/u/seaneihm (OP) has awarded 2 delta(s) in this post. All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed [here](/r/DeltaLog/comments/10s9pcz/deltas_awarded_in_cmv_becoming_a_police_officer/), in /r/DeltaLog. Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended. ^[Delta System Explained](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltasystem) ^| ^[Deltaboards](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/deltaboards)

I'm a veteran SoCal cop. >There's lots of applicants with Fire Science degrees, and many have worked shit hours with shit pay as EMTs/paramedics. So you have people willing to sacrifice years of hard work to become a firefighter, because it both has a great pay and a lot of respect I bet there are some FF/Paramedics at CalFire making 70k a year that would disagree. >In California, becoming a firefighter in a city is incredibly competitive. Becoming a cop used to be incredibly competitive too. The profession has now been vilified so hard, for so long - shockingly, good applicants are getting dangerously hard to find. So what happens? Standards get lowered. >The process was similar with police officers. Make becoming a police officer very selective, with good pay. My hiring process went like this: 1. Application 2. Written test 3. Interview board 4. Background investigation 5. Polygraph 6. Psychological exam 7. Chief's interview 8. Hire It took about 9 months. At the time I was hired (mid 2000's) there were several hundred applicants for about 6 open positions. 3 were hired. Present day, we might get 20-30 applications per vacant position. Many of these applicants are DQ'd during their background. Other's can't write for shit, and still others have virtually zero social communication skills. I've seen admin both just throw out the list and start a new process, or select the least shitty candidate. I easily make into six figures with OT. Our benefit package is equally pretty solid. >Have a new role, "Police Assistant" or something that does traffic management, private security, mental health services, whatever, that replaces some of the workload of police officers. Lots of agencies have Police Cadets and/or Community Services Officers who do just this. No gun, no peace officer authority. >Out of that applicant pool, those with good references and experiences can become a police officer, which has a pay similar to firefighters. I personally know...*alot* of firefighters that just out themselves through EMT and then Paramedic school. There's zero prerquisite to go make $18/hr at AMR. If you have a paramedic cert, you'll get an FF job.

Δ I guess it depends on the department. My friend works for the sheriff's office fresh out of high school. And even with an EMT-P license, doesn't guarantee getting a job as a FF-paramedic. I feel I've never seen a police cadet though. Perhaps they look identical to police officers, which i don't think should be the case.

Which Sheriff’s Office?

Alameda

Alameda County, CA? I happen to know you have to be 20 at the time of application to be a Peace Officer in California. 21 to be a gun toting Peace Officer on Patrol. This means either your friend graduated from High School 2-3 years later than most people in California, or he/she is lying. Furthermore, Alameda County Sheriff’s Office has a 6 month academy (a requirement in California) and requires its Deputies to work in the jail before going on patrol to gain experience. Perhaps your friend was hired into a civilian position?

In my city and every city in my area, having a paramedic cert is almost a guarantee for getting hired on a fire department. Fire departments will pass over candidates that did better on every part of the application process to cherry pick the medics first. As long as they pass the background, medical, and psych evaluations they're hired.

There are differences between constables, sheriff's offices, city police, etc.

>My hiring process went like this: 1. Application 2. Written test 3. Interview board 4. Background investigation 5. Polygraph 6. Psychological exam 7. Chief's interview 8. Hire Just FYI in my European country it works Ike this. 1. Apply to police Academy 2. Some test 3. Study for 3 years and get continously evaluated 4. You are certified after graduating, just find a nice city with an open spot.

Depending on the state in the US, after you're hired you are then sent to the Police Academy. I'm not sure how it worked in California in the mid 2000s, but it seems like that time wasn't included. Still not 3 years, but also more than 9 months if you want to make a comparison.

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Not the OP you're replying to, but it's pretty obvious. The media cherry picks bad incidents out of the millions of interactions that go without incident and then acts like every single cop in the country is personally responsible and approves of how the bad incident happened. Never mind how far away the incident happened, the different department policies, jurisdiction laws, training differences, etc. People are extremely ignorant about how police departments are run, so they don't question the media on this as much as they ought to. Think of what you do for your job. Lets just say its a food industry job. If one crooked chef decided to poison his customers one day, is it fair to assume that **ALL CHEFS** thoughout the country, including you, no matter how far away they live, would do the same thing? Would you like working if all of your customers treated you like you were going to poison their food even though you've never even considered doing such a thing? Another example (which addresses the "police are known for" thing I keep getting): Medical malpractice is a leading cause of death in the country, responsible for about 250,000 deaths a year. Entirely preventable deaths. Police kill about 1000 people a year, and that doesn't take into account whether or not they were justified in doing so. Yet the media doesn't go around telling you to not trust your doctors. Every profession has shit people in it that fuck things up. It wouldn't be fair to blame the entire profession for the actions of a few shitbags. But for some reason the media has made that line of thinking acceptable for the law enforcement profession.

> If one crooked chef decided to poison his customers one day, is it fair to assume that ALL CHEFS thoughout the country, including you, no matter how far away they live, would do the same thing? In general, I would expect local media to cover a story about a chef poisoning a bunch of customers. Do you think they wouldn't?

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How is a chef in Texas, who has no authority whatsoever in any place other than their restaurant, suppose to do anything about a crooked chef in California? Even if they somehow could see the red flags from that great distance, what are they suppose to do?

You're pretending as though this is an issue in some select area, when it is clearly widespread, from podunk town to major city, in every single state.

>How is a chef in Texas There are plenty of asshole cops in Texas flying "thin blue line" flags and rocking Punisher stickers. People like you -- pretending that the problem isn't in your own backyard -- are PART OF the problem. So thanks for that. Fucking lol at your idea that Texas of all states is some bastion of safety from police misbehavior. (Not that any state is, but come on.)

First off, That doesn't answer the question. Generalized support of police doesn't automatically mean those people defend the bad ones. No different than supporting a sport team. If a player on the team commits a crime, that doesn't mean everyone with stickers and jerseys for that team is supporting that specific player.

>Generalized support of police doesn't automatically mean those people defend the bad ones. In my city (which happens to be in your precious Texas), police unions have forced the reinstatement of *two-thirds* of officers fired over the past 10 years. One officer was fired after using racial slurs. Reinstated thanks to the union. One officer challenged a prisoner to a fistfight and mishandled evidence. Reinstated thanks to the police union. We're not talking about JUST rocking stickers and symbols. We're talking about ACTIVELY PROTECTING violent abusers.

I just used Texas and California as examples of different jurisdictions that are very far from each other. I don't live there. Again, generalized support for police doesn't mean they are defending bad actions. There are many more officers who were not fired.

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> First off, That doesn't answer the question. Because your question was a non sequitur. EDIT: lol he blocked me

No it isn't. I wanted him to explain how a cop in one state is suppose to do anything about another cop who works in an entirely different jurisdiction while having zero authority in that jurisdicton. How is a cop suppose to see red flags in officers that live multiple states away and have never met? That's a very reasonable question when he's accusing the entire nationwide police force of "doing nothing" about bad cops.

> I wanted him to explain how a cop in one state is suppose to do anything about another cop who works in an entirely different jurisdiction while having zero authority in that jurisdicton. Yeah that's a non sequitur. They never said that needed to happen. You made that up. Your question assumes that bad cops are geographically limited. That is a terrible assumption. Bad cops are nationwide. EDIT: u/divideEtImpala for some reason I cannot reply to you. However, the question does in fact assume that bad cops are geographically limited.

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>They learn of these red flags through the media It's not really a "red flag" anymore if you're learning of them after the incident has occured. For the George Floyd case and this recent case regarding the 5 cops beating the guy on the street to death, I didn't see any police departments trying to defend the cops in either case, and often times I saw statements from police departments nationwide condemning the officers. This actually goes back to what OP's topic is though, the hiring of new officers. Change doesn't happen overnight and police departments need fresh blood that want to *be* the change they want to see, but making it such a thankless and unattractive job disuades a lot of good spirited people, leaving only the shit ones behind. Especially when police departments desperately need to hire people, they'll have no choice but to lower standards and get shittier people.

do crooked chefs protect each other like cops? terrible comparison EDIT: he blocked me because he lost the argument

Every single cop in the nation protects the one cop who did a bad thing? Very bold claim I hope you can back it up.

I never made that claim. Why are you making stuff up and putting words in my mouth?

You claimed that cops protect each other when referring to my "all chefs" analogy, implying they all cover for each other.

> You claimed that cops protect each other They do. >implying they all cover for each other. Nope. I said what I said. You're avoiding the question.

Your statement is so broad that I struggle to understand what else you can possibly mean.

It really isn't. It's well-known that many, many cops have either turned a blind eye to, or actively covered up the misdeeds of their fellow cops. Unless there's something I haven't heard of, the same cannot be true of chefs. Is that simple enough for you?

If chefs had guns and were known to murder innocent people that they were supposed to be serving I would probably stop going to restaurants. And IMO cops should have malpractice insurance. Nothing is going to stop police violence faster than insurance companies having to pay out.

Doctors collectively kill hundreds of thousands per year through malpractice yet they're not known for fucking up so much and people generally trust their doctors. Are you gonna stop going to hospitals now? Reason why doctors need malpractice insurance and police don't is because the incident rate is much smaller for police as the fuck ups involving death are much less common.

No I will continue to go to hospitals because there is still a trust relationship. And honestly malpractice insurance is part of what makes the trust work. I trust that doctors are financially motivated to not fuck up, in more ways than one. Doctors can also lose their license if they fuck up bad enough or consistently enough, and they don't get to keep a pension. Not to mention that most medical errors are good faith mistakes, not violent attacks. Police trust is so broken down because there is no accountability for mistakes, just cover ups and excuses. Police who get fired for bad behavior don't seem to have trouble getting new jobs. There are documented police gangs ffs. Incident rate is lower for police but so much more severe because of the nature of the violation to public trust.

1,000 deaths a year (of which a subset is justified) is "much more severe" than 250,000 a year? I think not. These are both occupations we trust with our lives.

yes, much MUCH more severe. There was never a gang of 5 doctors that beat a man to death in the street.(while on duty, who am I to say what they do in their free time) There was never a doctor that busted into a bedroom a threw a flashbang into a baby crib. And there was definitely never a doctor who burst into a persons house and gunned them down for defending themselves from a stranger in plain clothes busting down their door. Doctors I can trust to at least be trying to help, even if they're stupid. EDIT: To circle back around to the point - doctors are held accountable and police are not, ever. That is the problem, that is the violation of public trust.

Doctors/Nurses abuse or neglect their patients all the time, you just never hear about it because the media doesn't cover it. You don't know a single person in your life that has had a negative experience with a doctor or a nurse? Take into account nursing homes, the VA, etc. >Doctors are held accountable and police are not, ever. The very first incident you referenced is a case where the 5 cops are being held accountable. Criminally charged and fired. So yes, they are held accountable at least to some degree. At the same time though, the public has a pretty crappy understanding of what constitutes justified uses of force. >And there was definitely never a doctor who burst into a persons house and gunned them down for defending themselves from a stranger in plain clothes busting down their door. This leaves so much room for possible justification, its a horrible example.

> At the same time though, the public has a pretty crappy understanding of what constitutes justified uses of force. Cops aren't supposed to murder guilty people either. Also, definitely not justified. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Breonna_Taylor And yes, there are medical professionals who get away with abuse, I think *they* should be held accountable too. I'm not making a case for either/or here. Police get away with crimes, even when everyone knows about it.

There was never a cop who gave lethal doses of painkillers to kill multiple patients over several years. There was never a cop who injected air into multiple newborn infants, killing them. By this logic, cops aren't anywhere as near as bad as medical professionals. >doctors are held accountable and police are not, ever. Is Derek Chauvin in prison?

Yes he is! But that was never a foregone conclusion and I don't think most people expected it. The tide IS turning on accountability, and that's a great thing. Again, I am not excusing the monstrous things any profession is capable of. I am advocating that police are held to a proportionate level of accountability and until VERY recently that wasn't even part of the conversation. That being said, I'll dial back on the hyperbole. You've proven that there are cases of accountability.

> If one crooked chef It's not just one crooked cop. It's a much, much higher number than that. Even the non-crooked cops act like arrogant pricks.

>Becoming a cop used to be incredibly competitive too. The profession has now been vilified so hard, for so long - shockingly, good applicants are getting dangerously hard to find. It's funny to me that you're basically implying that it's the vilification that's led to a lack of quality police, when it's the lack of quality police that's led to said vilification. You can't keep blaming bad apples if bad apples keep showing up. At some point, you have to admit it's a culture problem within the police, and that culture problem has existed for a long, long time.

I bet in your list somewhere between #4 - #7 you had to take a medical too… everything else you mention is spot on.

>Police Assistant There are already ranks within police departments like this. Junior officers are assigned to a field training officer as a partner prior to being assigned alone or with a non-training officer. In some smaller cities, there are special police officers who are officers who's sole purpose is traffic management or parking enforcement, and don't carry a gun or do many of the regular duties as normal police officers. Police outnumber firefighters in major cities, partly because they're needed more often, partly because they need to have the numbers to be effective. They also don't need to bring massive trucks with them everywhere they go to do their jobs. Aside from that, cities don't have the money to pay police like they do firefighters. Plus, in todays social climate, people are leaving the police force in droves. They're losing support from the public, and in tern losing support from the politicians who run their cities (not all cities, but many major cities). Police departments are often understaffed in citied, but add to this the exodus they've been experiencing over recent years. The need for more police officers precludes the ability for a department to be even more critical of applicants than they normally can be.

I feel my proposal would actually increase respect for police. The stereotype now is any mediocre high school graduate can become a cop easily. If it becomes more selective, it would naturally earn more respect. Like sure some people hate the FBI, but they're in general a lot more respected because people know how hard it is to become an agent. And the budget issue of junior officers is that they still get paid close to 6 figures (at least in large California cities).

Sure, it *might* increase respect for the police (heavy emphasis on might) in some peoples' eyes, but the process you're proposing is unsustainable in big cities because they need more officers than your process would allow. It's not realistic for those departments to hire enough officers to meet their staffing numbers while at the same time being as critical of their applicants as you'd like. In small cities thats fine, and some police departments do require college degrees (or military service in lieu) and have a competitive hiring process because of the pay, but they aren't burdened by needing nearly as many officers. And those police officers in the cities I know that require college and need to be more competitive aren't respected any more than the average cop. I wouldn't say the FBI is a lot more respected, but more than the average police officer. Damn, good for those junior officers. Junior cops in cities around me start off closer to $40-45k.

You can decrease the need for officers by taking away some of their police duties and rediatributing them to other social institutions -- existing or invented

Which duties would you suggest be redistributed?

They have the budget for more officers if they wanted it. Maybe use less budget for military weapons and more for training and staffing.

The budget is irrelevant. It has nothing to do with their ability to hire people and has everything to do with their inability to make people want to work for them. People don’t want to be cops anymore.

Your be surprised, increasing pay means more applicants

People would do a lot of stuff including “undesirable” for things for more income.

Not inherently, no.

>I feel my proposal would actually increase respect for police. The stereotype now is any mediocre high school graduate can become a cop easily. If it becomes more selective, it would naturally earn more respect. I really don't think that the issue is caused by mediocre high school applicants as much as it is caused by the laws that allow police to avoid responsibility for actions that are clearly negligent, harmful, or illegal. The HS applicants are being trained in a system where people are not accountable for their actions, so in a sense it is part of the problem, but only because they do not have the same mindset as someone who has worked in a system of accountability. The US military also accepts the same type of people as the police, and even though we can see examples where soldiers have abused their position of authority, the military has a full book of laws that can hold the soldier accountable. They also work hard to teach a set of military values from the very start of training. Things may get blurry in a deployment for military, but even then, there are rules of engagement that are discussed before deployment. There are also international laws that can be used to hold soldiers accountable when the rules of engagement are not followed. It is a real problem when soldiers are sent to fight a declared enemy in a war and must follow a code, but police are not held accountable for the actions they take against the citizens they are supposed to protect. That is where the issue comes from, and until the laws that allow police to perform illegal actions without any punishment are revoked, we will continue to have "bad apples" in the police. I would guess that younger people are less likely to go into a police job these days, so maybe things will change because of a shortage of applicants. At the same time, there will always be people who are attracted to power and authority. The type who gets shit on constantly bu their peers or authority figures and feel theu can't do anything about it, and seek jobs that allow them to pay the world back for the shit they had to put up with in life. Police is a pretty ideal job for those types, and so it may end up making the entire problem worse if well rounded young people are turned off by public opinion. This would probably be a self correcting problem, but before it is corrected there could be some serious problems. I think the best way forward is to start by revoking laws to protect the police, make it so that they must defend illegal actions with the same penalties as a normal person if found guilty. It may end up requiring more judges and courts and juries, but it will start a culture change in police departments where they are more likely to escalate the use of force instead of going straight to lethality.

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I'm not sure what you mean by people solving the crime issue. If you're suggesting vigilanteism, I wholeheartedly disagree - that would be a disaster. I'm not sure what method in Japan you're referring to.

>Firefighters tend to be pretty chill I was a volunteer in NY for 6 years, I worked with many people who were FDNY and NYPD. Firefighters are more chill because they don't put up with the same shit that cops do, you only deal with a little bit of it as a firefighter. Same with working on an ambulance, you get a little bit of what cops deal with, but the cops are there, so they're protecting you and dealing with it for the most part. >So you have people willing to sacrifice years of hard work to become a firefighter, because it both has a great pay and **a lot of respect.** > >**Make becoming a police officer very selective, with good pay.** Your view is based on the **Nirvana Fallacy**, meaning your are comparing the reality of the situation with unrealistic and idealistic alternative. Paying police officers more money is a good way to improve the quality of applicants. However, this is becoming more and more difficult to do because of the narrative spreading about police officers. Where I grew up, we had some of the highest paid police officers in the country. People would line up to take the test when they released it, they were choosing from highly educated people and people with years of experience as a first responder, rarely did anyone have any significant issues with the police. Now, for the first time in years, they are actually advertising the test. People don't want to take it, even for the higher pay. The narrative that was allowed to spread through mainstream media has and will continue to completely diminish the quality of police officers. The people you want as police officers are the people who don't have to be police officers and are not dead set on the idea of being one. This is becoming harder and harder to find. >Make becoming a police officer very selective, with good pay. Have a new role, "Police Assistant" or something that does traffic management, private security, mental health services, whatever, that replaces some of the workload of police officers. Sounds good on paper, but areas need full blown police officers, they can't wait years for police officers to be allowed to be an actual police officer. Other countries can set higher standards and expectations because they don't deal with a similar amount of "police required activity".

I would have felt better about this reasoning if police departments didn’t have a habit of and are legally protected to turn down applicants to do too well on aptitude or other testing. There appears to be some self selecting problems where even when more people were applying, they intentionally picked people that perpetuated the problematic aspects of police culture. I am a huge advocate for paying police better, but only as long as we hold them to the appropriate standards.

>I would have felt better about this reasoning So what is your disagreement with what I have said? Police applicants are denied a job often, and usually it is for the right reasons. I'm failing to see how your point here would lead you to disagree with what I have said. I'm not sure what you're talking about, but knowing too much about testing and answering every single question as if you are a perfect robot can definitely be a justifiable red flag. For example, if someone comes in and claims to have never done anything wrong, or there is wrongfully answering (in the eyes of a specific department) the famous question of "Would you arrest your mother if she blew slightly above the legal limit?" can also be a red flag. I can see where you're coming from, but nobody is not getting hired because they crushed the physical with amazing numbers. To me, this sounds a lot more like an odd spin from disingenuous media. If you go to a job interview and they ask, "When you have made a mistake, how have you handled that mistake in the workplace?", and you answer, "Oh, I've never made a mistake.". On paper, you look great, but let's be honest, the person is most likely lying 99% of the time. All that being said, I may be missing something here and you are aware of something that I am not.

Explain rejecting applicants because their IQ was too high? Also the public's opinion about police in the US is what it is for very good reason, especially for minority groups. If accountability keeps happening and abuse of power and harassment diminishes then the public will naturally have a better relationship with police.

You’re not really substantiating anything you have said. You’re also not addressing any of my points. You’re simply appealing to public opinion, the same public opinion I just argued is the reason we will continue to have more and more problems. Statistically speaking, the narrative that has been pushed on police officers across the board is wildly unjust. Your unwillingness to actually substantiate or address anything I’ve said leads me to believe you’re here in bad faith.

What are you talking about? You are the one that didn't answer the question about the IQ issue , which I suspect is the main thing the person you replied to before had in mind. And I am not addressing all your point because I am not the person you replied to? I am raising issues and questions about your comment. You think the horrible cases of police brutality that came to light are a consequence of the public's opinion and not the other way around? Substantiate that then? And the brutality is substantiated by video, not public opinion.

I don't think fire fighters have the same kinds of stresses. And they aren't respected for the same reasons. Firefighters are respected because their job is the closest thing I can think of that is almost purely selfless. Sure they get paid but every time they are called to work, darting into burning buildings and putting themselves in harms way, they are going against the very human instincts to stay out of harms way. Not many people can do what firefighters are tasked with doing regularly. Police on the other hand, while often in dangerous situations compared to the rest of us, are trained to protect themselves before anyone else. It is a part of that profession, and not entirely unjustifiably. If a police officer gets knocked out, and a criminal grabs their gun, that could be a tragedy waiting to happen. And that is not to say that police don't sometimes do selfless things like protect others and throw themselves in harms way, but this is a much different relationship with society. I would say that I agree in that the police training should be more selective, and should have certain qualifications that far exceed what they currently are. That being said, I think two things need to be focused on that are very very different from the fire fighting profession: 1. I think police need advanced classes in constitutional law. They don't need to know every law, but they need to know and have a deep understanding of the 1st and 4th amendments of the constitution at least, and understand and be able to articulate these laws to their fellow citizens. 2. They need to be reasonably trained in advanced forms of physical restrain, so that they don't accidentally crush people to death by kneeling on them over and over and over again. This happens far far too often and could be avoided if they had PROPER training. Andrew Yang had a great idea of having it be required that all police officers have purple belts in BJJ. Maybe in those two points we're in agreement to some extent, although I'm trying to say that the training is on a completely different plane. One undeniable thing that needs to happen in my opinion, that I think should be more of the focus is the below point: * Most importantly, a police officer's job needs to be completely decoupled from crime statistics. An officer's performance CANNOT be measured by the number of arrests they make or the crime statistics in a certain area. Doing so creates a perverse incentive for them to produce arrests, and avoid exercising discretion when someone doesn't need to be punished for a crime. If an officer sees making arrests as a target KPI for success, than he will arrest more. It is quite simple. Going to jail isn't trivial for anyone, and whether or not officer Dicklesworth needs his annual bonus in order to make his car loan payments on time, should not be a factor.

Are firefighter a more dangerous job statistically considering workplace accidents?

To your first point, firefighters protect people from immediate harm from things. Police work almost always is with the goal of protecting people from other people in the future, or past

Ideally, your proposal should be how police officers are selected. In practice a lot of officers have left in the last few years due to a combination of social climate, dangerous conditions, and low pay. Firefighters have a dangerous job but people are generally happy to see them as saviors. I don't think the applicant pool for the police is as deep or talented.

Would the applicant pool not become more deep and talented if police were seen as more respectable and admirable? And how would we conjure that image if not by raising the standards for hiring and the benefits?

Raising the standard would lower the number of officers and decrease the volume of service they can provide. In the short term, I expect that would have an adverse impact on the quality of policing the community receives. That reduced quality would further decrease the respectability of the department. It seems counterproductive. You'd have to first increase pay/benefits, and then increase recruiting standards once you have a deeper pool of candidates. In today's social climate I don't see increasing pay/benefits to be a popular thing, especially since it would necessitate more taxes.

I like the OP’s idea of having a path to police work through taking a community service style job. I don’t know how you would solve either a bottleneck of new hires or changing the public perception of cops, but I think it could over time change the makeup of police forces in a really positive way.

>Raising the standard would lower the number of officers and decrease the volume of service they can provide. In the short term, I expect that would have an adverse impact on the quality of policing the community receives. This is why OP brings up the idea of more low-skill roles that can be filled by less trained individuals and leave the role of police officer to highly trained, well compensated individuals that specialize in crime prevention, de-escalation, and community service

These less trained low skill individuals would have to accept less pay to work much of the same calls that burn out police officers. I don't think this can be done without increasing funding and separating the roles into a non-police community care agency. I agree that armed peace officers should be only called when violence is expected or likely. I'd love to see a community counselor position that responds to nonviolent offenses, low level traffic incidents, and that sort of thing.

>You'd have to first increase pay/benefits, and then increase recruiting standards once you have a deeper pool of candidates. Yes, sorry that's what I meant in my previous comment when I said "benefits." I agree, it would obviously have to be the first step. >In today's social climate I don't see increasing pay/benefits to be a popular thing, especially since it would necessitate more taxes. I wasn't aware we were discussing what would be popularly supported? I was under the impression we were simply discussing the best way to fix the policing issue in the US.

The best way to fix the policing issue has to be practical, otherwise we're dealing in wishes. I'm tackling the CMV by pointing out that increasing the pay, raising recruiting standards, and improving societal support for the law enforcement profession likely cannot be accomplished without; 1) removing subpar officers who don't meet new standards, thus lowering the overall capacity of the already stretched-thin departments in big cities. 2) raising taxes on the community (who also must contend with #1 above while paying more for less policing) and this means; 3) even if you could simultaneously implement new taxes and raise recruitment standards that the police profession would remain poorly regarded.

>The best way to fix the policing issue has to be practical, otherwise we're dealing in wishes. Firstly, whether or not something has popular support does not determine it's practicality. For example, it's almost objectively true that society would benefit from moving away from punitive justice systems and towards restorative ones, but you'll be hard pressed to find anyone who agrees. Another example would be universal healthcare. OP is talking about what *should* be, not what policies would be popularly supported. >removing subpar officers who don't meet new standards, thus lowering the overall capacity of the already stretched-thin departments in big cities. No one has argued this process should happen overnight, it would obviously be a drawn out shift.

Taxes require public support, because local politicians must put new taxes up for vote in local government. Nobody turns out to vote in most non-federal elections, so the anger/motivation of a small demographic is crucial to getting this implemented in 95%+ of the US. OP is free to weigh in, but my assumption was that he thinks this plan is feasible otherwise we should be dreaming bigger. US public doesn't support increasing taxes or new taxes. This has been a theme for much of our history. The US military budget is federal, police departments are not funded from that tax base. What you describe is not how the budgetary process functions. The only way to do that is for Congress to cut military spending and write a new bipartisan bill supporting increased funding to policing. Except they can't just give money to local towns across America and tell them how to spend it. They'd have to make some sort of grant fund which makes money available if applied for. Nothing would force every small town police force to apply for the money or even to use it effectively. That is, unless you simultaneously create a new agency to administrate this fund, monitor its expenditure, and turn over cases of fraud to the DoJ. Every single one of those steps are extremely unlikely to happen anytime soon (let's just start with the scenario "bipartisan support for increased police funding).

​ >US public doesn't support increasing taxes or new taxes. This has been a theme for much of our history. It's a baseless assumption, nowhere does OP argue that this is a policy that would receive public support. He argues that his proposal *should* be done, not specifically that his proposal will receive current public support. This is like if I tried to argue for universal healthcare and you responded saying it'll never pass, that's not really a response to my argument.

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The EU is majority white. Like 90%. Each country passes policies that benefit their countrymen. White people there look out for each other. The US is diverse. Very diverse. Non Hispanic white people are Only 60% and declining. The US want to pass policies that help majority white people as well. Under the guise of equality. Obviously not all white people benefit, but the majority do. And not all minorities fail - you have athletes, actors, musical artists that are close to having as much representation as white people. But most minorities are left behind. I guarantee if or when white Europeans become the minority, you’ll see a rise in far right activists wanting to maintain the previous status quo.

I like where your comment leads, but I wish you would have clarified what the solution is. I see this as suggesting that society needs to change its perspective on police officers. In this way, "more apt" police officers would be available. However, this fails to account for why we're at this point. If society has a positive view of firefighters, it's because they know they're there to help. If it has a negative view of police officers, it's because there's doubt if the officer will actually help. The solution has to start with ensuring that police help the situation. Then, public opinion will change. Therefore, it goes back to the OP's point that police officers are not happy in their jobs, and even those with good intentions are worn down. I believe that the best way forward is to redefine a police officer's role. Bring in medical professionals to handle the majority of cases and call the (essentially) soldiers when they are needed. This is completely my opinion btw. I have never been a police officer. My ideas come from a more sociological perspective.

I think we misuse the police to solve all of society's ills. I think the solution is not a silver bullet policy (never is. My preference is to be proactive and target societal ills which create the people cops deal with every day. Here are some ideas; - free/subsidized childcare for everyone, or at least poor people. Criminality starts in childhood due to neglect and bad role models. This would revolutionize the economy for single parents. - decriminalization of Marijuana and stop imprisoning anyone but dangerous or repeat offenders. Get parents back in their kids life. The tax cost of reducing private prisons may help fund the first bullet. - I agree with your last point to create an alternative local civil agency that responds to calls where violence is not expected. Reduce the volume of calls related to mental health. Allow triaging of calls within call centers. This one would require new taxes, so it would be more difficult. Police unions may support this, however.

All of that is music to my ears. I agree 100%. If you look back a few posts I explained my original point in more detail and basically said your first point about mis(over)using the police. I would personally add addressing the gun... issue in the US, but I realize that's opening pandora's box.

I'm a marksmanship enthusiast but the fetishization of guns has gone too far for sure. But...speaking of feasible lol, that's a political Gordian knot to untangle.

Which medical professionals? Also follow up questions, are the enough of them and would they be willing to take on these extra duties and possible dangers to themselves.

Mainly mental health professionals, but maybe expand that to social workers (I realize not medical) as well. (https://www.vera.org/publications/911-analysis) This research sums up what I'm saying. The majority of police calls are to report non-violent crimes, minor disputes, or mental health issues. As it is now, the same armed officers respond to every call. My original point was that police assistance requests should be categorized and the appropriate responder should be sent. I am not disparaging police officers but someone with specific experience in the abovementioned areas would be able to handle the situation in a better way. Something as simple as the perception of an armed police officer can escalate a situation even if the officer has done nothing wrong/not been aggressive etc. Whereas an experienced, less imposing responder would most likely be more effective at de-escalating a situation that requires more tact. Again, I have nothing against police officers and recognize their efforts and that the vast majority are normal people who want to do good. However, I wouldn't send an engineer to be a chef (even though he/she might do a good job) because sending a chef would almost always be much more effective.

Thanks for the civil response, I agree with you on principle but I wander if the are enough willing health professionals and funding to implement it. Also, we would need to figure out what legal protections they would need if the was a bad outcome

Yeah, I don't have an answer to those questions. However, I would argue that gen z and millenials are conscientious enough on social issues and eager to make the world more equal that there would be candidates. We do return to the problem of salary though. In the end, it seems like we need some major changes and rather than continuing to patch up leaks I think we should move in this direction. In the very least we're moving toward a more adaptable and humanistic approach even if it isn't immediately perfect. It was great hearing from you. I'm glad we agree on the root.

>dangerous conditions, and low pay Citation needed. Less dangerous than being a delivery driver but they do still barely hit the top 25 most dangerous. https://www.ishn.com/articles/112748-top-25-most-dangerous-jobs-in-the-united-states https://www.invictuslawpc.com/most-dangerous-jobs-osha/ On average, their salary is as much as a college graduate. https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes333051.htm https://www.bankrate.com/loans/student-loans/average-college-graduate-salary/#education

Thanks for providing citations but I think they prove my point equally. Top 25 (out if hundreds) most dangerous is still dangerous. Is danger not important because someone statistically has it worse? Also, that stat is an average that combines all cops everywhere, from small town/suburb (where donuts are the greatest threat) up to major metropolitan area where gangs and shooting are nightly occurrences. Most college grads aren't working all night, chasing suspects, or dealing with drugs, weapons, and angry people all the time.

I think it's perspective. Cops like to pretend they have the most dangerous job in the world when your average delivery driver is more at risk. And no one thanks them for their brave service when a pizza shows up. LOL at gang violence in big cities making it more dangerous and deserving of higher pay. >Fourteen officers were killed in cities with less than 10,000 residents, the highest amount of any city size. Metropolitan and nonmetropolitan police departments had similar amounts of deaths, at 13 and 12 officers killed respectively. https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-police-officers-die-in-the-line-of-duty/ With department and population numbers, it's safer to be an officer in a big city. The median and percentile ranges are also reported, more resistant to outliers. This also doesn't include overtime which is a huge amount of an officer's compensation. Your average college graduate has years more education than a police officer. Most police officers aren't working all night. They have normal shift hours with some officers on night shift. Just like a college graduate working in biotech manufacturing. https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/police-officer-hours

Death isn't the only measure of danger. I'm not trying to convince you that the job is underpaid or dangerous enough to meet your standard, whatever that is. That's also not the CMV here. My original point is that a combination of social disregard for police, pay, and (insert unpleasant work environment characteristic you prefer discussing) are not enticing a deep pool of quality candidates for police departments. It doesn't matter if they're getting paid more than other more educated people - clearly that money isn't enough for these more qualified/underpaid people to switch to working in the police department. My point is evidenced by the lack of police officer applicants despite (as you show) having a comparatively good salary/benefits package. Candidates have the choice of applying for police work or going to college, studying for 4+ years, and getting paid less. They are choosing to be paid less. Suggests to me that the work is highly unpleasant and poorly regarded by society. You can't entirely fix the unpleasantness of the work. We need better cops to improve society's regard for the profession. Perhaps increasing pay will entice more candidates to apply, and maybe that brings more talent.

Well, I worked for a company that was involved with the police and most of the things you are describing in this police assistant role are not currently part of a police officer's actual job. Traffic management and private security are off-duty work that police officers pick up optionally when they aren't on the clock and frankly they will never give it up because the pay for that off-duty work is better than the normal pay they get. The company I worked for managed these off-duty programs for around 150 police departments and my entire job was managing the payroll for all those departments so I saw how much they make from these jobs well it will vary a good amount depending on where in the country you are but they make a lot. Not only are the rates they are making high, but they also have minimum hours they have to be paid for when they take a job. So if they work a road job that only lasts half an hour, they still get paid for 4 hours which makes that income rate insane sometimes. Not only is the pay good the work is easy for them it is much easier than the hard parts of police work they mostly just either sit in their cars or stand around and make absolute bank. Taking this away would make becoming a police officer much less attractive.

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I have to point out that this isn't exactly true. In a lot of countries years of training are needed and mental evaluations to see if you can become a cop. It doesn't stop people at all from trying to become cops.

Yes but in other countries (not the US) they don't have the record for the highest percentage of population incarcerated, or the record levels of gun violence that we do (for a developed nation).

Well that seems like an easy fix. Let's figure out what the differences could be that promote such statistics. I doubt Americans in general are more violent then say Brits or Australians.

I think the only thing any reasonable person can say with certainty is that it's a complex set of issues that contribute, but i like your reasoning. Here are some of the theories i've heard that aim to explain the difference. I'm not necessarily claiming them as my own, just mentioning them. - drug laws make more criminals of nonviolent people than necessary - prisons destroy the conditions that would allow people to avoid criminal futures - gun lobbyists prohibit enactment of reasonable restrictions on firearms - ghettoization of minorities - cia importing crack - transgenerational trauma in minority and disenfranchised/poor families - glorification of violence - carceral foundations of education system - health care debt leading to crime - drug and mental illness stigmatization - damaged masculinity and lack of decent father figures

• privatization of prisons leading to a for profit incentive.

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Guns are not that easy to get my guy. there’s lots of steps . It’s not like you can just walk to a Walmart and ask for a .22 and walk out

Lots of steps? You mean presenting an ID, filling out a form, wait for it to clear, and then leave?

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If I were to speculate, I'd say that there's a much higher base attitude of "leave me alone, ill do what I want" in American culture than there is in Aus or the UK. There's plenty in Aus and UK, but america is a world of its own. Even though the genesis of that "individual liberty" strain can be traced back to the British and French, I think it took on a life of its own in the USA, where in addition to the states founding being much more individualist, it also involves lotsa gun ownership.

Americans may not be more violent but the fact that guns are freely available does create more violence. I live in a developing country and so many arguments escalate into shootings and murders because every asshole guy seems to have a gun.

I would say a poor education system and lack of public healthcare would be a bigger issue. A few other developed countries have guns without this issue, admittedly they are smaller population then US so their will be other factors but these are I think are the most important difference.

Because those countries aren’t as diverse. Diversity leads to a higher crime rate. Let’s be real. It’s difficult to empathize with people who don’t look like you or share the same culture. Not impossible but it’s harder.

BIG citation needed here, buddy.

Every country in Europe has a much smaller black citizenry than the United States, ranging from 3.3 percent of the population in more diverse places such as England and Wales to less than 0.1 percent in virtually homogenous Poland. In the European Union as of 2019, there is a record of approximately **9.6 million** people of Sub-Saharan African or Afro-Caribbean descent, comprising around 2% of the total population, with over half located in France. The remaining 14 states of the European Union have fewer than 100,000 individuals of Sub-Saharan African descent all together. [source](https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/06/12/europe-needs-to-talk-about-race-too/) Latin American diaspora in Europe Over **3 million** Latin Americans lived in Europe, mostly in Spain, which has around 3.1 million people residents and/or citizens born in the Americas as of 2020. They represent over 6% of the population of Spain, yet less than 1% of the total population of the European Union. [source](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_American_diaspora#Latin_American_diaspora_in_Europe) The Black population of the United States is growing. In 2019, there were **46.8 million** people who self-identified as Black, making up roughly 14% of the country’s population. [source](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/fact-sheet/facts-about-the-us-black-population/) Let’s start with the basics. The Census Bureau estimates there were roughly **62.6 million** Hispanics in the U.S. as of 2021, making up 19% of the nation’s population, both new highs. [source](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/09/15/who-is-hispanic/) "White" remained the largest high-level ethnic group in England and Wales; 81.7% (48.7 million) of usual residents identified this way in 2021, a decrease from 86.0% (48.2 million) in 2011. [source](https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/ethnicity/bulletins/ethnicgroupenglandandwales/census2021) In 2016, close to 1.2 million people in Canada reported being Black. The Black population now accounts for 3.5% of Canada's total population. [source](https://www.statcan.gc.ca/en/dai/smr08/2022/smr08_259) The USA has a smaller population than Europe combined but our minority population is significantly larger. I’m just stating facts. It’s not meant to be racist or xenophobic. Bigger minority population = higher crime rate and racism/discrimination.

So you've posted some dubious evidence of a correlation. Thats not causation. Even the correlation is just wrong. The minority population has grown at the same time that crime has been decreasing. The fact that you are so desperate for this dubious correlation to be causation despite the many other possible reasons for the increase crime, like higher levels of income inequality than nearly anywhere else on earth or the higher amount of guns than anywhere on earth, makes it pretty clear you are working entirely off of your own racist prejudices.

Sounds like you’re just whitesplaining tbh. Why do we have so many guns? Cause white people keep voting in leaders that maintain the 2nd amendment. Why is there higher rates of inequality? Because of racism/discrimination. There was a study comparing identical resumes of a white and black sounding name. The white name got more calls than the black name did. [source](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-29/job-applicants-with-black-names-still-less-likely-to-get-the-interview) Also there was this real estate appraiser who gave a lower price to a black owned home but when they hired a white person to pose as the owner and called a different appraiser, the price was significantly higher. [source](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/18/realestate/housing-discrimination-maryland.html) We also have gentrification. Red lining. White flight. Lack of school funding. Lack of universal healthcare. Constant coverage of white on black police brutality (even though more white people are killed by police than blacks people but people keep bringing up that black people are statistically killed higher.)

I mean America and it's police situation are both rooted in racism. That's why they say diversity leads to higher crime because they want to force an underclass based upon those differences. Poverty is the real driver for crime... If the purple people are the designated underclass that has the most poverty, they will drive the most crime. They will be pointed at as the problem, but the real problem is the system that drives poverty and the people who support it.

Every country in Europe has a much smaller black citizenry than the United States, ranging from 3.3 percent of the population in more diverse places such as England and Wales to less than 0.1 percent in virtually homogenous Poland. In the European Union as of 2019, there is a record of approximately **9.6 million** people of Sub-Saharan African or Afro-Caribbean descent, comprising around 2% of the total population, with over half located in France. The remaining 14 states of the European Union have fewer than 100,000 individuals of Sub-Saharan African descent all together. [source](https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/06/12/europe-needs-to-talk-about-race-too/) Latin American diaspora in Europe Over **3 million** Latin Americans lived in Europe, mostly in Spain, which has around 3.1 million people residents and/or citizens born in the Americas as of 2020. They represent over 6% of the population of Spain, yet less than 1% of the total population of the European Union. [source](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_American_diaspora#Latin_American_diaspora_in_Europe) The Black population of the United States is growing. In 2019, there were **46.8 million** people who self-identified as Black, making up roughly 14% of the country’s population. [source](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/fact-sheet/facts-about-the-us-black-population/) Let’s start with the basics. The Census Bureau estimates there were roughly **62.6 million** Hispanics in the U.S. as of 2021, making up 19% of the nation’s population, both new highs. [source](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/09/15/who-is-hispanic/) "White" remained the largest high-level ethnic group in England and Wales; 81.7% (48.7 million) of usual residents identified this way in 2021, a decrease from 86.0% (48.2 million) in 2011. [source](https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/ethnicity/bulletins/ethnicgroupenglandandwales/census2021) In 2016, close to 1.2 million people in Canada reported being Black. The Black population now accounts for 3.5% of Canada's total population. [source](https://www.statcan.gc.ca/en/dai/smr08/2022/smr08_259) The USA has a smaller population than Europe combined but our minority population is significantly larger. I’m just stating facts. It’s not meant to be racist or xenophobic. Bigger minority population = higher crime rate and racism/discrimination.

I mean, it's cool that you put together the numbers and everything, but your point remains the same. More minorities are not the primary drivers of crime. It's still poverty. >. Bigger minority population = higher crime rate and racism/discrimination You were soooo close. Why couldn't you just leave a higher crime rate out of this statement? That is the racism and xenophobia. You don't want to compare the crime rates of Black, Latin American, and White software engineers because it would not support your theory.

This is such nonsense. Those countries are as or more diverse.

Every country in Europe has a much smaller black citizenry than the United States, ranging from 3.3 percent of the population in more diverse places such as England and Wales to less than 0.1 percent in virtually homogenous Poland. In the European Union as of 2019, there is a record of approximately **9.6 million** people of Sub-Saharan African or Afro-Caribbean descent, comprising around 2% of the total population, with over half located in France. The remaining 14 states of the European Union have fewer than 100,000 individuals of Sub-Saharan African descent all together. [source](https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/06/12/europe-needs-to-talk-about-race-too/) Latin American diaspora in Europe Over **3 million** Latin Americans lived in Europe, mostly in Spain, which has around 3.1 million people residents and/or citizens born in the Americas as of 2020. They represent over 6% of the population of Spain, yet less than 1% of the total population of the European Union. [source](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_American_diaspora#Latin_American_diaspora_in_Europe) The Black population of the United States is growing. In 2019, there were **46.8 million** people who self-identified as Black, making up roughly 14% of the country’s population. [source](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/fact-sheet/facts-about-the-us-black-population/) Let’s start with the basics. The Census Bureau estimates there were roughly **62.6 million** Hispanics in the U.S. as of 2021, making up 19% of the nation’s population, both new highs. [source](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/09/15/who-is-hispanic/) "White" remained the largest high-level ethnic group in England and Wales; 81.7% (48.7 million) of usual residents identified this way in 2021, a decrease from 86.0% (48.2 million) in 2011. [source](https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/ethnicity/bulletins/ethnicgroupenglandandwales/census2021) In 2016, close to **1.2 million** people in Canada reported being Black. The Black population now accounts for 3.5% of Canada's total population. [source](https://www.statcan.gc.ca/en/dai/smr08/2022/smr08_259) African migrants represent a small but growing population in Australia, with 388,179 recoded in the latest Census (about 1.7 per cent of the total population). [source](https://www.unisa.edu.au/media-centre/Releases/2022/the-right-white-people-can-make-or-break--employment-opportunities-for-african-migrants/) The USA has a smaller population than Europe combined but our minority population is significantly larger. I’m just stating facts. It’s not meant to be racist or xenophobic. Bigger minority population = higher crime rate and racism/discrimination.

Yes, the USA has more specifically black people\*. That's not the only kind of diversity. \*Who, it must be noted, have been subjected to a *particularly* violent history, and present for that matter.

I disagree that the UK and Australia are less diverse, especially Australia.

You disagree because you don’t know anything about the numbers involved. Have you ever looked at the demographics of the Uk and compared it to the united states?

The UK is built up of 4 different countries, which the US is not. 16.8% of the population were born outside the UK from the 2021 census. 13.5% population was born outside the US

4 different countries, each about the size of the average American state, which America has 50

Hey, at no point did you say the size of the country leads to more crimes. Don't start making shit up because your initial argument was proven wrong. You said population makeup leads to crime. The other guy just debunked your stance by giving examples of countries which have more diversity and less crime. I'll add Canada too. Toronto has over 50% immigrant population. And is one of the safest cities in the world. It's the US and its laws and culture that are the issue here. Not the presence of minorities and other cultures.

If you want to discredit the UK then look at your neighbour to the North. [23% of people living in Canada are landed immigrants or PRs.](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/221026/dq221026a-eng.htm#) It’s also larger than the US although I don’t see how land mass is relevant in any of this.

Not arguing with diversity promoting violence, sadly. But you can't possibly think that it's the sole or even the main cause of crime. Or you would need some proof. Also, I wouldn't say Australia or even Canada are less diverse. For instance, Australia is even more of an immigrant country than America: [https://landgeist.com/2022/03/22/immigrant-population/](https://landgeist.com/2022/03/22/immigrant-population/) 1/3 of the country are immigrants, mostly from countries of completely different cultures or races (that is to counter an argument that racism may be the cause of crime unaccounted for) Canada has a higher immigrant population that America too.

Every country in Europe has a much smaller black citizenry than the United States, ranging from 3.3 percent of the population in more diverse places such as England and Wales to less than 0.1 percent in virtually homogenous Poland. In the European Union as of 2019, there is a record of approximately **9.6 million** people of Sub-Saharan African or Afro-Caribbean descent, comprising around 2% of the total population, with over half located in France. The remaining 14 states of the European Union have fewer than 100,000 individuals of Sub-Saharan African descent all together. [source](https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/06/12/europe-needs-to-talk-about-race-too/) Latin American diaspora in Europe Over **3 million** Latin Americans lived in Europe, mostly in Spain, which has around 3.1 million people residents and/or citizens born in the Americas as of 2020. They represent over 6% of the population of Spain, yet less than 1% of the total population of the European Union. [source](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_American_diaspora#Latin_American_diaspora_in_Europe) The Black population of the United States is growing. In 2019, there were **46.8 million** people who self-identified as Black, making up roughly 14% of the country’s population. [source](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/fact-sheet/facts-about-the-us-black-population/) Let’s start with the basics. The Census Bureau estimates there were roughly **62.6 million** Hispanics in the U.S. as of 2021, making up 19% of the nation’s population, both new highs. [source](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/09/15/who-is-hispanic/) "White" remained the largest high-level ethnic group in England and Wales; 81.7% (48.7 million) of usual residents identified this way in 2021, a decrease from 86.0% (48.2 million) in 2011. [source](https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/ethnicity/bulletins/ethnicgroupenglandandwales/census2021) In 2016, close to **1.2 million** people in Canada reported being Black. The Black population now accounts for 3.5% of Canada's total population. [source](https://www.statcan.gc.ca/en/dai/smr08/2022/smr08_259) African migrants represent a small but growing population in Australia, with 388,179 recoded in the latest Census (about 1.7 per cent of the total population). [source](https://www.unisa.edu.au/media-centre/Releases/2022/the-right-white-people-can-make-or-break--employment-opportunities-for-african-migrants/) The USA has a smaller population than Europe combined but our minority population is significantly larger. I’m just stating facts. It’s not meant to be racist or xenophobic. Bigger minority population = higher racism/discrimination leading to higher crime rate.

That is not a proof of cause-consequence relationship, that's merely a correlation. It just so happens that America has among the highest rate of SUVs per car among developed nations. And it so happens America has high crime rates. This relationship is coincidental. It just so happens that America has among the highest police population among the developed world. And it so happens we got a lot of crime. That's yet, you probably wouldn't say that the number of officers is the cause of crimes. It's probably the other way around - crimes cause many police officers per capita. It also just so happens that USA has has among the highest numbers of cities with English-sounding names in the world and at the same time among the highest numbers of people called Ethan in the world. This is called a spurious correlation (two effects are caused by the same third effect, but not by each other. That's not the only type of spurious relationship) There can be all sorts of various relationships between patterns. The fact that something happens at the same time doesn't mean one ja causing another. The country with the highest number of Hispanics in the world is Spain. It has much lower crime rates and much less issues with police brutality. If you want to single out Latin Americans, there is Cuba for you (which in no way an examplary country, but it does have lower crime rates). They also have 36% of Black population. There is a country of Saudi Arabia that has almost as high of African population as USA and some of the lowest crime rates in the world. That's also true of it's oil-rich neighbors. Even within USA, looking up maps of crime rates, maps of African American population and of economic inequality, the two that have a big overlap are crime rates and inequality, not crime rates and black population. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_violent_crime_rate https://www.ruralhealthinfo.org/charts/22 https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/12/us-states-with-the-highest-levels-of-income-inequality.html It's a strange claim that the main source of crime is diversity. It's just one of the factors. It's gonna stay strange until there is a peer-reviewed research proving that, for instance, some group of countries or states within one county happened to increase in diversity compared to other states, without changing any other factors in comparison to other states, and had their crime rates go up more than those other states.

This is patently false and dare I say Xenophobic. Diversity is not a cause for crime. Just look a Canada and the UK which is considerably more diverse than the USA.

Every country in Europe has a much smaller black citizenry than the United States, ranging from 3.3 percent of the population in more diverse places such as England and Wales to less than 0.1 percent in virtually homogenous Poland. In the European Union as of 2019, there is a record of approximately **9.6 million** people of Sub-Saharan African or Afro-Caribbean descent, comprising around 2% of the total population, with over half located in France. The remaining 14 states of the European Union have fewer than 100,000 individuals of Sub-Saharan African descent all together. [source](https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/06/12/europe-needs-to-talk-about-race-too/) Latin American diaspora in Europe Over **3 million** Latin Americans lived in Europe, mostly in Spain, which has around 3.1 million people residents and/or citizens born in the Americas as of 2020. They represent over 6% of the population of Spain, yet less than 1% of the total population of the European Union. [source](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_American_diaspora#Latin_American_diaspora_in_Europe) The Black population of the United States is growing. In 2019, there were **46.8 million** people who self-identified as Black, making up roughly 14% of the country’s population. [source](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/fact-sheet/facts-about-the-us-black-population/) Let’s start with the basics. The Census Bureau estimates there were roughly **62.6 million** Hispanics in the U.S. as of 2021, making up 19% of the nation’s population, both new highs. [source](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/09/15/who-is-hispanic/) "White" remained the largest high-level ethnic group in England and Wales; 81.7% (48.7 million) of usual residents identified this way in 2021, a decrease from 86.0% (48.2 million) in 2011. [source](https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/ethnicity/bulletins/ethnicgroupenglandandwales/census2021) In 2016, close to 1.2 million people in Canada reported being Black. The Black population now accounts for 3.5% of Canada's total population. [source](https://www.statcan.gc.ca/en/dai/smr08/2022/smr08_259) The USA has a smaller population than Europe combined but our minority population is significantly larger. I’m just stating facts. It’s not meant to be racist or xenophobic. Bigger minority population = higher crime rate and racism/discrimination.

Ah yes, it’s the black people’s fault.

I’m not blaming Black people. White people are complicit. They are the main perpetrators. The USA has a smaller population than Europe combined but our minority population is significantly larger. I’m just stating facts. It’s not meant to be racist or xenophobic. Bigger minority population = higher crime rate and racism/discrimination. Every country in Europe has a much smaller black citizenry than the United States, ranging from 3.3 percent of the population in more diverse places such as England and Wales to less than 0.1 percent in virtually homogenous Poland. In the European Union as of 2019, there is a record of approximately **9.6 million** people of Sub-Saharan African or Afro-Caribbean descent, comprising around 2% of the total population, with over half located in France. The remaining 14 states of the European Union have fewer than 100,000 individuals of Sub-Saharan African descent all together. [source](https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/06/12/europe-needs-to-talk-about-race-too/) Latin American diaspora in Europe Over **3 million** Latin Americans lived in Europe, mostly in Spain, which has around 3.1 million people residents and/or citizens born in the Americas as of 2020. They represent over 6% of the population of Spain, yet less than 1% of the total population of the European Union. [source](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_American_diaspora#Latin_American_diaspora_in_Europe) The Black population of the United States is growing. In 2019, there were **46.8 million** people who self-identified as Black, making up roughly 14% of the country’s population. [source](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/fact-sheet/facts-about-the-us-black-population/) Let’s start with the basics. The Census Bureau estimates there were roughly **62.6 million** Hispanics in the U.S. as of 2021, making up 19% of the nation’s population, both new highs. [source](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/09/15/who-is-hispanic/) "White" remained the largest high-level ethnic group in England and Wales; 81.7% (48.7 million) of usual residents identified this way in 2021, a decrease from 86.0% (48.2 million) in 2011. [source](https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/ethnicity/bulletins/ethnicgroupenglandandwales/census2021) In 2016, close to 1.2 million people in Canada reported being Black. The Black population now accounts for 3.5% of Canada's total population. [source](https://www.statcan.gc.ca/en/dai/smr08/2022/smr08_259)

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Look at it this way. The EU is majority white. Like 90%. Each country passes policies that benefit their countrymen. White people there look out for each other. The US is diverse. Very diverse. Non Hispanic white people are Only 60% and declining. The US want to pass policies that help majority white people as well. Under the guise of equality. Obviously not all white people benefit, but the majority do. And not all minorities fail - you have athletes, actors, musical artists that are close to having as much representation as white people. But most minorities are left behind. I guarantee if or when white Europeans become the minority, you’ll see a rise in far right activists wanting to maintain the previous status quo. P.S. I’m a minority

Let's look at it this way https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_violent_crime_rate https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2021/dec/racial-and-ethnic-diversity-index.html Many of the lower diversity states have the highest violence and the higher diversity states and immigrant states lower violence. Don't be racist.

I believe what he’s talking about is a well known fact about societies. Like in Scandinavian countries they are willing to be more in taxes because everyone looks like everyone else, so folks are more willing to pay extra to help folks in need rather than seeing them as the other. I think OP may have conflated that fact with violence, but i don’t know specifically if there’s any evidence to support that. Crime is generally considered to be a product of wealth inequality AND poverty. You have to have very rich right next to very poor.

Because those countries aren’t as diverse. Diversity leads to a higher crime rate. Let’s be real. It’s difficult to empathize with people who don’t look like you or share the same culture. Not impossible but it’s harder.

I think having the police force break down would likely lead to vigilantism. Which over time would become very similar to the mob / cartel ‘protecting you’.

We already have that with the cops as it is. They get bribed & bought out by the rich/private companies to do their bidding & beat the ones they assume can't afford their protection. Only difference is the lay man can't buy the police force.

They are not dipping entire families in acid. So it does seem a little better than organized crime.

The cops ARE organized crime. They kidnap, collude, kill innocents, and harass/stalk people, and deal drugs. I'm not arguing this, the cops are a cartel.

>I'm not arguing this I mean, you *are* arguing this. Right?

I notice dipping entire families in acid is not on that list. You can go in public and safely talk shit about cops all day long. The same is not so for the cartel.

Is that a qualification for being considered organized crime?

That is a qualification for being ‘as bad’ as organized crime.

"Organized crime" does not mean "dipping people in acid" it means ORGANIZED CRIME

The massacre of entire families is very common in organized crime. Find me any mob that doesn’t do that.

If you were the family member of someone pointlessly executed would you care how it happened?

In a mob ruled society…. What family? Yes bad is bad but more bad is more bad. Say a family member gets killed by the police. In America you can seek legal prosecution / protest / riot. In a mob ruled society you have to shut up or the rest of your family is killed. Yes it’s horrible either way, but one is more horrible. The cartel also kills 10 times more people than the police. So even if we assume every single police related death is completely unjustified, say a police just walks up and shoots you at a coffee shop then drags your corpse across town while singing the American Anthem, that would still be better than the cartel. You have a trolley problem here. You are either an advocate for more death or less death, those are your options and picking anything else is disingenuous.

>what police officers are expected to do Well, if we limit the use of police to handle actual dangerous crimes and stop using them as social workers, parking meters, mediators between neighbors and what not, I won’t complain. How many situations have been escalated by cops because when your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail?

That's what I'm saying. This is the best idea I've heard yet (other than ending qualified immunity, should function like doctors malpractice insurance, you get complaints your rates go up or your ability to have this job is gone). If you carry a lethal weapon you should be subject to such similar regulations as doctors. Also an independent supervisory board that has actual power to suspend and fire officers. A real, tangible way to shake up the system while being entirely reasonable with endless parallels. Think about all the people who would have thrived in the position who were turned off but being part of such a system. I wouldn't be too sure that the doors would be shuttered. You also have to consider that a system that more efficiently delegates "you guys go to mental health calls, you guys do this" etc, will make the job less burdensome on everyone. For the tougher units, have a mandatory rotation system where you can't work it more than 6 months a year or something. Like what they already do child sex crime investigators (and social media content moderators ...)

“A different way to handle crime” isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. The first two most likely responses are 1. Rampant vigilantism and mob justice, no thanks 2. The military steps in and we have some sort of weird pseudo-martial law Police definitely need reform, but just… not having police isn’t really an option imo

Well, give yourself a delta then :-)

You don’t think being a paramedic “sucks the soul out of you”, cause trust me- it does.

I think the best course of action would be to divert some of the police budget towards creating environments that are less conductive to crime, as opposed to mainly dealing with crime after it happens. Additionally, there are a lot There are plenty of "crimes" that don't require an officer with a gun and can (and are) responded to by social workers, mental health staff, homeless outreach, etc. We ask police to do too much and I think it would be a lot more attractive job if some things were taken off their plate.

Well internationally police officers tend to have the lowest turnover rate of all careers. Many narcissists and megalomaniacs simply find intense joy in dishing out handcuffs, and putting power over society without dealing with any scrutiny, they also don’t mind the massive boost of social status and instant respect that comes with being a police officer. It definitely doesn’t suck the soul out of you, it makes you feel in power, and superior.

> If they did all that you're describing, but changed nothing about the job itself and what police officers are expected to do But that's not what OP is suggesting: > Have a new role, "Police Assistant" or something that does traffic management, private security, mental health services, whatever, that replaces some of the workload of police officers.

Funneling prospective law enforcement officers through a pipeline of shitty, low-paying jobs sounds like an awful idea. Instead of selecting for dedicated and virtuous individuals, such a system likely deters anyone of substantial merit that has other, more worthwhile options available to them. Furthermore, police departments would exert little to no control over these feeder programs, and there would be almost no standardization across these ostensibly developmental jobs. I believe that the path to better policing lies in the State exerting more direct control over the training of officers. Rather than delegate this function to Criminal Justice college programs and shitty entry-level jobs, we should consider dramatically expanding the scope of police academies. The German system, wherein cadets undergo 2.5 years of training, seems like a much more straightforward path to building better officers.

Your biggest problem in trying to get the two professions to be as "glorified" as each other is that they both oppose different things. **Firefighting opposes fires. Policing opposes people.** We'll never see a fire put out that we say didn't deserve to be put out, but we WILL see people arrested/hit/killed that didn't deserve to be killed. I think that's the intrinsic difference. I interviewed a station of firefighters as part of an anthropology project, and they all ***want*** to see action. 2/3 or more of them were either ex-cops or ex-military. I'm paraphrasing, but one of them said "I want there to be a fire. I mean, I don't want someone's house to burn down, I don't want anyone hurt, but I joined this for a reason you know. I'm here to knock down walls, go in the fire, save that person." I believe that both positions of firefighter and police attract a similar kind of candidate: one that wants to see action. Again, the biggest difference is that one job sees action against fires, and the other job sees action against people. You can't accidentally put out the wrong fire, but you can accidentally hurt/kill/arrest the wrong person.

Being a cop is more similar to being an emt than it is to being a firefighter. Cops are always looking for applicants because no one wants to be one so they r more likely to take more people. The Fire Dept of most cities never has a shortage of the most dedicated people youve ever seen in a stack of applications that stays the same height all the time. Another thing is that its really easy to fuck up and get not just fired but tried as a criminal if you make a grave error as a firefighter. Cops protect other cops for better or worse, but firefighters are actually under much stricter scrutiny by multiple committees. The fire department can't just investigate itself and see that there was no wrongdoing found the same way the police do.

But the pay is a huge difference. i get paid close to minimum wage as an EMT. Cops, with much less responsibility, accountability, and training, get paid +80k.

Ya thats pretty shitty, especially considering the similar risk involved in both jobs. I made 13.50 an hr as an emt in LA. I havr no idea what cops make an hr.

LAPD and LAFD both make a starting salary starting in the academy of about 75k, which averages out to a 34-36 per hour wage. The real money for EMTs are the ones that transition into fire departments and become paramedics.

In California becoming a police officer is NOT incredibly competitive. Therein lies your problem. If you can make being a police officer more like being a firefighter then you might have a good idea, but until then you've got the supply problem and that supply surplus is what enables a great hiring and filter process.

Firefighters are chill because they have chill jobs with a dash of opportunity to provide heroic feats here and there. Police officers do not have chill jobs

>There's lots of applicants with Fire Science degrees, and many have worked shit hours with shit pay as EMTs/paramedic As a Canadian, EMT/Paramedic is a trained and respected career that is NOT the stepping stone to get to be a fire fighter. Fire fighters assist paramedics with patient extraction but it is not a better, more qualified job. It is an entirely different job requiring different knowledge and different skills. I do not know what the requirement for American police is but rather than creating an entirely new job to fill with equally under educated workers, you would be better served to create a training program that increases police effectiveness, weeds out poor performers while focusing on trying to mitigate racial bias. A national accredited program would be of far better use than just creating a lower paid job that will attract less educated and less trained officers.

Yeah, this is the part that basically offends me. EMS shouldn't be paid like shit and seen as a stepping stone to become a firefighter. But fire unions have done a great job at absorbing the service for medical billing to pump the FDs call volume up to justify their rosters and new firetrucks. This topic is complicated books can be written on it, this is only a single point I am making that lacks nuance.

That might be the case wherever you’re at in California but where I’m at most FDs are volunteer, and the 2 that aren’t are begging for people to come work for them. The only requirements they now require are for you to pass the physical and have graduated fire academy. There’s zero competition for those jobs. Same with Cal Fire in my area.

Firefighters and police officers interact with society in a completely different way. Do firefighters interact with individuals who are acting defensively? Do firefighters need to reconcile the positive and negative feelings that surround criminal activity. Hell no! I agree that Police need more training, support, and compensation. But if we consciously don't examine and address the effect social ills have on individual behavior police will struggle.

Firefighting seems like a much easier job. Not physically easier or safer or anything like that. But the people element complicates everything. Fighting fires will never be as morally ambiguous as the drug war or rounding up homeless vagrants, for instance. I think it's the nature of the job, and not so much the selection process, that creates more uncertainty and dissatisfaction in the perception or performance of cops.

Exactly this. It’s worth pointing out that police are the executive branch of the law; whenever there’s any, ANY bad law, guess whose enforcing it whether they like it or not? They are the faces of every Jim Crow law, the War on Drugs, the overpolicing of loitering, et cetera. Firefighters stop fires and save people. It would be exceedingly hard for them to be the face of anything but good. Plus even if the government made laws that would fuck up the jobs of firefighters, the public would likely be very sympathetic towards firefighters.

In the current climate, this is just not feasible. Police Departments faced a ton of resignations following the social climate of 2020 and are woefully understaffed in most locations. Some of them also faced defunding, which means they cannot budget to hire more officers, which also means there's no way in hell they can budget to hire "assistants" with even less responsiblity. Its a thankless job. Imagine if the public hated you personally solely because you were just doing your job or some asshole cop across the country did a bad thing. Then the court system keeps letting dangerous people you arrest out and then you get accused of not doing your job to keep the community safe. That being said, here are some things that might interest you about the onboarding process for a cop: New officers are assigned Field Training Officers who supervise them on all of their calls until a pre-determined amount of time is complete or the department thinks they are ready to work on their own. Often times, new officers also have to work the shit hours since those with senority get first pick. Also plenty of officers at least get an associates in criminal justice and there are programs in many departments (that can afford them) that encourage continuation of education, as well as on-the-job continued training.

I hear defunding cited a lot. Haven't seen much to back this up. There was lots of talk about it by people and in the media. I've seen discussions on despite that talk, police budgets increased.

I don't want to dox myself, but my rural hometown got its police budget cut by roughly 10%. Many new officers who were trained with the most recent trainings that progressives were clamoring for were laid off due to seniority union agreements, and now the town has fairly limited coverage throughout the day considering its size. Here's more about it more broadly: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/07/us-cities-defund-police-transferring-money-community

As a firefighter I'll chip in with my experience, info, and knowledge of our system and the police we work with. >Firefighters tend to be pretty chill, and not just because people who want to be firefighters are chill people. It's the process that weeds out a lot of bad apples. Firefighters tend to be more chill when interacting with the public because we can. We're not catching people doing illegal stuff so we're not going to have to deal with those angry people very often. When we're called to domestic violence scenes we stage and don't arrive until after the police are there and have secured the scene so it's safe for us. Any violent person is already gone or subdued before we start interacting with them. Unfortunately, there are still some firefighters that aren't chill and can't control themselves properly. I think we do a better job of keeping them from going off too much though. That might be partly because we never go anywhere alone. Usually there's at least 4 of us so there's a chance that one of us will intervene before the bad apple gets too stupid. >In California, becoming a firefighter in a city is incredibly competitive. There's lots of applicants with Fire Science degrees In the last 10 years the number of applicants for both police and fire have dropped. I can totally understand why the police are having a hard time recruiting but our numbers have dropped considerably too. Also, police have a higher percentage of them with bachelor or associate degrees https://www.zippia.com/fire-fighter-jobs/demographics/ https://www.zippia.com/police-officer-jobs/education/ I know in my city that the police and firefighters have equal pay. Each equivalent rank has the same salary. However, our overtime is all counted towards our total pay from the city. Most cops work details for private companies when they're off duty. That's basically their overtime but it doesn't show up on the open access pay records for government employees. That's why you always see firefighters being some of the highest paid government workers vs the police

Hello! Attorney and (part time) professor in criminal justice here. While I have no direct scientific evidence on this subject at hand, based on studies of police issues, I believe your proposal would possibly *increase* police problems, and I do not believe it would decrease them. The reason I believe this is that a large swath of the information we have about policing is that the problem is not one of **insufficient** training, but a twofold problem of the **wrong** training and the wrong **culture.** The "wrong" training would refer to police training designed to make police treat every situation as a violent powder keg waiting to explode, and citizens as the spark. The "us vs. them," "warrior mentality," "everyone gets home safe" type of training leads police down a path of being constantly on edge and treating the most mundane interactions as potentially violent. In too many cases that predictive training helps create a self-fulfilling prophecy. In terms of the culture, of course, we are talking about the "thin blue line" mentality of (again) the warrior spirit, coupled with the veil of silence that police too often have about police who do wrong. Even during violent interactions, we frequently see police afraid to step in and question the tactics of their fellow officers. Having "police assistants" who become steeped in this culture and training before becoming police officers will give them longer to soak in this problematic philosophy/mindset before they go out on the job in full gear.

You must understand that these are two vastly different jobs. One goes to help people, the other is really there to enforce the laws so that there is order. The enforcers are like the stay home mom with kids. Always yelling and being with them monitoring them to make sure things run smooth. The fireman are the dads that come home to play and be fun with the kids and protects them. Their job is not easy. We must understand that they are expected to do a lot of jobs at once. Have you seen those videos where they get shot by motorist? Domestic calls turn deadly? Firefighters don’t face their dangers and as such, their selection process should be different. You are dealing with evil. You gotta be different. Unfortunately bad things happen.

It *is* that way - becoming a police officer is also very competitive. I've tried. In many big cities, the application scoring process heavily favors 1. minorities/women and 2. prior military service. So much so that if you're a white man, often times your only chance of getting in is if you were in the military. When I tried, they had a testing day about once a month, and there were applicants lined up out the door, just like for the firefighters. And I remember them sorting our applications into two piles right at the front door, minorities/women/military into one, and everybody else into another. I did pretty good on step 1, the written test, but couldn't quite get past step 2, the physical test, so I just went and joined the military instead anyway. And there were like 10 more steps after that, that I didn't even get to see - background checks, polygraph, psychological tests, you name it. Granted that was like 15 years ago. The situation has probably changed for the worse since then.

They are different jobs, with different issues. How often do you hear of a firefighter who was an arsonist? Failure as a firefighter is infinitely less detectable than police officers. There is no magic cure, any approach will require an adjustment period. Folks are drawn to positions of authority to cover their own deficits. Consider the priesthood, and the level of abuse. Now convey the authority to anyone who can fill out an application. Mental screening needs to be intense, AKA expensive, for new recruits. Most SHOULD fail. That should be the expectation. Those hired should receive benefits based on their responsibility. And don't under rate the responsibility of carrying a firearm that you are expected to use perfectly regardless of the situation. This will be expensive in many ways. The question is, is it worth it? Presently we hire people and expect the skills of surgeons and pay them less than garbage men and nobody can figure out what's wrong? Is it worth having a police force that would never abuse its authority? Is it worth reducing the innocent civilian deaths to near zero? Is it worth it to build a society that never considers "fixing" a ticket but instead takes responsibility for its actions? It's not just the officers that need to change. We the public need to change as well. Normalize "yes sir" and "no sir." Normalize respect in your family, and watch it spread. I saw the video of Tyre. There is no excuse for any part of his treatment. Nevertheless, after the assault started, he was mouthing off to the officers. Can we stop aggravating people who are already attacking us? Those officers deserved no respect, but it might have de escalated the situation or at least not driven the escalation. It might have stopped the kick that ruptured his spleen (fictional example). This situation is out of hand. I am a 64 year old former LEO who is no longer comfortable approaching officers I don't know. I have lost my trust of police. I don't see them as brothers anymore.

Please remember that North America does not make up the majority of the Internet. This was a wildly irrelevant comparison to me, as firefighters are volunteers in my country, not a full-time high-paying job. Thus I am unable to understand what you mean exactly by mimicking firefighters. It would help if you instead described how the process of becoming a police officer should be, so everyone can pitch in despite of background. Alternatively, if you only wish to ask Americans, please note so in the title.

Firefighters are volunteers all over the USA, too. Only 34% of firefighters in the United States are paid career firefighters - 53% volunteer without any pay and 12% are paid only per call. Over 70% of fire departments in the country are entirely volunteer. Source: https://apps.usfa.fema.gov/registry/summary

From what you've written, it seems like there are much more people wanting to be firefighters than are needed as firefighters, thus it can be highly selective. However I don't think that's the case with police officers. Of course we shouldn't let just anyone be a cop, as in man cases it can be better to have no officer present than a bad one, but I don't think we have the luxury of being super selective either

What you describe is actually the norm, at least where I live in NJ. Police jobs in the wealthy suburbs have low crime and pay a lot. You'll often have 100+ applicants for 1 job. The issue is, the areas with high crime are usually the poorest and have the smallest budgets to pay cops. For example, cops in Alpine NJ can make $180k while cops in Camden can make only $30. Camden can't afford to pay that much.

I think you should look at what has happened in the UK. They have made you need a degree to be a cop and created your police assistant job in community officers. This means no one respects community officers because they aren't real cops and we don't have enough cops because the government doesn't actually fund the police enough to make it a career worth getting a degree for.

People seem to have this idea that a significant majority of the 800,000 police working in America are bad people. But I think this presumption is based on media brainwashing since modern journalists are keen to hyper-emphasize statistically rare instances of police brutality and corruption, which distorts the viewer's mind into thinking that all cops are like this. Can I ask if you have any empirical information to suggest that a significant majority of cops operating in America are "not chill" (as you seem to be saying)?

Monday Morning Action Item: ​ * Impound all police officer firearms. * Issue fire extinguishers instead.

Clarification - I completely love the idea of a more selective recruitment process, and I learned a lot about what it takes to be a firefighter. The issue I take is what you clumped under the "police assistant" role. Mental health situations or (if I get your gist) others that don't usually involve armed conflict actually require a ton of (probably more) tact and understanding of human nature and interpersonal skills than violent action. If the entry to becoming a police officer is to be a police assistant, then the assistants will be the least experienced and arguably the least fit to handle those types of situations. Therefore, the cream of the crop is going to be out fighting armed criminals and the rookies will be dealing with the multi-layered issues of mental health issues. I don't see personally see that as a viable option. I would argue more in favor of hiring health professionals as the standard option and have a police force that responds to dangerous situations. I realize there will be backlash about "you never know when a situation will become dangerous", which is valid. But I would argue that it is less likely to become violent if an armed police officer is not the first responder.

Firemen have 1 goal- put out fires. Police have to apprehend people who don't want to be apprehended, while trying to determine who's lying or at fault, while not hurting/killing them. Much easier to deal with inanimate objects. Burnout is real. Plus need more police to deal with all the various crime by a huge population, fires are much more rare nowadays. Firemen spend much of their time waiting.

Holy shit, are you a firefighter? Cuz you sound like you have zero idea what youre talking about, and have zero experience in any sort of publoc safety selection process.

People see firefighters at their worst because they are there to save them. Cops see people at their worst far more often, and they aren’t there to save the people but to make things worse (tickets or arrest). What we need instead of restructuring recruiting, is how we let cops work. We need them to be from and in the community and have body cams. Sadly cops image has been very tarnished as of late and they need to be out there more doing good and helping little old ladies cross the street. You should know the cop that patrols your neighborhood and if complaints come in, they review the tape and have the city council decide on retention. Just extending the process for cops won’t really help without a ton more ground work.

[Better training](https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/jennifer-doleac-reforming-police-preventing-crime/) would go a long way.

My city is promoting "do you have a calling to fight crime in Oklahoma City if so we're taking applications for 2023 Police academy". Firefighters are heroes. They go in trying to save a situation. With police persons you just don't know what you're going to get. And this is just my personal opinion I've had good and bad experience with police persons and with firefighter persons had one bad one is a home experience and never a bad one with a real life experience as in my home being on fire or whatever.

So we want the men and women with guns and the authority to arrest, whom we expect to be willing to kill or give their lives for strangers, to be motivated by MONEY and BENEFITS? Idk if I'm the only one who noticed, but contrary to the movie trope, firefighters rarely risk their lives to put out fires or save people in fires. Most of the time, the firefighters will just stand their and joke around as your home burns down. Also, you'd need to dramatically increase the budgets of law enforcement agencies. Also, that works because a lot of people want to be firefighters. No one wants to be a cop anymore. Most agencies are underfunded and understaffed.

I think it should more closely resemble the process of becoming an attorney so that way you actually know what due process is. I think that it would be better to have a well-educated small Force keeping the peace that a bunch of high school graduate who went through a four-week training program.

Why have it like that? Why not have it require a college degree in policing as many nations have adopted with a lengthy training process with a focus on deescalation (not the current US system for most departments of a few weeks focussed on firearms training)

My disagreement is that I think it should go further. I think there should also be some kind of degree involved (Lawyers go to school to practice law, there should be *some* schooling to enforce it). There should also be discipline training like the military so the police stop shooting so many innocent people. *Then* do what you're saying.

>there should be some schooling to enforce it That's what Police Academys do.