3 ms·

The US has an order of magnitude more crime than Europe but is policed by roughly the same number of officers. That, justifiably or not, leads to short cuts wh

by treis 6y ago

The US has an order of magnitude more crime than Europe but is policed by roughly the same number of officers. That, justifiably or not, leads to short cuts where extrajudicial and unjust tactics are used to enforce compliance.

trowawee 6y ago
> "[...] justifiably or not [...] extrajudicial and unjust tactics are used" ...how could this be justifiable?
- treis 6y ago
  Let's assume that Europe's cops are at 100% capacity to handle their crime justly. That means the US cops can do the same for only 10% of the crime they see. Leaving 90% of the crime to go unpunished. Or they can do shady tactics and respond to more crime at the cost of Injustice. Obviously the ideal solution is to 10x the capacity of the criminal justice system but nobody's paying for that.
  - FireBeyond 6y ago
    One of the slogans of the Thin Blue Line is "Sometimes there's justice, sometimes there's just us." Perhaps less people would see fascist, totalitarian overtones in law enforcement if some segments of the police wouldn't openly state this.
cliffy 6y ago
"An order of magnitude more crime." What kind of crime? Violent? Non-violent? Probably the majority is non-violent crime related to drug possession or property theft. Offenses designed to grease the gears of the prison industry. Modern day slavery. A veritable poverty & minority oppression engine. It's unjustifiable to the extreme. If only the US could curb capitalists' greed enough to provide a decent standard of living for all citizens. Actually adequately funding public education and maybe universal health care would be a good start.
- dantheman 6y ago
  Public education has plenty of funding; maybe enable parents to choose where their kids go so failing schools and teachers can be shutdown and fired. I like how state abuse is considered capitalist greed - prisons and police forces are run by the state.
  - kedean 6y ago
    > Public education has plenty of funding; maybe enable parents to choose where their kids go so failing schools and teachers can be shutdown and fired. That will make things worse, not better. School inequity right now stems almost entirely from the practice of funding schools with property taxes, leading to schools in wealthier districts getting good budgets and schools in low-income areas getting shoestring budgets. The distribution of funding needs to be made equitable before you start shutting down schools and firing people.
    - iguy 6y ago
      Always a bit shocked how much is spent, even on schools which don't perform well. Baltimore spends $16k per student per year, NYC $23k. Maybe it's even higher in rich suburbs but that's quite the "shoestring". For comparison, these numbers are 2-3x the OECD average. Germany spends about 11k, France 9k. (All from quick googling.)
    - xyzzyz 6y ago
      The schools in bad districts have their budgets propped up by state and federal funds, and typically they spend more per student than schools in wealthy districts. Look it up. At the same time, school spending doesn’t really matter. Public schools in NYC and DC spend insane amounts of money per student and have abysmal results anyway.
- rayiner 6y ago
  > What kind of crime? Violent? Non-violent? Probably the majority is non-violent crime related to drug possession or property theft. Offenses designed to grease the gears of the prison industry. Modern day slavery. A veritable poverty & minority oppression engine. You don't have to "probably." You can look this up. Baltimore had 3 times as many homicides as the entire country of Sweden last year, even though Sweden has 10 million people and Baltimore has under 600,000. And it's not "drugs" or "guns" because Sweden has plenty of guns and a harsh anti-drug regime.

by treis 6y ago

trowawee 6y ago

> "[...] justifiably or not [...] extrajudicial and unjust tactics are used" ...how could this be justifiable?

treis 6y ago
Let's assume that Europe's cops are at 100% capacity to handle their crime justly. That means the US cops can do the same for only 10% of the crime they see. Leaving 90% of the crime to go unpunished. Or they can do shady tactics and respond to more crime at the cost of Injustice. Obviously the ideal solution is to 10x the capacity of the criminal justice system but nobody's paying for that.
- FireBeyond 6y ago
  One of the slogans of the Thin Blue Line is "Sometimes there's justice, sometimes there's just us." Perhaps less people would see fascist, totalitarian overtones in law enforcement if some segments of the police wouldn't openly state this.

cliffy 6y ago

"An order of magnitude more crime." What kind of crime? Violent? Non-violent? Probably the majority is non-violent crime related to drug possession or property theft. Offenses designed to grease the gears of the prison industry. Modern day slavery. A veritable poverty & minority oppression engine. It's unjustifiable to the extreme. If only the US could curb capitalists' greed enough to provide a decent standard of living for all citizens. Actually adequately funding public education and maybe universal health care would be a good start.

dantheman 6y ago
Public education has plenty of funding; maybe enable parents to choose where their kids go so failing schools and teachers can be shutdown and fired. I like how state abuse is considered capitalist greed - prisons and police forces are run by the state.
- kedean 6y ago
  > Public education has plenty of funding; maybe enable parents to choose where their kids go so failing schools and teachers can be shutdown and fired. That will make things worse, not better. School inequity right now stems almost entirely from the practice of funding schools with property taxes, leading to schools in wealthier districts getting good budgets and schools in low-income areas getting shoestring budgets. The distribution of funding needs to be made equitable before you start shutting down schools and firing people.
  - iguy 6y ago
    Always a bit shocked how much is spent, even on schools which don't perform well. Baltimore spends $16k per student per year, NYC $23k. Maybe it's even higher in rich suburbs but that's quite the "shoestring". For comparison, these numbers are 2-3x the OECD average. Germany spends about 11k, France 9k. (All from quick googling.)
  - xyzzyz 6y ago
    The schools in bad districts have their budgets propped up by state and federal funds, and typically they spend more per student than schools in wealthy districts. Look it up. At the same time, school spending doesn’t really matter. Public schools in NYC and DC spend insane amounts of money per student and have abysmal results anyway.
rayiner 6y ago
> What kind of crime? Violent? Non-violent? Probably the majority is non-violent crime related to drug possession or property theft. Offenses designed to grease the gears of the prison industry. Modern day slavery. A veritable poverty & minority oppression engine. You don't have to "probably." You can look this up. Baltimore had 3 times as many homicides as the entire country of Sweden last year, even though Sweden has 10 million people and Baltimore has under 600,000. And it's not "drugs" or "guns" because Sweden has plenty of guns and a harsh anti-drug regime.