[lostnground]

While I agree that officers should be accountable. More enforcement of them will not suddenly make them good officers. Other nations train their police for years prior to putting them into the thick of it. US police spend far less time studying, and it shows, in everything from de-escalation tactics to general legal understanding. If you create a pipeline to weed out bad officers, then there needs to be a pipeline producing better officers

[tialaramex]

AIUI US policing is descended from slave catching and strike breaking. Two activities which I think we'd say today are obviously bad.

In many European states their policing starts as town guards tasked with ensuring order. Order is, at least, not obviously bad.

So that's a philosophical difference in what these forces even think their purpose is.

[sejje]

You understand it wrong. That's not where police come from.

[BrenBarn]

Certainly agreed on that. I think part of it is training but also part of it is just vetting. There are pretty clearly too many people who get into policing out of a desire to wield authority rather than a desire to help people. In many cases I think there is not much use in trying to "train" such people; they just need to be doggedly weeded out. But yes, we need action on both ends, ensuring the pipeline produces good officers going in, and then also regular monitoring to ensure they stay good.

[awesome_dude]

This is an outrageous lie, there were SEVEN Police Academy movies!!!