Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[MonkeyHead]

I remember reading somewhere that in the USA, the training and support given to officers runs at about 50% in terms of cost and time when compared to other forces - I think the comparison was with the UK. That is ridiculous when you consider some of the challenges faced in law enforcement in the US (what with prevalent guns and on occasion serious class A drug issues).

Interesting article on how poorly trained the US police seem to be compared to those in the UK: http://www.quora.com/How-do-UK-police-compare-to-US-police

Academic paper comparing and contrasting police training in the UK, US and Turkey: http://www.pa.edu.tr/APP_DOCUMENTS/D478B2AD-3813-4555-9629-6332F8CF8D33/cms_statik/_dergi/2007/1-4/1-20.pdf

[Ghills]

I remember reading somewhere that in the USA, the training and support given to officers runs at about 50% in terms of cost and time when compared to other forces - I think the comparison was with the UK. That is ridiculous when you consider some of the challenges faced in law enforcement in the US (what with prevalent guns and on occasion serious class A drug issues).

You've got that backwards. 

Drug issues are definitely more than 'occasional'.  They're widespread and very, very serious.  I've lived in urban areas, suburban areas and rural areas and every single one had serious drug problems. The only difference is what kind of drugs - meth is rural, for example.   Legal gun ownership doesn't really correlate with crime, but drug problems correlate with illegal gun ownership, gangs and lots and lots of violence.  Americans are generally much more worried about people with drugs (especially the gangs with drugs, who will also have illegal weaponry) than people following the law and getting a gun license to go hunting.

[MonkeyHead]

I remember reading somewhere that in the USA, the training and support given to officers runs at about 50% in terms of cost and time when compared to other forces - I think the comparison was with the UK. That is ridiculous when you consider some of the challenges faced in law enforcement in the US (what with prevalent guns and on occasion serious class A drug issues).

You've got that backwards. 

Drug issues are definitely more than 'occasional'.  They're widespread and very, very serious.  I've lived in urban areas, suburban areas and rural areas and every single one had serious drug problems. The only difference is what kind of drugs - meth is rural, for example.   Legal gun ownership doesn't really correlate with crime, but drug problems correlate with illegal gun ownership, gangs and lots and lots of violence.  Americans are generally much more worried about people with drugs (especially the gangs with drugs, who will also have illegal weaponry) than people following the law and getting a gun license to go hunting.

Thanks for the enlightening regarding the drugs issues. It really worries me that a cop in the US can carry a firearm and be expected to deal with such complex issues with half the training expected of a cop in a different nation who is not required to carry a firearm and who will not be expected to deal with such hardcore crime.

[penguinofhonor]

What, is the European hard drug trade peaceful?

[MonkeyHead]

Hardly, but dealt with by specialist police teams generally, rather than street officers led by a small number of specialist agents

[penguinofhonor]

Seems like a good idea. What's the justification for not doing that in America? I'm sure it would be easy to get some money behind hiring more specialist anti-drug agents.

[Fniff]

This is just theorizing, but perhaps it's because of a distrust of federal government? This has always been a problem in the United States and it may make the local police officers prefer having their own officers be heavily armed rather then have to deal with federal agents.

[MonkeyHead]

Probably a scale thing as well. The US as a whole is vast compared to other western nations, after all.

[Frumple]

You've also got a pretty sizable power bloc in the US that's quite specifically pushing for poor handling of the drug situation in general. Whatever puts the most people behind bars, gets the most material seized, etc.

The thing to be noted is that it's a multivariant issue. There's not a "the" justification involved with pretty much any of this stuff, but rather whole nets of different justifications making the situation notably more difficult to actually do anything about

[Fniff]

The drug war is huge and complicated. If you make even the slightest change to the plan, the ripple effects could end up with a lot of innocent people dying for no reason. Besides, there isn't an end-point for the drug war. If it was an actual war, there would be a push to make the cartels surrender. But they aren't going to do that, because that's impossible. The only other way would be to completely remove any market for drugs, but how would you do that? Not just reduce it, but completely eliminate it?

It's a situation where all the easy ways lead to failure and a road to success doesn't seem to exist.

[Sergarr]

Somehow Europe manages to deal with that problem without putting millions behind the bars, but in US it is totally impossible.

[Fniff]

I think it's because we in Europe don't treat the drug war like a war. It's just a problem that needs to be solved. Treating criminals like enemy combatants in a war is probably one of the reasons for America's problem with abusive police.

[SalmonGod]

Treating criminals like enemy combatants in a war is probably one of the reasons for America's problem with abusive police.

And this is encouraged by America's cultural attitude towards criminals in general.  Politicians tend to be judged harshly for appearing "soft on crime".  People tend to immediately jump to the worst possible preconceptions whenever they hear the word "criminal".  Those harmed by police tend to get zero sympathy as soon as it's revealed that they might have been guilty of anything at any point in their lives.  It's still not uncommon for people to talk about how police who capture a drug dealer or violent criminal should just take haul them off somewhere to be immediately executed and left to rot.  When there was a mass shooting at the Los Angeles airport several months back, I heard several people in the office propose exactly this, and that was tame compared to the shit I hear anytime a child abuse or rape case makes headlines.  And being convicted of a felony might as well be a death sentence, considering all the fundamental rights you lose forever and how impossible it becomes to find a job and support yourself. 

[Sergarr]

Wow. America might be the worst first-world country I've ever seen.

[Helgoland]

Well, the US is huge, so its issues are huge. There's horror stories about European countries as well - if you only looked at Le Pen or the NSU killing spree in Germany, or the refugee situation, you'd see a very bleak picture.
But in general, I agree: There's something fundamentally wrong with the American mentality.