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The US has a fairly large political contingent that believes in retributive justice, not rehabilitative or restorative justice. In a lot of places the police ha
by chongli 4y ago
The US has a fairly large political contingent that believes in retributive justice, not rehabilitative or restorative justice. In a lot of places the police have a culture of the "warrior mentality" and well-meaning new officers are either brought in line or driven out of the profession. This is compounded by the huge numbers of private and illegal/black market firearms on the street which make policing extremely dangerous. The combination reinforces the warrior and the retributive justice cultures alike.
- elcritch 4y agoNote I don’t believe policing is in even the top 25 most dangerous jobs in the USA. I’m not sure the “extremely “ dangerous applies when driving a truck or most construction jobs are more dangerous.
- chongli 4y agoThis is similar to the issue with statistics around shark attacks. Sure, policing overall is pretty safe because 99.9% of the time you're not trying to arrest an armed and dangerous suspect. Sharks are safe too because 99.9+% of the time people aren't even in the ocean where they might encounter sharks. But if it's your job to go out into the ocean and interact with sharks face-to-face, those encounters are way more dangerous than the general statistics would have us believe. Same goes for police when they have to deal with an active shooter situation. That's what I mean by "extremely dangerous". Compared to Canada or most of Europe, the US has vastly more active shooter situations, and at least some of that can be attributed to the availability of firearms.