crime and to intervene before criminals have become more professional and comfortable in the role. It’s harder for them to impose penalties. They’re much more likely to deal with people with untreated mental illness. You need more of them to have the same impact - which you can’t achieve without lowering standards - and they’re going to be less satisfied in their career.
Youtube is certainly not any sort of indication. Not only are the videos cherry picked, but some are faked.
There are around 900000 police officers in the USA. You can always find bad actors in a group that large. There are only 146000 cops in the UK, and 70k in Canada. And the UK is the only populous nation where most (but certainly not all) cops are routinely not armed with firearms.
Most other Western European nations- sure. But in some nations the training is far far less than the average USA training of six months. That does not count however another six months of being trained on the job.
I recently wrote about this here. My wife had a friend–more of an acquaintance; they were both members of the weaving group at our town hall. Her husband was Haitian and a doctor. He drove a Caddy because he felt that his patients would not trust him if he looked poor. He was stopped repeatedly. That was a clear case of racial profiling. You’d think they would eventually recognize him. Especially since the cops have real time access to car registration info.
The other case that comes to mind involves some cops with a no-knock warrant who smashed a door in the middle of the night. They were looking for drugs (and did not eventually find them). They came in like home invaders; he took out his gun and killed one of them and another of them killed the guy’s wife. He had a licence for the gun, but it was for a different location and the licence didn’t entitle him to move it. They tried to charge him for that and I forget the outcome. This was not racial; I think he was French-Canadian.
What training they do have is bad; they are trained to be violent and hostile to the public. American police are literally taught to think like an occupying army, with lots of training from or even in Israel.
Kinda related, (from AI response to search) in the past 5 years the Chicago Police Department has paid out nearly $400 million to settle police misconduct cases. $62.5 million so far in 25.
Do cities outside of the US (or even IN the US) bear such costs?
TV licence inspectors can ask you to let them into your home without a warrent. You have the right to refuse but if they have enough evidence they may get a warrant.
When I was a kid I believe retailers sent your name and addres to them but nowadays letters are sent to all homes without a licence asking whether you do anything that requires one. If you do not reply stronger letters are sent and eventually they may come to visit. If you say to do not require a licence they will send another letter some time later (I think it is about 2 years) to confirm if it is still the case.
“You need a TV Licence to watch or record programmes on a TV, computer or other device as they’re broadcast, and to watch on-demand BBC programmes on iPlayer” So you need a licence to watch a live stream of a non BBC channel on a computer or phone but you can watch on demand services for broadcasters other then the BBC but need a licnce to watch the BBC on demand service.
It is one licence per household so If you family have 2 TVs 3 computers and 4 phones you only need 1 licence,
If you are found guilty of watching TV without a licence you can be fined up to £1000.
The Met Police in London, has a budget about half that or so, their cost for lawsuits was about 80 million pounds over 5 years. So, less, but still significant.
It’s also very difficult to quantify since legal fees are probably lower in the UK and it’s plausible that it’s harder for citizens to win their suit against the police (reducing payouts) - which would also make it less likely that they’d initiate a suit (reducing quantity).
How much training would the OP require? It appears there are issues with police in other countries as well. So insisting we match their amount of training is not a proven remedy. It is possible to train too much.
Currently in my state the police academy is 18 weeks. That’s for all officers from departments big and small. That’s more than military personnel get and it’s 10 weeks more than it was when I got on the job in 1982.
On top of that if one works for a Sheriffs Office you also have to go through an additional 6 week corrections academy as you may have to work in the jail.
These academy trainings are required by the state and cannot be sidestepped.
On top of that one has to work with a field training officer for up to 6 months. Then you’re on probation for up to 2 years.
During that time one is required by the state to attend in-service training every year, up to 80 hours. Fail to do that and you lose your law enforcement certification and are fired. Taking officers off the road for training all the time creates a staffing hardship in the agency.
At any time an officer is free to just quit, no strings attached. This happens and the department is left holding the bag for the time and expense of all that training and then has to start all over again with someone else
There is a massive hiring crisis in American law enforcement. Departments are stretched exceedingly thin as it is. I would suggest the OP solve that before insisting on piling on more questionably effective training requirements which will only exacerbate perceived issues.
The British police are not (usually) armed with much more than a stick. Thus they cannot afford to be as intimidatory as US police departments as they would probably get themselves beaten severely. Accordingly, British criminals are more willing to push back, if the circumstances look favourable, as they stand little chance of being killed. An example of this is the Manchester [Ringway] airport incident, the trial for which which is ongoing. These are armed officers (at least some of them) but they dare not shoot anyone or they will be in trouble. Manchester Airport attack accused denies force was unlawful - BBC News