COMMENT POSTED TO ARTICLE IN THE INDEPENDENT
Response to another
reader’s comment:
It is not just a simple thing like training, although that
is important.
It is stupid hiring practices with no screening process for
psychological indicators of unsuitable people.
It is no system of following up on those hired. It works
much like teachers with the same poor results. Once hired and in the union,
you're in pretty much for good even though you may give all kinds of signs of
unsuitability. Few if any have long-term practices of being evaluated before
being made permanent.
Many of these failures come down to costs, and the truth is
Americans hate paying taxes in a visceral way, and you very much get what you
pay for.
American urban sprawl reflects people constantly shifting
out to newer-built suburbs where taxes are lower and where they are expected to
be kept low. The higher taxes of older cities and towns are widely viewed with
contempt. This sprawl also puts revenue pressure on the governments of the
older places being left.
The US has so many "urban-sprawl" towns and
communities, tens of thousands of them in places that were cornfields only a
brief time ago. In many cases, these simply do not have the resources to do
things right. Thus, training or other specialized facilities do not exist.
A prime source of hiring cops for many communities in
America is the military. The gigantic armed forces are constantly producing a
stream of people leaving. So people leaving the military - where all they've learned
is obedience and killing and where the average intelligence is not high - are
often readily accepted as police.
The problem is also a set of widespread attitudes about how
policing should work. The generally accepted model in the U.S. is military.
There is also an undercurrent not spoken of in the press of
the need to keep undesirables (with various definitions) away in communities.
In the end, it is the sheer fact that the U.S. is a very
violent society, far more so than most British people can fully appreciate.
Again, below is the kind of violence which occurs in just
one large U.S. city. The stats are authentic and regularly updated. This kind
of stuff sends shivers through everyone as they read about it or see it on
television. It is part of the air, if you will, everyone breathes, and it
affects everyone with anxieties and fears.
