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Thanks for the link, really interesting/enlightening read. I would hope, at least, that Europe's police officers are on the whole less pointlessly violent (thou

Thanks for the link, really interesting/enlightening read. I would hope, at least, that Europe's police officers are on the whole less pointlessly violent (though, as Peretz points out the majority of SF police probably don't act as such).

mahyarm 13y ago
I've heard of similar bad behavior from spanish and french police forces in general. I wouldn't be surprised you see it in almost all of the southern european countries. When you start getting into germanic/english/scandinavian countries you start hearing the opposite, but even then you hear of controversial behavior during big political protests in england & canada. I'm not going into the eastern european countries since they are still developing nations for the most part. Japan for another example has scary high conviction rates, even though it's a very safe country where police will probably never harass you. Once a prosecutor there goes ahead with a trial, your pretty much guaranteed to be going to jail. I'm not trying to be morally relativistic here and saying your screwed everywhere, but law enforcement systems show this systemic flaw in their organizations in general. How much they control the bad behaviors is up to the culture and design of the incentives. The better designed ones will have a much better probability of not screwing you over. But most people, including unexposed Americans, don't realize the unjust nastiness of law enforcement gone bad and think police are a good thing in developed nations, just like you do in europe.
- Zigurd 13y ago
  I think you have a well thought-out comment in general, but, like in many many cases on many topics, you have overlooked how much of an outlier the US is. Look at the US prison population. What kind of policing and prosecutors and courts are needed to feed a system like that? As Stalin said, "Quantity has a quality all it's own."
adventured 13y ago
Try refusing or questioning the polizei in any regard sometime, see if they don't bloody your mouth just for opening it.

mahyarm 13y ago

I've heard of similar bad behavior from spanish and french police forces in general. I wouldn't be surprised you see it in almost all of the southern european countries. When you start getting into germanic/english/scandinavian countries you start hearing the opposite, but even then you hear of controversial behavior during big political protests in england & canada. I'm not going into the eastern european countries since they are still developing nations for the most part. Japan for another example has scary high conviction rates, even though it's a very safe country where police will probably never harass you. Once a prosecutor there goes ahead with a trial, your pretty much guaranteed to be going to jail. I'm not trying to be morally relativistic here and saying your screwed everywhere, but law enforcement systems show this systemic flaw in their organizations in general. How much they control the bad behaviors is up to the culture and design of the incentives. The better designed ones will have a much better probability of not screwing you over. But most people, including unexposed Americans, don't realize the unjust nastiness of law enforcement gone bad and think police are a good thing in developed nations, just like you do in europe.

Zigurd 13y ago
I think you have a well thought-out comment in general, but, like in many many cases on many topics, you have overlooked how much of an outlier the US is. Look at the US prison population. What kind of policing and prosecutors and courts are needed to feed a system like that? As Stalin said, "Quantity has a quality all it's own."

adventured 13y ago

Try refusing or questioning the polizei in any regard sometime, see if they don't bloody your mouth just for opening it.