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To what do attribute the difference between US and UK police deaths? Do you think police brutality is the main factor?
by missedthecue 6y ago
To what do attribute the difference between US and UK police deaths? Do you think police brutality is the main factor?
- mhh__ 6y agoLack of guns and also a totally different attitude to policing. British policing isn't without problems but the idea of (say) police barging into someone's house guns blazing without announcing themselves (as happened recently) is absolutely unimaginable in the UK. British police operate on consent whereas American police operate on fear (is the stereotype)
- seer 6y agoIn Europe in general police operate on the principle of “plice lives < civilian lives”. This means that you as a police officer do not shoot if you are threatened, you shoot only if _other civilions_ are threatened. Or put it another way your job is to protect civilian lives, even at the cost of your own life. As far as I understand in the us its the other way around - “police lives > civilian lives” - e.g. shoot when threatened directly. Or it is acceptable to kill civilians to save police lives. In the long term that kind of doctrine is bound to have consequences on stats like deaths caused by the police, no matter how good / bad the intentions of individual officers are. And it frames how the public reacts to events as well. Like if you are a cop and you shoot a person trying to rob a bank in the US your friends and family might congratulate you on a job well done, where as in europe you’ll be looked at with disdain by your loved ones.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]