Law Enforcement should be a profession, just like doctors and nurses.
Formal education. Licensing with a college whose role is to protect the public. Malpractice insurance. Requirements to remain current, and eligible to practice.
odd how the “civilized world” seems to have such low standards for civilization.
you are probably considering some places to be civilized when they really shouldnt
You don’t need to study to become a police officer in the US? OMFG! You have to study 1.5-2 years in the UK and then spend months in the field under supervision as an apprentice.
The duration of the training in the Police Academy varies for the different agencies. It usually takes about 13 to 19 weeks on average but can last up to six months.
https://golawenforcement.com/articles/how-long-does-it-take-to-become-a-police-officer/
Up to six months… Yikes.
In the software engineer industry, if you spent a year in a coding bootcamp, I still wouldn’t trust you to know what you’re doing.
Ehhhh… That’s misleading.
In many places to be eligible for the academy you’d have to have an associates or bachelors degree.
But again, location dependant.
Sorta, kinda, depends on the jurisdiction. This is one of those things where you almost have to treat the US as 50 separate countries rather than one big one.
There are 2 year associate degree programs for police. A full degree or masters also gets you better placement, like going plainclothes detective day one. Federal level, like FBI or Marshalls, generally require higher education. Average beat cops in some 'burb, though? May or may not require anything more than a High School degree or GED.
How would you feel about police making $200,000 {or more since they will need hazard pay} a year to drive around and or sit in a car. There is no way a city could afford to hire enough cops to patrol a city. Yes they should have to learn the laws they enforce and carry liability insurance but there is no way we should force them into doctor/nurse level education without equal pay.
Hell, how much do they think doctors make? My friend is a doctor and his wife is a vet, I’m pretty sure combined they don’t make that much
Why on earth would you assume 200k? I’ve seen a lot of misused rhetorical terms but this is a textbook strawman falicy.
Police officers make anywhere from 43k to 63k based on a quick Google, getting massive pay bumps as they are promoted up to over 100k for police chiefs, not to mention hazard pay and usually amazing benefits. Nurses make 56k to 88k, also generally with really good benefits and a lot of overtime. It would only be a 10-20k pay bump and I would love that if it meant fewer cops with much more professional training.
These are some really low numbers, probably from tiny towns with no resources. Police officers (and RNs) in cities make six figures easily.
Police especially are public servants and their pay is public. Just look it up in your area. It’s very common for regular officers to make six figures with overtime.
Teachers need a 4 year degree and a state license, and they don’t get $200,000 or hazard pay.
Yeah but for teachers it’s not a problem for the sort of people who want that particular job to actually get it. For cops I’d rather the people who inherently want to be cops to be outcompeted by a larger applicant pool and have to get some other job.
A friend of mine is a prison guard, in Norway, and from what I recall him telling me, a solid 6 months (out of 2 years) of the education he took to become a guard was spent studying law. It’s probably more comprehensive if you want to become a police officer.
Yeah, it’s always weird looking at all the ACAB messages when you live somewhere where cops actually have to have some form of education… It takes 3.5 years in school to become a cop around here and sure we still have issues with bad employees, but at the same level you would expect in any job…
If your police system prioritizes protecting its own over serving the public, and you choose to join it anyway, then you are a bastard, so in that sense ACAB is true. The problem is that a lot of people have started using it to claim that all police, everywhere, in every system are bastards, and that just undermines the whole movement and ensures that we’ll never have progress.
The setup is rigged so that you have to pay a lawyer to fix any issues.
I mean they’re not wrong - I wouldn’t expect every policeman out there to be Phoenix Wright, but at the very least they should actually have to learn the laws that they’re supposed to be enforcing
They don’t even abide the existing laws and rights.
“Let’s try make this guy declare without a lawyer”
Yeah, whenever I see videos where cops tell them that they are not cooperating when being silent after pleading the fifth, I get furious.
You are NOT compelled to answer any questions until a lawyer is present. Not answering questions does not and in no way constitute being uncooperative. Cooperative simply means following lawful orders, so even refusing to follow unlawful orders is not obstruction, uncooperative or whatever excuse they want to put on you.
Sadly, it’s probably better to let the manchild have his power trip and complain about it afterwards. Prevents acute lead poisoning.
A nuance to this is that if you’re talkative until one specific question, and then start pleading the fifth, that’s not going to work out quite so well. You need to start from a place of “I will answer questions when I have a lawyer present”.
Also, this all works better if you lack melanin in your skin for some damn reason.
Police generally dont think the law should apply equally to themselves and civilians. That’s most cops; a group within that thinks they should be able to create the law on-the-fly.
Should they go to school to be better at this? Irrelevant. They have a gun and the idealogical highground.