Public’s confidence in law enforcement keeps going up BY VERONICA WERNICKE, Daily Sun Senior Writer 17 hrs ago American’s confidence in the police increased 8 percentage points over the past year to 51%. It is the largest year-over-year change in public perceptions of 17 major U.S. institutions measured in an annual poll by Gallup. “We have a really good understanding with our community,” Fruitland Park Police Department Interim Chief Henry Rains said. “One of the huge things, I would say, it’s because of is our community engagement.” https://news.gallup.com/poll/647303/confidence-institutions-mostly-flat-police.aspx
Adding cameras was a very important thing. More criminal cops are being held accountable and it's forcing the training to change as well.
There needs to be much more training as most other developed nations have minimum standards for their police that largely only FBI agents reach in America. There is a slight shift now since 2020. What training do police undergo? The duration and type of training varies widely worldwide. Recruits in the United States spend significantly less time in police academies than those in most European countries. Basic U.S. training programs take twenty-one weeks on average, whereas similar European programs can last more than three years [PDF]. In Finland and Norway, recruits study policing in national colleges, spending part of the time in an internship with local police, and earn degrees in criminal justice or related fields. In the United States, police officers must have at least a high school education or its equivalent, though some states require additional qualifications. With hundreds of police academies, the United States lacks national standards for what recruits should learn. U.S. academies tend to emphasize technical skills rather than communication and restraint https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/how-police-compare-different-democracies
Also, the United States is one of the few countries in the world that will allow a former military soldier who was dishonorably discharged or discharged for serious misconduct to enter law enforcement in the civilian population. The United States needs to fix that loophole in the current recruitment process of today's police officers considering a lot of racists are kicked out of the military for serious misconduct towards minorities (e.g. Asian, Black, Brown, or anyone of color) in the military. In addition, the United States military is one of the few countries that uses the Privacy Act and Department of Defense policy to prevent releasing information relating to the misconduct of low-level employees or characterization of service at discharge. Simply, if a soldier is discharged from the military for racism (serious misconduct) but is also a military officer...civilian law enforcement agencies can assess the reason for the discharge of that former military officer. In contrast, if the soldier is low-ranking enlisted and is then dishonorably discharged or discharged for serious misconduct...civilian law enforcement agencies can not assess the reasons for the discharge from the military. The above is very concerning because about 25% of today's U.S. civilian law enforcement has a military background. Now imagine if some of these civilian law enforcement are part of a local police detail assigned to protect the President of the United States (who is a minority or a woman) whenever the President arrives in town. At the minimum, allow Secret Service to assess the military records of the local law enforcement that are assigned to protect the President of the United States when the President is in town for whatever reason. The loophole can easily be fixed by requiring all civilian law enforcement that have a military background to be required to show their VIC card that is issued directly from the VA...Veterans Identification Card Act of 2015.... VIC cards are not given by the VA to any former military soldier that was dishonorably discharged or discharged for serious misconduct @ https://www.va.gov/records/get-veteran-id-cards/ Heck, I have a REAL ID driver's license that has my "veteran" status. If a former military soldier applying for a civilian law enforcement position is not able to show his/her REAL ID...they should never be hired as law enforcement in any agency in the United States of America. wrbtrader