Many European countries have better police, but the systemic critiques still hold. You just have functioning systems to mitigate their worst behavior. The us has something called qualified immunity, which effectively makes them immune from civil penalties.
To explain why many Americans don’t like cops, here’s some fun stories from the last few years:
Multiple studies have found police have a domestic violence rate significantly higher than average
averagehttps://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/09/police-officers-who-hit-their-wives-or-girlfriends/380329/
This is a really good and even-handed breakdown of what happened in Minneapolis after the George Floyd killing. Leftists can be as high minded as they like on the internet but when the police officers cut back on their patrols/traffic stops the overall reaction from the high crime communities that no longer had a strong police presence was not very positive. I think it is naive to think that you can gut police forces and crime won’t go up.
To be clear I am all for police REFORM and increased accountability but I don’t think less police is inherently better.
Many European countries have better police, but the systemic critiques still hold. You just have functioning systems to mitigate their worst behavior. The us has something called qualified immunity, which effectively makes them immune from civil penalties.
To explain why many Americans don’t like cops, here’s some fun stories from the last few years:
Misissippi police buried 215 people in an unmarked mass grave, at least some of which were killed by cops. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/families-in-disbelief-after-hundreds-of-bodies-found-buried-behind-mississippi-jail
Crime dropped when the NYPD went on strike https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/02/opinion/half-the-police-force-quit-crime-dropped.html
Multiple studies have found police have a domestic violence rate significantly higher than average averagehttps://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/09/police-officers-who-hit-their-wives-or-girlfriends/380329/
The Los Angeles sheriff’s department is run by violent gangs. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/06/06/the-la-county-sheriffs-deputy-gang-crisis
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-policing-minneapolis/
This is a really good and even-handed breakdown of what happened in Minneapolis after the George Floyd killing. Leftists can be as high minded as they like on the internet but when the police officers cut back on their patrols/traffic stops the overall reaction from the high crime communities that no longer had a strong police presence was not very positive. I think it is naive to think that you can gut police forces and crime won’t go up.
To be clear I am all for police REFORM and increased accountability but I don’t think less police is inherently better.