4 ms·
Largely true. It's not that the US police are less abusive per officer or per interaction, it's more than the US does way too much policing.
by newacct583 6y ago
Largely true. It's not that the US police are less abusive per officer or per interaction, it's more than the US does way too much policing.
- bzbarsky 6y agoHow are you defining "way too much policing"? Just looking at Western Europe (arbitrarily defined, granted, and leaving out some really small countries) in the list at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_number_of_police_officers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependen..., the US has fewer police per capita than (in increasing per-capita order) Ireland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Austria, Scotland, Belgium, Germany, France, Portugal, Italy, Spain. More police than (in decreasing per-capita order) England+Wales, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Norway. The US has about 25% more police per capita than Norway. Germany has 63% more police per capita than the US does.
- dubbel 6y agoThat 63% number for Germany fits very well with the fact that police in Germany it's always patrolling in groups of at least 3. I could imagine that that lessens the pressure on any single officer. In the US, if you are overwhelmed, you might be done, while in Germany there is always another officer ready to help. In case of vehicle stops, one officer can interact with the driver comparatively relaxed, which helps to deescalate, while the second officer is covering their colleague. That is not to say that we don't have problems with police brutality or cover-ups here, they are just less deadly usually.