Mandatory training to become a police officer:
- US: 600-700 hours on average, much of which is gun and combat training and not policing
- Canada 2080 hours
- Spain 2880 hours
- Germany 4000 hours
With that little time spent training and heavy combat focus a US cop might get as little as 2-4 weeks of training on everything that a cop does that doesn’t involve guns.
it’s everywhere, but in the usa it’s exacerbated by the fact that most people have guns
while watching bodycam footage I often find myself thinking “just open the car door and cuff him, why hesitate and risk starting a car chase”
followed by the realization “oh, he has a gun”
obligatory Don’t talk to the police
No idea on how bad it is,
From my understanding regarding French cops, A big issue is that the ranking at the end of training defines who choose their position first. Guess what happens : The cop who thrived in training will either go to a nice medium town in southern France to get a steady a job without too much stress, or take an interesting job in prestigious unit like crime-brigade (which would kickstart the rest of their carrer), while the one who barely passed end-up in a bad neighbourhood, resulting in high crime/bad neighbourhood end up with the worst cop of the country while the place who don’t need much cops get the best ones.
the big thing that’s different about american cops is the amount of education they get. here, even patrolling police have a university level education in social sciences, ethics, law, medicine etc. it’s a three year degree of which six months are spent as a trainee. AFAIK, some states in the us have like half a year of training total.
also, due to an event in the 30s, the use of police on worker suppression is deeply ingrained.
there is no doubt that they protect the interest of capital, but they are tightly regulated. also i’m not saying the regulations automatically make them competent.
They’re also trained to deescalate.
I remember a while ago somebody posted a video of an Italian cop talking a guy who was beating his girlfriend into giving himself up and the Americans were completely baffled that he hadn’t just shot him.
American cops are kinda average compared to the global stage. Most of Europe, for example, has much more restrained, much less incompetent cops. On the other hand, much of the world has cops much worse than the US. I have a family member who lived in one of the less stable African countries, who recounted seeing a bunch of cops beat a child for “daring” to wear camo pants, and that wasn’t considered particularly shocking.
I’m defintely not a fan of cops, but in Scotland I never thought of them as evil/lazy/incompetent. They’re still the arm of state control, and have been used to break strikes and stuff, but there is at least a vibe of policing by consent. There are plenty of cases of individual cops who were psychos, and the institution defintely defaults to ‘protecting it’s own’ which is a fucking terrible attitude and in my mind makes all cops culpable for the crimes of the “bad apples”. So I’m still acab overall.
But most of my interactions with the police have been pretty decent, and that includes being questioned as a suspect (for something that I may not have been innocent of…) They don’t ‘solve’ many petty crimes like burglary that actual effect normal people but they are generally university educated and properly trained.
I now live in France, where the police are none of those things. I’ve only heard bad things about them ranging from patronising and incompetent to raping student protesters in the back of the police van. I would never ask a French cop for help, but unless I was high or carrying something illegal, i wouldn’t be worried about talking to a Scottish policeman.
My experience in the UK is similar. I’ve never had a good experience with a police officer, and I’ve been profiled for the clothes I wear, but I’ve also never been scared of a police officer (especially never scared for my life). I probably wouldn’t ask an officer for help, but I would also treat them like a person rather than a rabid dog who might just decide to shoot me
Same in about every western civilized country, and many countries outside, too. American cops are relatively untrained, especially when it comes to non-standard situations, where they often stress out and overrreact due to lack of training.
I mean, it’s universal because not of those traits are unique to any country, they’re human traits.
Even if you subscribe to ACAB as a political stance, there are still competent people doing the job to the best of their ability. Being a tool of oppression isn’t an inherently disabling factor. Plenty of serious pieces of shit have been good at their jobs, even when that job literally genocide.
Now, US police have disadvantages because of hiring, training and operational guidelines that favor order takers with low initiative and a willingness to adhere to authority. But it isn’t the only country like that, nor is it the only country with a police force infiltrated by extremists waiting for a chance to take greater power, we’re just a really big country, so it’s easier to hide.
Couple that with a strong and effective police union that’s also infiltrated, and is formed of the same people hired, and trained to basically be thugs, and the worst ones are harder to get rid of, even when higher ups want to.
But, again, don’t think that the U.S. is the only place that has this trouble. Power corrupts, and the greater the power, the greater the corruption. Without vigilance and oversight, shit will creep in
Another issue is the lack of filtering out the bad ones. If a police member here did such a shit only once that American cops seem to get away easily, this one would be done for. Out. No place in any police force in this country, ever. And probably losing their pension, too.
In the US, a cop that managed to be so bad that they actually fire him or her seems to have no problems to get hired by another police force. Some areas seem even to prefer this kind of people for “being tough on crime” as they misinterpret it.
I mean, it’s universal
Tell me you never been to Europe (or probably anywhere outside of the US) without telling me.
It’s everywhere. It’s just a matter of more or less.
You have not been outside the US in your lifetime, it seems.
Lmao I literally come from a third world country where bribing cops is a regular thing. Then moved to the US and traveled to countries around Asia and Europe. Incompetent and corrupt cops exist everywhere, it’s just a matter of the police force in general being more or less inept/corrupt.
I remember reading that police training in most other countries takes a much longer time and much more effort than in the US. I am sure this is a factor.
That’s quite a broad generalization even if just talking about US cops.
In Japan, they seem to do their jobs ok. Definitely don’t give any aggressive or evil vibes but feel like they lack assertiveness.
It’s complicated and depends on the place.
In countries without money or great infrastructure, often the police have just as little training and education as the US and often give in to corruption in similar ways.
In other, more wealthy countries, the police often have far more training and may generally be less corrupt and abusive because of the extensive training, but that does not mean that they are perfect nor fall prey to being controlling simply because they’ve been state sanctioned to be able to control.
It is to be noted that the US literally goes out of its way to choose candidates that are more likely to respond violently than not, including giving them personality tests that seek out that behavior during the initial screening process.
Speaking of corruption, there are places where you don’t call the cops under any circumstances. If you somehow end up talking to cops for any reason, you can expect to loose a lot of money.
The police officer could request a bribe or threaten with fake fines. There could also be harassment, abuse of power and even violence. The police forces can actually form a sort of government-owned mafia, where lower-ranking officers are expected to collect bribes and pass them up the chain of command.
My experience with Chinese cops has been nothing but wonderful. Not the same for US ones. They peppered sprayed students during a local Palestinian protest…
The Hong Kong protests, though… I’m not saying that’s worse than American police, but I have little reason to believe they’d be much better, either. Your experience may not reflect the whole truth.
You can find videos of them attacking protestors across China. ACAB after all,
Agreed with that. Was just making the point that in my experience they have been night and day better. My biggest problem with communism is I can’t believe cops are ever not a problem.
Indeed, Chinese cops laid siege to various universities during the Hong Kong protests, which were strongholds of opposition and organization, just like American universities have also been under siege at times for the same reasons regarding their Palestine protests. Cops never change and they’ll always have the cop mindset, though I will say that American cops seem to be especially trigger-happy. From what I see, cops in most other countries are able to neutralize threats with non-lethal force most of the time. I never hear about German cops, who I believe also carry guns, shooting someone’s dog or unloading into a guy failing to follow conflicting instructions being shouted at him. I can’t claim to know much about German cops, though. Maybe someone with more knowledge could fill me in.
Depends.
Non-political issues: Probabaly much better than the US.
Political issues: Much worse than the US.
I was making a statement. You don’t think beating or spraying (or even killing) students over protesting is political? How many black people die a year in America by cops? You say much worse because you know the name of one event without any details.
Sorry you’re comment comes across as stereotypical American neoliberal who only knows the name TAM without any historical details
Mine was corruption. Nothing super serious mind you, the standard sort of extortion/bribe deal you find around the world.
Yours?
Wait until you hear what they did at a peaceful protest at Kent State.
I’m commenting based on my experience.
ACAB means ACAB.
If you read the Japanese internet, tons would say they’re at least the latter two. I’m sure some might also argue the first as well.
