US citizen here. I just read this book that deals with the issue. https://www.amazon.com/Colony-Nation-Chris-Hayes/dp/0393254224

I'm not sure I can even summarize it for you. It's unthinkably complicated and systemic. For one thing, there isn't a way of affecting change across police departments and justifications in the US. It's decentralized and massive.

Second, we have developed a perverse system in which police are incentivized to antagonize poor black people and stick them with fines, etc. This is how cities make money for municipal improvements. It's basically a tax on communities of poor people that have been written off.

Third, in those communities, the police are more of an occupying force, with no real moral or legal authority, as opposed to upholders of the law. They are there to maintain order by intimidating the locals, and keep the crime contained to these written-off areas. They are there to keep extracting fines and seizures of property, because cities now depend on those things to survive.

Fourth, there is a massive amount of guns floating around the US, and police officers are legitimately at risk of getting shot at any time.

Fifth, police get very little training in conflict resolution, mediating, etc. It's something like one hour of training. Meanwhile, they have to spend a ton of time at the shooting range.

If I had to summarize the book's thesis, it would be that police are essentially playing the role of an occupying force (think of the British before the american revolution) rather than peacekeepers. The reason why this happened is complex, and is at least partially due to trying to suppress the black vote through drug policies, but is also a larger holdover of a racist, two-tiered system. It's slow to change because things are decentralized.

I basically think that paying police more, raising taxes so that cities wouldn't need to rely on seizures and unjust fines, and giving police much more training in social work and conflict resolution would be a good start. But all of that amounts to a tax increase, and that's too politically unpopular to fly, apparently.

President Obama did make some overtures to police departments to try and change these things, but our new (evil) attorney general seems keen on undoing those efforts.

I'm not at all an expert on this, so I probably won't be able to field responses. Read the book though, it's short and good.

u/gubrian · 1 point r/politics

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