Prisons are absolutely related to police. The only way I'm aware of to get into prison is via an arrest by police.
So, every arrest a police officer makes, they need to consider, "knowing what I do about prison, is it ethical to arrest this person?"
Police militarization is supported at the federal level through grants of military equipment, and nationwide through the use of trainings that teach officers they are "warriors" or "sheep dogs".
And yes, police are fragmented from a logistical standpoint, but culturally they are very similar. Police unions make holding bad cops accountable nearly everywhere, prosecutors refuse to prosecute bad police because their jobs require a good relationship with police, the idea of the "thin blue line" permeates every police dept, etc. They might all have different funding and standards, but there are systemic nationwide problems.
> Prisons are absolutely related to police. The only way I'm aware of to get into prison is via an arrest by police.
Nope, you can go to prison without being arrested first if you showed up to court voluntarily.
> So, every arrest a police officer makes, they need to consider, "knowing what I do about prison, is it ethical to arrest this person?"
Nope, most arrests don’t result in prison time and unless the crime is particularly bad, the cop can’t even know if prison time is a realistic outcome. It sounds like your beef is with state prosecutors (e.g. Kamala Harris) and you just don’t understand the system well enough to know the actors involved.
> Police militarization is supported at the federal level through grants of military equipment, and nationwide through the use of trainings that teach officers they are "warriors" or "sheep dogs".
This is not “nationwide” in the sense that it’s up to each department if they want to participate. A city can absolutely refuse to participate in this programs and most rural places don’t (perhaps because they are ineligible, but either way not nationwide).
> They might all have different funding and standards, but there are systemic nationwide problems.
You have yet to identify these problems though. What issues do you think the officers in Cody, WY have?
> Nope, you can go to prison without being arrested first if you showed up to court voluntarily.
Pretty sure you cannot just check yourself into prison by going to court. Maybe I'm wrong. I suppose there are certain crimes that can result in a summons to court that are detected by automated or research.
> the cop can’t even know if prison time is a realistic outcome.
When I don't know the risk of a particular outcome, I generally need to consider it, which strengthens my original point. If cops aren't sure whether someone will be incarcerated AND they aren't considering the impact of incarceration, then we've got two problems.
> It sounds like your beef is with state prosecutors...
If you don't believe that prosecutors and police are strong, strong allies, I don't know how much further we're going to get. I literally commented on the relationship between prosecutors and police in the comment you are responding to.
> You have yet to identify these problems though. What issues do you think the officers in Cody, WY have?
Scroll up, my previous comment had a list. It was, in fact, the sentence previous to the one you quoted.
I can sense you are perhaps angry or frustrated by my comments. If not, it certainly reads that way to me. Can we agree to continue without resorting to jabs at each other? (E.g. "you just don't understand the system well enough" comes across as needlessly patronizing in a discussion that could otherwise be interesting.)
So, every arrest a police officer makes, they need to consider, "knowing what I do about prison, is it ethical to arrest this person?"
Police militarization is supported at the federal level through grants of military equipment, and nationwide through the use of trainings that teach officers they are "warriors" or "sheep dogs".
And yes, police are fragmented from a logistical standpoint, but culturally they are very similar. Police unions make holding bad cops accountable nearly everywhere, prosecutors refuse to prosecute bad police because their jobs require a good relationship with police, the idea of the "thin blue line" permeates every police dept, etc. They might all have different funding and standards, but there are systemic nationwide problems.