If you compare the standards to let’s say: Switzerland (2 years in the academy, the candidate must graduate with a diploma in policing. The first year is theoretical: mainly in the classroom learning about law, tactics and de-escalation. The second year is spent on the job in practical field training with a respective police force).
While police training in the US varies on state: but it’ll last up to 16-21 weeks (it’s pretty bad) before they’re sent on the streets, no wonder why you hear about cops resorting to violence first rather than a de-escalation. There’s an example from Norway where cops didn’t point their guns at a drunk guy, instead they laughed with him.
Both Norway & Switzerland DO NOT have qualified immunity for officers, meaning they are subjected to the same laws as every other citizen. But apparently the USA likes to consider cops above the law via qualified immunity (which is a reason why you barely hear an American cop being held accountable for their actions).
The responses are different: since US cops are like “GET DOWN!” or “DROP YOUR WEAPONS!” while Norwegian cops are like “Please, stop doing that” being said in a more pacifist tone that doesn’t evoke hostility (that’s an issue you hear from American cops, as they shoot first rather than trying to talk their way out).
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It’s a different job with a different intent.
Lots of reasons that can be distilled down to money and racism.
Don’t sleep on it in Switzerland either. You have a racism problem embedded in your police force too, and constant push to militarize. You’re just not as bad as the US (yet, and hopefully never will be) and don’t get flooded with movies and media about it.
You don’t hear stuff like “black person gets shot for holding an object” in Switzerland frequently, since that barely happens. The reason may be that the populace is homogenous (consisting of predominantly Caucasians) and less public distrust towards authorities.
The training for Swiss cops is 2 years (not that different from Denmark or Germany where an officer needs 3 years training before they’re considered a cop), compare that to California police training which lasts 6 months (like WTF? That’s not even long, let alone fit enough for the job).
On top of that the training consists of
- everyone is a fatal threat, so be constantly defensive and aggressive
- here is some equipment most militaries don’t have
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Police in the US originated from slave-catching militias and bounty hunters and developed from there as a means of oppressing, controlling, and re-enslaving (through convict leasing and prison labor) black people after slavery formally ended. At no point has preserving the lives, dignity, or well being of these people been a priority of police forces. All of this gets extended to anyone considered “other” or marginal from the majority.
Prison labor is big business in the US today and acts as a way of reducing the power of labor. This depends on a steady stream of new inmates, so capital pressures legislators and police departments to pass harsher laws and policies and ignore deescalation.
I know nothing about Norway, but I urge you to research how your police treat immigrants, indigenous peoples, and anyone else considered “other” in your society, compared to the majority. it won’t be like American cops, but i wonder what you’ll find.
There are many syllabuses available about the history of police and prisons in the US. if you want a real answer, try some of the materials here: https://www.aaihs.org/prison-abolition-syllabus-2-0/
One of the things that made our prison system make sense as a machine for me was the explicit carve out in the 13th Amendment:
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Emphasis mine. If you’re on the outside looking in, and you don’t understand why the US prison/LE system is the way that it is, it’s because we never actually abolished slavery. We just gave it justification and some window dressing.
And to be clear, I don’t agree with any of it. But it is a thing that bears mentioning in the context of law and justice in the US.
This doesn’t really answer the question of why US police training can be as short as four months.
Also European police forces (and London Metropolitan, which was the template to many police forces around the world) were primarily to prevent theft and beat organized labour. It’s all tool of class war, and it’s not uniquely American.
Without any facts to back this up: I would assume the barrier to entry is so low because, without it, no one with any amount of intelligence or empathy would apply.
I think you are starting off with an incorrect premise: In the US, the role of the cops is not to keep people, or society safe. It often also has very little to due with “the law”.
The role is to keep the rich and powerful, rich and powerful. They are meant to oppress people, and keep the slave-machine running. Cops shooting people, stealing from them, escalating situations, and not knowing the law is the intended situation.
In that sense, the cops are doing their job to great effect, and don’t need any more training.
Asked and answered.
Because it’s working exactly as intended.
No need to change what isn’t broken.
/s but still sadly true
Are you telling me Police Academy was a lie?!
First hand experience in CA, the training is pretty minimal and you’re basically thrown into the deep end. It’s like reading about driving and then your first driving experience is the Indy 500.
Most people you interact with are belligerent (cus 99% of the time you’re not there to help them) or mentally off (yay for the lack of societal safety nets) and it’s drilled into you that every encounter could be deadly
I think the training is crap because of historical reasons initially, but now because it’s a political machine and there’s no reason for those in power to want to change it. They’re seeing the results they want to see, otherwise things would’ve changed by now.
They have training for police in America?
It is not about the lack of training but lack of accountability
I think training is crap because the leadership is crap and they set the tone for their trainees. My Repiblican loving uncle joined our city police force for a bit but quit because he said it was too corrupt.
In an environment like this where the leadership says what is and isn’t acceptable, anybody who doesn’t submit to the “blue line” gang style policing is pushed out and only the shitty cops remain.
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America is a country where every criminal has been given a gun. It must be a different thing to de-escalate a situation where every party has a gun than if no one had a gun.
Of course, this is also a problem that could be solved with money.
Also, as an aside, the right wing in your country (if they are anything like the right wing in both the US and Europe) will want to make your police forces more like American cops in order to brutalize immigrants and “others”, then anyone they can label as “other” even if they are currently accepted (e.g. LGBTQIA+ people, religious or cultural minorities), then extend it to anyone that disagrees with them. It’s up to you to organize with your neighbors against them, because they will tear your society apart as they are doing in the US and elsewhere. They may start with your border police or other specialized forces before attempting to coopt local police.
Part of it is a cultural difference. There’s a formal training and apprenticeship program in Switzerland to become a waiter. The USA relies more on informal on-the-job training than formal education in many fields. In a large, professional police department, it’s often the case that a new hire will be assigned a field training officer for a while; that’s likely to be longer for someone without experience.
The higher level of violence isn’t just lack of training. Some of it is cultural, based on an “us vs. them” mentality. Some of it is based on actual dangers; people in Switzerland pretty much never respond to a traffic stop by shooting at the police, but that’s not a rare occurrence in the USA.
The USA relies more on informal on-the-job training than formal education in many fields
In the United States, in many areas, shoddy and spectacularly cheap on-the-job training is just another low-value thing that is more highly prized than formal education.
You know why, we all do even if we don’t admit it openly.
The powers that be are attempting a fascist coup controlled by an oligarchy, (for now, wait until they get what they want and get kicked out of the club, kicked out in front of a moving bus.
