I was travelling a few years ago, and hanging out in the hotel bar in Portland, Maine, and I listened in on a heated conversation between some guy and a lady whose husband is a cop. They were discussing police brutality and the protests at the time (Baltimore maybe?), and the lady's point was basically "do whatever you want with regulating police behaviour, but I will take my husband coming home at the end of the night over anything else"
It's possible with the falling rates of crime, this may just solve itself (though increasing police training and standards is a good thing regardless).
Those Baltimore riots were sparked because a man who was in custody suffered injuries that could not have been caused any other way except by the police who held him, and all of them were acquitted. When people see that the system is intent on protecting the police, that means a lot of people aren't going to care whether that woman's husband makes it home or not.
Crime has been falling at the same time as police misconduct (not just the actual abuses, but the protection around them) has become more visible. Somebody needs to de-escalate it, and that would be a great place to start.
You mean, humanity?
>Yes, we all want our loved ones coming home at the end of the day. But when you go out with the assumption that everybody is trying to kill you
Exactly true - but that's why the crime rate being so high rises the stress levels and enforces these views. Patrolling a Oslo, Norway, which has a murder rate of 0.5 per 100k, is different than patroling Atlanta, Georgia with a murder rate of 17 per 100k. Right?
>Crime has been falling at the same time as police misconduct (not just the actual abuses, but the protection around them) has become more visible.
I think I saw some stats that showed police misconduct has been falling as well - but as you said, visibility has been increased. Maybe this is all being solved, it just takes time.
Having said that, I do think police standards should be high, including admittance, and continual training on de-escalation drills and handling of high-stress situations. That should be simple to implement, and all it costs is taxes (and I think, given the current situation, that cost is worth it)