America has a problem with police killing people. They kill a disproportionate number of people compared to every single first world country. US Police self reported to the FBI that they killed 400 people in 2012, this is only those that were reported to the FBI the number is surely higher. In the same time police in Britain killed 0, German Police killed 6 in 2011 and Australia killed a whooping 105 over a period of 22 years. These are all large nations with diverse population and huge numbers of immigrants. Why do you think police in the US are worse than other developed countries?
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Why are American police more violent than in other first world nations?
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Keith&Co.
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Because our police pretty much have to assume that the violator is in firm control of his second amendment rights to access automatic weapons and armor-piercing bullets.
laughing dog
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Our police are worse because we allow and expect them to be worse.
This is mostly a result of the drug war.
A greater proportion of American criminals are willing to go for broke and try to take out the cop rather than go to jail because they know they aren't coming back out.
A greater proportion of American criminals are willing to go for broke and try to take out the cop rather than go to jail because they know they aren't coming back out.
Nice Squirrel
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I think that this is the root of the problem. Not that this is actually happening, but that cops go out onto the streets with the attitude that it's happening.
Crazy Eddie
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Partly it's because this is America and we're "at war" with everything. We have a war on drugs, a war on crime, a war on organized crime, in some places even a war on prostitution. It's a useful rhetorical device until you realize that, crap, people DIE a lot in wars, so declaring war against the entire portion of your population that uses recreational drugs is probably a really shitty thing to do.
Mostly, though, it's because police departments have become repositories of ex-soldiers and/or wannabes who couldn't handle a military career and decided to do the next best thing. An alarming number of these people are, in fact, cowards and instinctively hide behind the threat of violence and/or firearms when they feel their authority is threatened.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. American policing jumped that shark in the 60s.
AthenaAwakened
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But why?
AthenaAwakened
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And it doesn't help that we have taken to dressing our police officers like stormtroopers for the empire.
That´s a hypothesis. I think it is mostly wrong. The drug war is not a uniquely US thing.
bilby
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The rest of the world sees a movie like Dirty Harry as a fictional drama. American police think it is a training video.
This is pretty much the truth of the matter.
Our Constitution, or rather, or modern reading of the Constitution, has brought us to a point where it is always good to assume someone has a gun. Police respond to any and every situation as if they may encounter an armed person. They are ready to shoot upon first warning. What constitutes "first warning" is very vague and is left to the policeman's judgment.
Since it is impossible to effectively deny guns to criminals without also denying guns to law abiding citizens, we choose to let criminals have guns and are willing to live with the consequences. One of these consequences is a lot of police shootings.
Look at the number of cops killed by bad guys here vs other countries.
credoconsolans
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untermensche
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The US has always been a highly violent nation.
It started with black slavery and the genocide of the natives.
Then a massive civil war.
It moved to sweat shops and child labor and the suffering that went along with that.
When the unions began to fight for decency they were attacked violently, many times by the police.
Then the violence of segregation. And the violence of Vietnam.
And now the violence associated with the corporate prison system and the prohibition of certain "drugs" and the "war on terror".
To not understand the highly violent nature of the US is not understand the US.
It started with black slavery and the genocide of the natives.
Then a massive civil war.
It moved to sweat shops and child labor and the suffering that went along with that.
When the unions began to fight for decency they were attacked violently, many times by the police.
Then the violence of segregation. And the violence of Vietnam.
And now the violence associated with the corporate prison system and the prohibition of certain "drugs" and the "war on terror".
To not understand the highly violent nature of the US is not understand the US.
laughing dog
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According to this site (http://www.odmp.org/search/year/2014) in 2014, 127 law enforcement officers in the US were killed in the line duty. Here is the distribution by type of death:
While estimates vary, there are easily over 500,000 law enforcement officers in the USA, so the chances of an officer being killed in the line of duty is pretty low.
laughing dog
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I showed that in the US, the risk is extremely low. There is no need to compare to other countries. I came up with actual data. You come up with actual data to make whatever point you are trying to make.
I think our police forces across the nation are riddled with cops suffering from something very close to PTSD, if not actually PTSD. Their culture, their training, their exposure to danger and to the worst of human behaviors (and therefore strong negativity bias), and government validation of all that in the form of gifts of military weapons and equipment, all serve to hijack their limbic systems, starve the parts of their brains that can actually think calmly, and reinforce violent reactions and over-the-top justifications for their over-the-top handling of citizens.