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What the **** is Wrong with American Cops?

A considerably large privatized prison system that probably pays "finder's fees" is also to blame for "overzealous" drug law enforcement.

or

When many PDs find themselves short on the annual budget they just arrest more people to get more money from the state.
 
mumblethrax said:
Our most popular superhero is a bazillionaire who has the means to address the etiology of crime in his city but instead spends untold billions on machines he can use to punch crime in the face.

I assume Canada has dorkwad superheros like De-escalation Man. Boooo, boring. Once in the 90s I was channel surfing and found a show called Mounties: The Royal Canadian Mounted Police. It was an obvious Cops knock-off, but it was like cops showing up at people houses and being polite about their unlicensed firearms, then fifteen minute dressage interludes.
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One of the hosts of that show - Cst Janice Armstrong - went on to be Deputy Commissioner Janice Armstrong. Her position was the highest non-political appointment in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and she was essentially in charge of the day-to-day activities of Canada's Federal Police Force. She retired into a 7 figure job in the private sector even though she was offered the position of Commissioner.

I worked with Janice at the beginning of her career and even then she demonstrated the essential attitudes (patience and the ability to exercise discretion) and abilities (connect and communicate with people from all walks of life, mental and physical toughness, intelligence, exceptional memory) of a great cop.
Myself and many of my colleagues agreed that she would one day wind up running the whole show and we were right.

Her attitudes and values reflected what I believe are the essential core of the RCMP and that is the difference between how the US and Canada police their countries.

https://www.rcmpgraves.com/forcefirsts/armstrong.html
 
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Aurora, Colorado police pulled over a minivan, ordering a woman - the driver - and four children, ages 6 to 17, out of the vehicle and face-down onto the street at gunpoint. At least two of the children were handcuffed. It turned out the minivan's license plate number matched the plate number of a reported stolen vehicle, except the reportedly-stolen vehicle was actually a motorcycle from out-of-state. Police say the mistake may have happened because the minivan itself actually had been reported stolen at the beginning of the year, although in that incident the minivan was recovered and returned to the family within a day. For having been the victims of an auto theft, this family got to be terrorized at gunpoint by the police half a year later.
 
abaddon said:
Did you ever pause to wonder why no other nations cops have this problem?
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Nope. Few USAians of the "conservative" persuasion are open to the idea that any other country is superior to the USA, in any way.
 
Checkmite said:
Aurora, Colorado police pulled over a minivan, ordering a woman - the driver - and four children, ages 6 to 17, out of the vehicle and face-down onto the street at gunpoint. At least two of the children were handcuffed. It turned out the minivan's license plate number matched the plate number of a reported stolen vehicle, except the reportedly-stolen vehicle was actually a motorcycle from out-of-state. Police say the mistake may have happened because the minivan itself actually had been reported stolen at the beginning of the year, although in that incident the minivan was recovered and returned to the family within a day. For having been the victims of an auto theft, this family got to be terrorized at gunpoint by the police half a year later.
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Hmm maybe the police need more training in the difference between motorcycles and minivans, this is something they clearly find confusing.
 
Examples like this are more instructive of the mundane brutality inherent in American policing.

Examples like Chauvin murdering George Floyd are the extreme examples. Even most pigs and bootlickers watched that video and acknowledged that Chauvin went too far in his sadism.

These other examples, be it snuffing out a tweaking shoplifter or dragging a family out onto the concrete over a false "stolen minivan" hit show the real face of American policing. The cops won't even admit that anything wrong happened here. Nothing these cops did was inconsistent with their training or the culture of modern American policing. Under similar circumstances they'd do things exactly the same way.

American cops are meant to be unyielding authorities backed by threat of overwhelming violence. Sometimes it has bad outcomes, but that's not something that any of these departments think should change. The public must continue to bear the risk of these unrestrained tactics, because expecting more of our police is out of the question.
 
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In my opinion, the problem with policing in America can be reduced to a few broad things:

1. Police wildly overestimate the amount of danger they're in. Yes, they are in a front-facing profession and yes, any encounter can turn deadly for them. However, from 1980 to 1998, the FBI estimates about 64 felonious police deaths a year for a national police force of 80,000. The stress of being constantly alert for danger is taking untold effects on their collective psyche in ways that are not good for their interactions with suspected lawbreakers.

2. Since at least the Clinton administration, there has been an insane push to militarize our police. This includes selling directly to states and municipalities an entire arsenal from assault vehicles to heavy weapons to armor. It includes training centers around the US for police to learn military-style breaching, containment, and other tactical skills. It includes the rise of SWAT teams (most of whose time is spent collecting parole violators). Police are trained and then equipped to deal with an "enemy" and not their own public.

3. The lack of mental health and child safety workers put police in the position to deal with issues for which they are untrained and unprepared. There is a way to contain an outburst by an adult with autism. There is a way to confront a disrespectful child in a classroom. Neither requires body slamming them.

3. Systemic racism in employment, housing, and schooling has led to a disproportionate percentage of people of color living in poverty, living close together in apartments or tenements, getting sick more often, and having a greater percentage of unemployed teenagers. This greatly increases the opportunities and incentives for crime. Heck, it greatly increases opportunities for arguments, spousal abuse, alcoholism, drug abuse, and just plain neighborly fights. If the disproportionate number of lawbreakers that police see are minorities, police (being humans) will associate being a minority with lawbreaking.

I speak of "police" in broad terms. I am sure that some police officers will never engage in inappropriate behaviors. I am sure that nearly all police officers want to be effective public servants and believe they are being such. I am sure that nearly all police officers go through nearly all of their days without using excessive or unwarranted violence. It is, in my opinion, a difficult and noble profession. I think that we, as a republic, have let them down.

The above problems are difficult but necessary to fix. Above all, we need a massive push to educate all students, to integrate low-income housing into higher-income areas, to train a new generation to succeed in the job market and to participate in the economy of the nation. This will take, if we start right now, about twenty-five years. We need to demilitarize the police and give them more nonlethal options. We need to spend the funds to create functioning juvenile justice, mental health, and addiction systems that can identify problem behaviors before they become criminals.

But that would be difficult and require thought and effort. So, basically it won't ever happen.
 
Loss Leader said:
In my opinion, the problem with policing in America can be reduced to a few broad things:

1. Police wildly overestimate the amount of danger they're in. Yes, they are in a front-facing profession and yes, any encounter can turn deadly for them. However, from 1980 to 1998, the FBI estimates about 64 felonious police deaths a year for a national police force of 80,000. The stress of being constantly alert for danger is taking untold effects on their collective psyche in ways that are not good for their interactions with suspected lawbreakers.

2. Since at least the Clinton administration, there has been an insane push to militarize our police. This includes selling directly to states and municipalities an entire arsenal from assault vehicles to heavy weapons to armor. It includes training centers around the US for police to learn military-style breaching, containment, and other tactical skills. It includes the rise of SWAT teams (most of whose time is spent collecting parole violators). Police are trained and then equipped to deal with an "enemy" and not their own public.

3. The lack of mental health and child safety workers put police in the position to deal with issues for which they are untrained and unprepared. There is a way to contain an outburst by an adult with autism. There is a way to confront a disrespectful child in a classroom. Neither requires body slamming them.

3. Systemic racism in employment, housing, and schooling has led to a disproportionate percentage of people of color living in poverty, living close together in apartments or tenements, getting sick more often, and having a greater percentage of unemployed teenagers. This greatly increases the opportunities and incentives for crime. Heck, it greatly increases opportunities for arguments, spousal abuse, alcoholism, drug abuse, and just plain neighborly fights. If the disproportionate number of lawbreakers that police see are minorities, police (being humans) will associate being a minority with lawbreaking.

I speak of "police" in broad terms. I am sure that some police officers will never engage in inappropriate behaviors. I am sure that nearly all police officers want to be effective public servants and believe they are being such. I am sure that nearly all police officers go through nearly all of their days without using excessive or unwarranted violence. It is, in my opinion, a difficult and noble profession. I think that we, as a republic, have let them down.

The above problems are difficult but necessary to fix. Above all, we need a massive push to educate all students, to integrate low-income housing into higher-income areas, to train a new generation to succeed in the job market and to participate in the economy of the nation. This will take, if we start right now, about twenty-five years. We need to demilitarize the police and give them more nonlethal options. We need to spend the funds to create functioning juvenile justice, mental health, and addiction systems that can identify problem behaviors before they become criminals.

But that would be difficult and require thought and effort. So, basically it won't ever happen.
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I strongly agree with that. I think it is a bit backwards though, much easier to integrate high-income people into low-income neighborhoods (much less expensive all the way around)
 
Belz... said:
4. Lack of acountability and feelings of invincibility.
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Or perverse incentives, such as the New York's Compstat system (which rewarded arrests while penalizing precincts with too many felony ones).

I don't believe police feel invincible. I believe they feel overly vulnerable and that leads them to take an offensive pose rather than wait to have to defend themselves.


5. War on drugs.
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I would include this within the general umbrella of the current (and decades long) war on the poor/minorities.
 
abaddon said:
Did you ever pause to wonder why no other nations cops have this problem?
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I love the logic that basically says, 'it's totally okay to have an out-of-control, paramilitary, massively overfunded, racist and xenophobic, unaccountable, excessively brutal, and poorly trained police force, because people can just choose not to do crime!'.

It's as if the people who say this believe themselves to be special snowflakes who'll never themselves fall victim to corrupt, over-reaching, or inept policemen themselves, because that's something that happens to black people and The Bad Guys. Nor, given their apathy towards the state of police departments and the justice system, do they ever expect to need the police or justice system themselves, for any reason. These bad things happen to Everyone Else.
 
Also



It's originally about school shootings, but also relevant to this topic.
 
Safe-Keeper said:
I love the logic that basically says, 'it's totally okay to have an out-of-control, paramilitary, massively overfunded, racist and xenophobic, unaccountable, excessively brutal, and poorly trained police force, because people can just choose not to do crime!'.

It's as if the people who say this believe themselves to be special snowflakes who'll never themselves fall victim to corrupt, over-reaching, or inept policemen themselves, because that's something that happens to black people and The Bad Guys. Nor, given their apathy towards the state of police departments and the justice system, do they ever expect to need the police or justice system themselves, for any reason. These bad things happen to Everyone Else.
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Thats a whole lot of assuming going on
 
Choking. Being able to speak while a foreign object is lodged in your throat, means you can breathe. Saying you can't breathe, while someone is pressing on you, means you can breathe *out*. Sorta like how boa constrictors kill prey, once the air is breathed out to beg for your life, the pressure ensures that you can't breathe back in. That's how positional asphyxia works.
 
Silly Green Monkey said:
Choking. Being able to speak while a foreign object is lodged in your throat, means you can breathe. Saying you can't breathe, while someone is pressing on you, means you can breathe *out*. Sorta like how boa constrictors kill prey, once the air is breathed out to beg for your life, the pressure ensures that you can't breathe back in. That's how positional asphyxia works.
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Technically correct, but quite a number of civilians uttering the phrase did not survive the encounter.
 
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