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All these terrible experiences people vent about the American police force largely have to do with the fact that it's completely underfunded and poorly trained.

by jcfrei 4y ago

All these terrible experiences people vent about the American police force largely have to do with the fact that it's completely underfunded and poorly trained. In the US the average time to become a police officer is around 600 hours, in Germany 3500 and Finland 5500 hours [0]. If you pay police officers a shitty wage and let them do long, strenuous shifts - the only people who sign up for that kind of job are those with some external motivator other than money. In the best case they wanna help their community out but in many cases it's power hungry people who feel empowered carrying a gun and stopping traffic at will. The solution to fight that is simple: Pay higher salaries, have more competition among the applicants and only select those that pass a thorough barrage of physical and psychological tests. [0]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56834733 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56834733

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KennyBlanken 4y ago
It's a bit strange to point to 4 officers spending hours "investigating" a nothingburger as being evidence they're underfunded and overworked. I guarantee that if that family had their house broken into and a bunch of stuff stolen...one cop would have shown up hours later, told them it wasn't worth filing a report as "nothing ever comes of it anyway", and then ignored phone calls from them when they discovered they did, in fact, need a report for insurance. 40% of the town general fund in Uvalde went to the police department. A tiny town with nearly zero crime had a large police department geared up to the gills and a separate school police department...and it got them...a police department that stood around (with county police and a federal border patrol tactical team) while their children and teachers were slaughtered. Police aren't underfunded. They're lazy, entitled bullies. They're also not undertrained - most police get huge training budgets for all sorts of stuff. It's just stuff that is fucking useless. There's lots of time and money for SWAT, anti-terror, and drug operations training, and it's way sexier than training on how to handle a domestic violence case or sexual assault or home invasion.
- ezconnect 4y ago
  Hollywood is the culprit for all this militarized police in the USA and the arms industry.
nerdponx 4y ago
Police officers in cities like Boston and New York can make well into 6 figures after overtime pay. They also can retire relatively young, with generous pensions. Their departments are also well-stocked with capable vehicles and equipment. Funding is not the issue in those cases.
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bcrosby95 4y ago
I have a couple cop friends and they make about as much as me. And that's ignoring benefits. How much do we need to pay them? $300k? $500k?
lovehashbrowns 4y ago
Underfunded lmao. This is some grade-school level of bullying. “We will stop the beatings and murders if you give us more money.” LAPD got 1.9 billion in 2022 by the way: https://ktla.com/news/local-news/police-commission-votes-to-approve-12-increase-in-lapd-budget-for-2022/amp/ https://ktla.com/news/local-news/police-commission-votes-to-... Various cities can spend over 30% of their budget on police btw. Maybe it should be even closer to 100% huh. Why live with iPhones, flat screen TVs, computers, when all of our spare cash can just go to the police.
- jcfrei 4y ago
  Police budget for Berlin (similar in size to LA, at 3.5M inhabitants) is about [0] $2 billion per year - that's for a region with much lower salaries than the US. They employ more than twice the number of police officers (26k vs 12k in LA). And that's comparing a well funded and prestigious police force in the US - the comparison would look much worse in some poorer cities. [0]: https://haushaltsdaten.odis-berlin.de/share?modus=Funktionen https://haushaltsdaten.odis-berlin.de/share?modus=Funktionen

by jcfrei 4y ago

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KennyBlanken 4y ago

It's a bit strange to point to 4 officers spending hours "investigating" a nothingburger as being evidence they're underfunded and overworked. I guarantee that if that family had their house broken into and a bunch of stuff stolen...one cop would have shown up hours later, told them it wasn't worth filing a report as "nothing ever comes of it anyway", and then ignored phone calls from them when they discovered they did, in fact, need a report for insurance. 40% of the town general fund in Uvalde went to the police department. A tiny town with nearly zero crime had a large police department geared up to the gills and a separate school police department...and it got them...a police department that stood around (with county police and a federal border patrol tactical team) while their children and teachers were slaughtered. Police aren't underfunded. They're lazy, entitled bullies. They're also not undertrained - most police get huge training budgets for all sorts of stuff. It's just stuff that is fucking useless. There's lots of time and money for SWAT, anti-terror, and drug operations training, and it's way sexier than training on how to handle a domestic violence case or sexual assault or home invasion.

ezconnect 4y ago
Hollywood is the culprit for all this militarized police in the USA and the arms industry.

nerdponx 4y ago

Police officers in cities like Boston and New York can make well into 6 figures after overtime pay. They also can retire relatively young, with generous pensions. Their departments are also well-stocked with capable vehicles and equipment. Funding is not the issue in those cases.

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bcrosby95 4y ago

I have a couple cop friends and they make about as much as me. And that's ignoring benefits. How much do we need to pay them? $300k? $500k?

lovehashbrowns 4y ago

Underfunded lmao. This is some grade-school level of bullying. “We will stop the beatings and murders if you give us more money.” LAPD got 1.9 billion in 2022 by the way: https://ktla.com/news/local-news/police-commission-votes-to-approve-12-increase-in-lapd-budget-for-2022/amp/ https://ktla.com/news/local-news/police-commission-votes-to-... Various cities can spend over 30% of their budget on police btw. Maybe it should be even closer to 100% huh. Why live with iPhones, flat screen TVs, computers, when all of our spare cash can just go to the police.

jcfrei 4y ago
Police budget for Berlin (similar in size to LA, at 3.5M inhabitants) is about [0] $2 billion per year - that's for a region with much lower salaries than the US. They employ more than twice the number of police officers (26k vs 12k in LA). And that's comparing a well funded and prestigious police force in the US - the comparison would look much worse in some poorer cities. [0]: https://haushaltsdaten.odis-berlin.de/share?modus=Funktionen https://haushaltsdaten.odis-berlin.de/share?modus=Funktionen