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Comment by photonwins | Hacker News Reader

I grew up in an Asian country where I have seen police corruption first hand more than once and I always wished my country had better educated and morally strong individuals who would protect the weaker sections of the society instead of siding with rich/powerful people even if they are criminals.

I always wished like in the west police would enforce the law regardless of the status of that individual and that police and other govt officials are better paid and hence there was no need for them to get corrupted for the sake few extra bucks.

I am currently working in one of those "developed" countries in the west and observing things around me, reading articles/comments like here. It appears that, it is not really very different here either. I guess human greed is universal.

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Police in the US are very much not like police in other Anglo countries; they are much more adversarial.

Not to say the other police are perfect, but it seems much worse in the US. Example: I'm from Australia, and was recounting a story here on HN about how I don't like that subtle power play when police pull you over and talk down to you in the car. So I get out (I'm very tall) and wait for them in a friendly manner. It changes the tone of the traffic stop. Doesn't change the outcome, but it's hard for them to talk down to someone they have to physically look up to.

On relaying this story, multiple HN'ers from the US thought I was genuinely putting my life at risk of being shot by the police, and told me I should never ever do that. This is a genuinely foreign concept to me - that I should be fearful that police might be predisposed to shooting me for getting out of the car. That these folks even have that general fear speaks volumes as to the excessive force the US police use.

But see, in the US, the occupants of cars are much more likely to try to use force on police officers, too. (And remember how many Americans are armed.) The police officers are literally in a position where they have to evaluate each move you make in (I'd guess) about half a second. If they shoot when they shouldn't, it may destroy their career. If they don't shoot when they should, they may die.

I don't know, but I suspect that Australians are much less likely to shoot at or otherwise attack police officers...

I agree with you in that part of the issue is the armed populace in the US (Australia is very much an unarmed populace, and always has been; ignore most of what you hear about the 1996 gun bans from anyone). Another part of the issue is the 'us vs them' attitude that appears to be more prevalent in US policing (and in US politics in general). In contrast, the UK's police tries to follow the Peelian Principles, which are designed to avoid the 'us vs them' mentality.

For my money, I'd rather have a population without guns, if it means we don't have to be scared of the people we hire to keep our cities orderly. The armed population in the US doesn't seem to be rising up against government transgressions there any more than the unarmed population does here, so it doesn't seem like the rationale for amendment #2 holds water.

Many police forces in Europe operate in a totally different manner than what you've described of Asia + America. This is not a "universal" problem.

Ultimately, this comes down to the management strategies the police utilize. The British/American paradigm is the tragic, horrible police management strategy that leads to the types of stories we're discussing now. Many Asian countries follow the same such policies. Go look at Norway's police force, and you'll see that things can be very, very different.

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