All cops perpetuate the states monopoly on violence. Their primary purpose is also usually to uphold the interests of capital. I mean, just look at pro Palestine demonstrations in Europe. Depending on who you ask, that's pretty bad.

That doesn't mean that everyone becomes a cop for nefarious reasons though.

Mandatory training to become a police officer:

• US: 600-700 hours on average, much of which is gun and combat training and not policing
• Canada 2080 hours
• Spain 2880 hours
• Germany 4000 hours

With that little time spent training and heavy combat focus a US cop might get as little as 2-4 weeks of training on everything that a cop does that doesn't involve guns. People get shot by US cops because they weren't taught anything else. People don't get help from US cops because they were never taught solving problems that don't involve shooting a minority.

Cartman yelling respect my authoritah! is not far off from what a rookie US cop knows about being a police officer.

it's everywhere, but in the usa it's exacerbated by the fact that most people have guns

while watching bodycam footage I often find myself thinking "just open the car door and cuff him, why hesitate and risk starting a car chase"

followed by the realization "oh, he has a gun"

obligatory Don't talk to the police

No idea on how bad it is,

From my understanding regarding French cops, A big issue is that the ranking at the end of training defines who choose their position first. Guess what happens : The cop who thrived in training will either go to a nice medium town in southern France to get a steady a job without too much stress, or take an interesting job in prestigious unit like crime-brigade (which would kickstart the rest of their carrer), while the one who barely passed end-up in a bad neighbourhood, resulting in high crime/bad neighbourhood end up with the worst cop of the country while the place who don't need much cops get the best ones.

the big thing that's different about american cops is the amount of education they get. here, even patrolling police have a university level education in social sciences, ethics, law, medicine etc. it's a three year degree of which six months are spent as a trainee. AFAIK, some states in the us have like half a year of training total.

also, due to an event in the 30s, the use of police on worker suppression is deeply ingrained.

there is no doubt that they protect the interest of capital, but they are tightly regulated. also i'm not saying the regulations automatically make them competent.

American cops are kinda average compared to the global stage. Most of Europe, for example, has much more restrained, much less incompetent cops. On the other hand, much of the world has cops much worse than the US. I have a family member who lived in one of the less stable African countries, who recounted seeing a bunch of cops beat a child for "daring" to wear camo pants, and that wasn't considered particularly shocking.

I'm defintely not a fan of cops, but in Scotland I never thought of them as evil/lazy/incompetent. They're still the arm of state control, and have been used to break strikes and stuff, but there is at least a vibe of policing by consent. There are plenty of cases of individual cops who were psychos, and the institution defintely defaults to 'protecting it's own' which is a fucking terrible attitude and in my mind makes all cops culpable for the crimes of the "bad apples". So I'm still acab overall.

But most of my interactions with the police have been pretty decent, and that includes being questioned as a suspect (for something that I may not have been innocent of...) They don't 'solve' many petty crimes like burglary that actual effect normal people but they are generally university educated and properly trained.

I now live in France, where the police are none of those things. I've only heard bad things about them ranging from patronising and incompetent to raping student protesters in the back of the police van. I would never ask a French cop for help, but unless I was high or carrying something illegal, i wouldn't be worried about talking to a Scottish policeman.

My impression is that it is certainly a lot worse in the US than here in Germany. I imagine the abundance of guns means that being a cop is fucking dangerous, which means they will get uneasy in conflicts quite logically, but also that it's not exactly a job you go for, if you have aspirations in life. I mean, why would anyone voluntarily become a cop in the US, if not to abuse your power?

It’s everywhere. It’s just a matter of more or less.

I mean, it's universal because not of those traits are unique to any country, they're human traits.

Even if you subscribe to ACAB as a political stance, there are still competent people doing the job to the best of their ability. Being a tool of oppression isn't an inherently disabling factor. Plenty of serious pieces of shit have been good at their jobs, even when that job literally genocide.

Now, US police have disadvantages because of hiring, training and operational guidelines that favor order takers with low initiative and a willingness to adhere to authority. But it isn't the only country like that, nor is it the only country with a police force infiltrated by extremists waiting for a chance to take greater power, we're just a really big country, so it's easier to hide.

Couple that with a strong and effective police union that's also infiltrated, and is formed of the same people hired, and trained to basically be thugs, and the worst ones are harder to get rid of, even when higher ups want to.

But, again, don't think that the U.S. is the only place that has this trouble. Power corrupts, and the greater the power, the greater the corruption. Without vigilance and oversight, shit will creep in

It's complicated and depends on the place.

In countries without money or great infrastructure, often the police have just as little training and education as the US and often give in to corruption in similar ways.

In other, more wealthy countries, the police often have far more training and may generally be less corrupt and abusive because of the extensive training, but that does not mean that they are perfect nor fall prey to being controlling simply because they've been state sanctioned to be able to control.

It is to be noted that the US literally goes out of its way to choose candidates that are more likely to respond violently than not, including giving them personality tests that seek out that behavior during the initial screening process.

My experience with Chinese cops has been nothing but wonderful. Not the same for US ones. They peppered sprayed students during a local Palestinian protest…

In Japan, they seem to do their jobs ok. Definitely don't give any aggressive or evil vibes but feel like they lack assertiveness.

That's quite a broad generalization even if just talking about US cops.

ACAB means ACAB.

If you read the Japanese internet, tons would say they're at least the latter two. I'm sure some might also argue the first as well.

edit: This is a weird one to downvote. People living in Japan, both foreign and Japanese, complain about the cops doing nothing in all kinds of circumstances and making mistakes in a variety of procedures. I've had a mixed bag of interactions, personally.