Policing the Police: U.S. and European Models

Abstract

The video of George Floyd's murder by police officers in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on 25 May 2020 triggered protests in all fifty states and dozens of countries. Floyd was far from the first African American man suspected in a minor offense whose brutal treatment drew worldwide attention. But this incident resonated and reverberated like no other. The principal aggressor, Derek Chauvin, stone-faced with his hand in his pocket, knelt on Floyd's neck for nearly nine minutes, ignoring the desperate pleas for mercy from Floyd and several bystanders (and hushed exhortations from two of the three other police officers present). This vivid display of police resolve, nonchalance, and solidarity in the face of earnest and righteous opposition became a powerful symbol almost immediately. For many African Americans, the incident represented enduring discrimination and neglect in various domains that had proven largely unresponsive to reform, even in putatively liberal cities such as Minneapolis. The incident was also a grim reminder that outcries following earlier episodes of flagrantly excessive force (as in the cases of Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, and Philando Castile) and the ensuing reforms designed to promote transparency and restraint (body cameras, de-escalation training) had not reduced the lethality of U.S. policing: There were 1,089 killings by police in 2013-the year before the national outcry-and 1,140 and 1,099 in 2018 and 2019, respectively. 1 Other established democracies have their own problems with policing, but frequent deadly police encounters are not among them. 2 The massive protests that followed Floyd's murder were largely peaceful and drew bipartisan support yet met violent police repression. This bolstered the perception of U.S. police forces as impervious to conventional democratic levers of reform. Although many police officers and officials offered poignant gestures of sympathy and solidarity, these

The fourth power. A mapping of police oversight agencies in Europe and Quebec

“…European police system (Hirschfield, 2020; Gomez del Prado and Leman-Langlois, 2020), the POAs are mostly national or regional bodies (in federal or quasi-federal states) in the EU. And, unlike the US, where patterns found include lay citizens sitting in the agencies or volunteers reviewing cases or appeals (Finn, 2001;de Angelis et al, 2016), members of civil society are included neither in European schemes nor in Quebec.…”

Police Interviewing in Spain: A Self-Report Survey of Police Practices and Beliefs

“…Using hostility and confrontation is not the norm but the exceptional last resort. The reasons behind these cross-country differences are beyond the scope of this article (see Hirschfield, 2020, for some explanations).…”

“…Second, legislation is no substitute for training. European police recruits spend much more time at the police academy than American officers (Hirschfield, 2020). However, police training should extend far beyond the initial instruction period at the academy.…”

What is this measuring? Comment on Gatner et al. (2022).

“…The same numeric estimate (2.63 OR) of detected crime for PPD individuals was used across the US and Canada. Yet, substantial evidence suggests the US has unique policing patterns that differ from other Western countries (e.g., Hirschfield, 2020), which will affect the rate of detected crime. It is well known that more criminal offenses are committed than detected (Farrington et al, 2007); therefore, the rate of detection of criminal offenses becomes important for the quantification of criminal justice costs.…”