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So my question for Europeans is, how much influence in politics do your police have? In the US both police and sheriff unions have incredible influence at local

So my question for Europeans is, how much influence in politics do your police have? In the US both police and sheriff unions have incredible influence at local, city, and even state levels. Some of the unions have been known to openly attack with billboards, having squad cars follow, and more, candidates who seek to reform policing and pension benefits; benefits which are excessive on any level of sane measurement. People worry about corporate influence should instead be clamoring to get these entities out of politics. So the excesses simply are the filtering down effect as judges are appointed in many areas by the same politicians who are under the thumb of these two very powerful political forces. After all, you can just imagine the FUD they can dispense for anyone who dares cross them. * note, I listed police and sheriff separately because the sheriff side is more commonly associated with prisons; California's sheriffs union is a notorious cause of the growth of that system. they are just that powerful

pjc50 7y ago
British police are not a huge influence on politics at the moment, and the extreme weakness of local authorities makes them barely worth influencing; police salaries are set centrally. There was an attempt to import the American system by establishing "police and crime commissioners". They are absurdly highly paid compared to most political appointments (especially councillors they replaced): https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22624096 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22624096 - but they remain pretty invisible in the news. My pet theory is they were created to establish a funding channel to Conservative party candidates. All shootings by police are routinely investigated by the fairly independent IPCC. (The one big exception to all this was the history of the RUC in Northern Ireland, which is a whole other story)
TomMarius 7y ago
Czech Republic: Absolutely none, that would be unconstitutional. A state policeman can't even participate in local politics. We also have city "policemen" but these have almost zero privileges over citizens.
garmain 7y ago
Dutch: None.
- cr1895 7y ago
  That's not 100% true. Last year they almost went on strike by responding only to emergency calls. https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2018/09/minister-tries-to-have-police-strike-banned-citing-public-safety-fears/ https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2018/09/minister-tries-to-have...
  - moate 7y ago
    That's a public sector labor issue, not a "political" one. This isn't the same as say, the police union funding a politicians campaign or telling its members which party to vote for.
maxxxxx 7y ago
Germany has a police union that sometimes makes public statements but overall they don’t seem to have much power. I think the US is suffering from the disadvantages of decentralization. Local police forces have much more freedom and get away with a lot of stuff. The training is also very inconsistent and generally not sufficient. Also the fact that sheriffs and judges get elected seems to have the opposite effect from the intended one. Instead of more accountability this seems to lead to less accountability and there is less professionalism.
lqet 7y ago
In Germany, police officers are public officials (Beamte), and public officials are generally not allowed to make any political statements in office or in the name of their office, because they are by law required to serve "the people" as a whole, and not, for example, a political party or some political agenda [0]. They are allowed to do that privately, of course. However, the general influence of police forces on politics is low to zero here. A local police officer (for example, in a small town / village) doing local politics would seem quite strange. There is of course some influence of police unions on the departments of interior of the states (Länder) and the federal government (Bund), but this is more like an employee complaining to their superior about low-level problems that could be fixed by legislative changes. It is almost never done publicly. > Some of the unions have been known to openly attack with billboards, having squad cars follow, and more, candidates who seek to reform policing and pension benefits; benefits which are excessive on any level of sane measurement. If something like that (police cars enforcing a political agenda) would happen here it would almost certainly be national news instantly, and the officers would most certainly (and rightfully so) loose their jobs. We had some bad experience with stuff like that not too long ago :) [0] https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/bbg_2009/__60.html https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/bbg_2009/__60.html
toyg 7y ago
Italy: it’s complicated. We have effectively three separate police corps that do most of the work (carabinieri, guardia di finanza and polizia) and the first two are nominally under military control. Military personnel is forbidden from political involvement, but they still exert a degree of influence (the carabinieri are effectively led directly by government, and for historical reasons have a larger presence in remote areas than the other two forces, in order to enforce control; because of this role in “keeping the peace”, they often have the ears of rulers, so to speak). Civil police (polizia) has unions, typically led by ex-policemen, which are politicized. Policing in Italy is still mostly stuck in the “authoritarian” phase, for umpteen reasons that would be tedious to list here. Suffice to say that a country where the largest police force is effectively military police, is not exactly a model.
ars 7y ago
American: None. Yes, I know this contradicts the parent, but the US is large, and every place is different.
- moate 7y ago
  Where in America?

pjc50 7y ago

British police are not a huge influence on politics at the moment, and the extreme weakness of local authorities makes them barely worth influencing; police salaries are set centrally. There was an attempt to import the American system by establishing "police and crime commissioners". They are absurdly highly paid compared to most political appointments (especially councillors they replaced): https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22624096 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22624096 - but they remain pretty invisible in the news. My pet theory is they were created to establish a funding channel to Conservative party candidates. All shootings by police are routinely investigated by the fairly independent IPCC. (The one big exception to all this was the history of the RUC in Northern Ireland, which is a whole other story)

TomMarius 7y ago

Czech Republic: Absolutely none, that would be unconstitutional. A state policeman can't even participate in local politics. We also have city "policemen" but these have almost zero privileges over citizens.

garmain 7y ago

Dutch: None.

cr1895 7y ago
That's not 100% true. Last year they almost went on strike by responding only to emergency calls. https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2018/09/minister-tries-to-have-police-strike-banned-citing-public-safety-fears/ https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2018/09/minister-tries-to-have...
- moate 7y ago
  That's a public sector labor issue, not a "political" one. This isn't the same as say, the police union funding a politicians campaign or telling its members which party to vote for.

maxxxxx 7y ago

Germany has a police union that sometimes makes public statements but overall they don’t seem to have much power. I think the US is suffering from the disadvantages of decentralization. Local police forces have much more freedom and get away with a lot of stuff. The training is also very inconsistent and generally not sufficient. Also the fact that sheriffs and judges get elected seems to have the opposite effect from the intended one. Instead of more accountability this seems to lead to less accountability and there is less professionalism.

lqet 7y ago

In Germany, police officers are public officials (Beamte), and public officials are generally not allowed to make any political statements in office or in the name of their office, because they are by law required to serve "the people" as a whole, and not, for example, a political party or some political agenda [0]. They are allowed to do that privately, of course. However, the general influence of police forces on politics is low to zero here. A local police officer (for example, in a small town / village) doing local politics would seem quite strange. There is of course some influence of police unions on the departments of interior of the states (Länder) and the federal government (Bund), but this is more like an employee complaining to their superior about low-level problems that could be fixed by legislative changes. It is almost never done publicly. > Some of the unions have been known to openly attack with billboards, having squad cars follow, and more, candidates who seek to reform policing and pension benefits; benefits which are excessive on any level of sane measurement. If something like that (police cars enforcing a political agenda) would happen here it would almost certainly be national news instantly, and the officers would most certainly (and rightfully so) loose their jobs. We had some bad experience with stuff like that not too long ago :) [0] https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/bbg_2009/__60.html https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/bbg_2009/__60.html

toyg 7y ago

Italy: it’s complicated. We have effectively three separate police corps that do most of the work (carabinieri, guardia di finanza and polizia) and the first two are nominally under military control. Military personnel is forbidden from political involvement, but they still exert a degree of influence (the carabinieri are effectively led directly by government, and for historical reasons have a larger presence in remote areas than the other two forces, in order to enforce control; because of this role in “keeping the peace”, they often have the ears of rulers, so to speak). Civil police (polizia) has unions, typically led by ex-policemen, which are politicized. Policing in Italy is still mostly stuck in the “authoritarian” phase, for umpteen reasons that would be tedious to list here. Suffice to say that a country where the largest police force is effectively military police, is not exactly a model.

ars 7y ago

American: None. Yes, I know this contradicts the parent, but the US is large, and every place is different.

moate 7y ago
Where in America?