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No, it's a fight fire with fire mentality that causes militarization. From a European perspective the lack of preventative measures could seem laughable if it w

by brnt 6y ago

No, it's a fight fire with fire mentality that causes militarization. From a European perspective the lack of preventative measures could seem laughable if it wasn't so serious. Mental health for starters. Gun availability obviously too. Police here (OK, not all Police traditions do this here either) take deescalation training far more than gun training. There's a few case studies on French-Dutch comparisons in that regard that should be enlightening. You don't need to win in a gunfight in order to win.

andi999 6y ago
Actually I believe the biggest reason could be mundane. As far as I understand most US police officers are working alone. So even one unarmed sucker punch means game over. I would be scared. In Europe police patrol is usually 2 police officers, so there is much less worry, which allows you to deal with the situations more relaxed.
luckylion 6y ago
> From a European perspective I don't think there is a European perspective. We haven't had anything close to the gang crime problem in the US in a long time, and when we did have it, guns weren't a thing. It's obvious that there are lots of issues, but "look, we don't have them because we do X" doesn't work when we didn't have anything comparable in the first place. I'm certain that we would see very different policies if London, Paris or Berlin had the murder rate of Chicago, and it wouldn't be "let's spend more money on mental health".
- brnt 6y ago
  I know many Americans won't (want to) see it that way, but yeah, that's precisely what we did. What you see in the US is not effective, it is however very old-testament. I guess it makes at least some feel better, fighting fire with fire.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    > I know many Americans won't (want to) see it that way, but yeah, that's precisely what we did. No, it's really not, and "you're American, you just don't want to see it" is not an argument. And if it was, it wouldn't work, because I'm not American and am not living in the US. Born, raised and still living in Europe. That's how I know that we never had anything like the US situation in recent history. Hell, even during the world wars when criminals would've had a field day, it wasn't anywhere close.
- danaris 6y ago
  Gang crime is only one small piece of why the police in the US are the way they are. It's not hard to find stories about police brutality and police corruption in areas far from any gang activity (small towns in the midwest, for instance). You can also find stories about police departments in similarly small towns that have been able to obtain serious military-grade equipment that they definitely don't need. And even separate from all that, you have things like civil asset forfeiture, where the police think it's totally reasonable and OK to just steal people's stuff, without the people being even suspected of any crime, and the law (in many places) allows it. This is all part of a culture that tells cops they are above the law, they have the power, and everyone else just needs to bow down and accept that. Then you combine that with the serious, organized efforts white supremacist groups have gone to over the years to essentially take control of the police force... Yeah, the biggest "gang crime problem" here is the gang in blue.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    > This is all part of a culture that tells cops they are above the law, they have the power, and everyone else just needs to bow down and accept that. Certainly, I agree with that. And the US culture is very different from European cultures (which is not a surprise, given how quickly the country changes and how young it is). Comparing it to Europe where we're sitting on a very different (and much more stable still) culture with very different traditions, a completely different approach to individualism vs collectivism etc, isn't helpful, and you won't get anywhere if you dismiss 99% of the difference and then say (yes, I'm exaggerating, and no, I don't mean you specifically but people who like to point to Europe in comparison) "well, clearly, it's because the citizens don't have guns and the police wear friendlier uniforms".
    - brnt 6y ago
      Its not very different, it just went overboard with parts of protestant ethics. And you can quite literally see the price of this. However, seeing and analyzing your own problems and wrong views is always harder than seeing others. Especially when you consider some of the ideas that lead to those outcomes as somehow fundamental cornerstones (right to guns for instance, but also the ethics of eye for an eye). American isn't changing faster or slower than any other place either, it just is favoring certain ethics that are counterproductive to a peaceful society. Reminds me of certain other fundamentalist places in the world. It of course makes sense it would turn out this way, many early settlers went across the Atlantic precisely to be able to practice their fundamentalist versions of protestantism. Some of that carries of into this I am sure. Seriously, take up some literature on deescalation tactics for police, and in particular evidence based effectiveness of such methods in comparisionto other tactics.

by brnt 6y ago

andi999 6y ago

Actually I believe the biggest reason could be mundane. As far as I understand most US police officers are working alone. So even one unarmed sucker punch means game over. I would be scared. In Europe police patrol is usually 2 police officers, so there is much less worry, which allows you to deal with the situations more relaxed.

luckylion 6y ago

> From a European perspective I don't think there is a European perspective. We haven't had anything close to the gang crime problem in the US in a long time, and when we did have it, guns weren't a thing. It's obvious that there are lots of issues, but "look, we don't have them because we do X" doesn't work when we didn't have anything comparable in the first place. I'm certain that we would see very different policies if London, Paris or Berlin had the murder rate of Chicago, and it wouldn't be "let's spend more money on mental health".

brnt 6y ago
I know many Americans won't (want to) see it that way, but yeah, that's precisely what we did. What you see in the US is not effective, it is however very old-testament. I guess it makes at least some feel better, fighting fire with fire.
- luckylion 6y ago
  > I know many Americans won't (want to) see it that way, but yeah, that's precisely what we did. No, it's really not, and "you're American, you just don't want to see it" is not an argument. And if it was, it wouldn't work, because I'm not American and am not living in the US. Born, raised and still living in Europe. That's how I know that we never had anything like the US situation in recent history. Hell, even during the world wars when criminals would've had a field day, it wasn't anywhere close.
danaris 6y ago
Gang crime is only one small piece of why the police in the US are the way they are. It's not hard to find stories about police brutality and police corruption in areas far from any gang activity (small towns in the midwest, for instance). You can also find stories about police departments in similarly small towns that have been able to obtain serious military-grade equipment that they definitely don't need. And even separate from all that, you have things like civil asset forfeiture, where the police think it's totally reasonable and OK to just steal people's stuff, without the people being even suspected of any crime, and the law (in many places) allows it. This is all part of a culture that tells cops they are above the law, they have the power, and everyone else just needs to bow down and accept that. Then you combine that with the serious, organized efforts white supremacist groups have gone to over the years to essentially take control of the police force... Yeah, the biggest "gang crime problem" here is the gang in blue.
- luckylion 6y ago
  > This is all part of a culture that tells cops they are above the law, they have the power, and everyone else just needs to bow down and accept that. Certainly, I agree with that. And the US culture is very different from European cultures (which is not a surprise, given how quickly the country changes and how young it is). Comparing it to Europe where we're sitting on a very different (and much more stable still) culture with very different traditions, a completely different approach to individualism vs collectivism etc, isn't helpful, and you won't get anywhere if you dismiss 99% of the difference and then say (yes, I'm exaggerating, and no, I don't mean you specifically but people who like to point to Europe in comparison) "well, clearly, it's because the citizens don't have guns and the police wear friendlier uniforms".
  - brnt 6y ago
    Its not very different, it just went overboard with parts of protestant ethics. And you can quite literally see the price of this. However, seeing and analyzing your own problems and wrong views is always harder than seeing others. Especially when you consider some of the ideas that lead to those outcomes as somehow fundamental cornerstones (right to guns for instance, but also the ethics of eye for an eye). American isn't changing faster or slower than any other place either, it just is favoring certain ethics that are counterproductive to a peaceful society. Reminds me of certain other fundamentalist places in the world. It of course makes sense it would turn out this way, many early settlers went across the Atlantic precisely to be able to practice their fundamentalist versions of protestantism. Some of that carries of into this I am sure. Seriously, take up some literature on deescalation tactics for police, and in particular evidence based effectiveness of such methods in comparisionto other tactics.