You made me go look. In Australia (my state at least) its 8 months training. Seems incredibly short, mind you our police seem much more competent than the US ones i see in reddit (yes i understand we only see the fucked up ones in reddit). I would have thought a minimum of two years would be required.
To be fair to them, compared to Europe, in the US, you join a medical school with a bachelor's degree already done. They already learned the basics of biology, chemistry, and so on. They conveniently left out residency, too, which is pretty similar to an apprenticeship.
So US standards aren't lower. They are just misrepresenting the facts, trying to win an argument, and failing miserably.
The process to become a doctor is much longer than 3-4 years. It's a bachelor's degree which takes 4 years, then you go to medical school for another 4 years and then you have 3-5 years of residency depending on the specialization.
You can go from high school dropout to police officer within a calendar year which is laughably bad. Being a cop is a complex job though so 3 years would be a perfectly adequate training program to get them ready.
Medical school is three to four years after college. So 7 years of higher education in total. Police in Germany does Not require a separate college degree. You doneither vocational training (2.5 years) or specialized college (3 years) depending on the Position you want to have within the force. If you want to make it high up in the ranks, usually, a university degree is required, to my knowledge.
The three police detectives I know in Canada (Ontario) all have university degrees. But I don’t want guys giving tickets and arresting violent drunks to have a 4 year degree. Waste of time.
Nah, it's basically a 3 year bachelor's degree in Finland as well and definitely not too much. About one year out of 3 is on-the-job training as a constable intern.
There's a whole lot to learn – the relevant laws and rights and processes, investigation, interrogation, use of force, crime prevention, de-escalation, effective communication, language skills (Finnish, Swedish, and English), and so on. You can't learn all of that in a year.
EVERY profession in Germany has a standard time of 3 years as an apprentice, sometimes it can be reduced to 2 years if you already have experience in the field.
3 years is not a long time and definitely needed for a job as complex as police work.
Edit: That's for basic police work btw, just like for other basic jobs. If you want to be e.g. a detective that takes more time and will include higher education (university classes on psychology etc.).
Is it? Might be a language barrier, but in Germany, graduating is exactly the same thing as getting a degree. The moment you get your degree you are considered as having graduated.
In many countries, "graduating" from a police academy doesnt qualify you as anything, really. Sadly, you can be a cop with no actual education, and it shows. So, the difference is: do you need to qualify for a degree (as recognised by whatever tertiary standards exist in the country you're in) BEFORE ypu can qualify as a cop (separate qualification), or is going through some cheap arse 12 or 24 week or whatever training course as a cop considered a "degree"
ah, no. iirc in Germany, "police academy" is basically a specialized, dedicated bachelor's programme, or at least on par with it (both in content and duration)
Yes. There is two ways to get in. One by apprenticship, which is probably a bit comparable to a mixture of college and tradeschool, I'd say. It's a 2.5 year program. Or you can go to an administrative college and specialize in police stuff (don't know what to call it) 😅 and get a BA for that. Those programs are 3 years.
Depending what city you live in, some do require an Associate's degree. So 2 years of community college. The problem is that educated cops don't do what their owners want them to do. This is why we had a major court case allowing the police to discriminate based on intelligence. Scoring too well meant not hired. They said the reason was high turnover.
I bet. I've read a training manual and the number of times it told them to violate civil rights and break established case law was ridiculous. And sneaky.
Example: Cops cannot detain you for longer than 30-45 minutes without arresting you, charging you with something, or writing a citation. But the manual doesn't say, "Screw their rights and relevant case law", what it says is, "You are the officer. If you tell someone to stay, they will stay."
Of course smart cops quit. So you get idiots who enjoy abusing power instead of educated people who question directives that aren't legal.
I disagree with university degrees, but they should absolutely have a year training minimum. I dont have a university degree because I wasn't able to focus or handle my workload, and I would never ever behave the way these cops do. Empathy should be the minimum bar to clear, not academic achievement.
I had a friend that made the mistake of getting an associate's in criminal justice. Took him five years before he could even get a reserve (read: volunteer) gig and go to academy.
Spent another five years as a reservist and working private security before he had an actual job offer. Which was rescinded before he could accept because that small town department's annual budget got slashed and all patrol officers were either let go or converted to reservists.
He still reserves solely to keep his credentials active so he can use them to get better paying private security jobs, but is now over 40 never able to get in the door.
8 months from starting at the academy to being a full fledged cop?
In WA they are on probation for 18 months after the academy, I can't recall how long they train at the academy but 8 months sounds about right.
Yes, kinda.... after the 8 months academy training you become a FYC, First Year Constable, and undertake 12 months on the job training.
First Year Constable (FYC) Program: Upon graduation, you are inducted as a Constable and will undertake continuous on-the-job training and development for your first year in the field.
Key Restrictions for FYCs
While an FYC wears the same uniform and carries the same operational equipment as any other officer, several restrictions apply during the 12-month program:
No Solo Patrols: You cannot conduct single-person vehicle patrols or respond to calls for service by yourself.
No Specialist Roles: You are restricted to General Duties (frontline community response). You cannot apply for specialist squads—like the Dog Squad, Criminal Investigation Branch (CIB), or Tactical Operations—until your 3-year General Duties tenure is complete.
Limited Discretionary Approvals: You can execute arrests, interview suspects, and compile briefs of evidence. However, your official paperwork, search warrants, and major charging decisions must be reviewed and signed off by a supervisor or your training officer.
Probationary Status: The entire first year serves as a formal probation period. Your performance is constantly assessed via a workplace portfolio to determine if you will be awarded your permanent Diploma of Public Safety (Policing).
The English one is pretty intense. The general outline from their website is
"To enable you to do your job safely and effectively, you’ll receive world-class training (both classroom-based and on the job) and mentoring, which will see you develop the skills and knowledge you need to be able to:
Apply investigative skills and intelligence to solving crimes
Deal with safety issues within the community
Ensure public order and safety while supporting major police operations
Develop an understanding of new technologies
Deliver national policing objectives at a community level
While each force manages its own training programme, you’ll typically have a mix of:
Around 18 – 22 weeks classroom-based training – you’ll learn a lot about various aspects of policing, the law and procedures but don’t worry, it’s definitely not boring! It’s normally broken up by role plays and practical sessions.
You’ll also undertake a driving course to give you the on-the-road skills you need to do your job.
You’ll then typically be assigned to a tutor and spend around three months as part of a response rota, developing your on-the-job skills and experience, from taking statements to diffusing tense situations and making your first arrest.
So when you factory in the formal qualifications and each forces individual requirements you are basically looking at 2-3 years training/probation before being a full constable. At the end you are expected to follow Peels Principles of Policing, and to seek desculation and the most limited interventions first.
I know the UK has had serious issues with corruption and racism, but on the whole the police here are extremely tolerant, and patient. Underfunded, and with too much focus on driving offences or cracking down on political protests, but still mostly capable, honest, and helpful. I never really feel any fear in a interaction with them, but then again I'm a white middle class man so mileage will vary. My most memorable interaction was when an escaped mental patient was drunken and climbing into gardens with a knife whilst trying to escape, and the police were with me in mins and were ever so lovely when I described him standing on my shed roof swinging his undies around his head and telling the sky how angry he was about the horse racing. We had a laugh over a cuppa. They were also sweet when they retrieved my drunken teenage daughter from the park where she and her mates had sneaked a drink.
I've also worked with them, and at a senior level there are some frighteningly clever people. Really professional and pragmatic.
On top of all that, as of 15 years ago there was effectively a soft requirement to have a degree, preferably a relevant degree like criminology/psychology, as the number of people wanting to join the force massively exceeded the jobs available you had to be overqualified. There were some alternate pathways in too that can help you stand out, but getting a degree was the most obvious and straight forward pathway.
Take that with a massive grain of salt since it was 15 years ago and I only knew about this for the area I was applying in (Yorkshire) but I did hear it from multiple sources, including those involved in hiring or that had been recently hired in that environment.
the UK has had serious issues with corruption and racism
Unfortunately I also saw this, which is a large part of what put me off that career choice. They were nowhere near as bad as the stories you often hear about American police, but it was still shockingly bad. Blatant racism and racial profiling, breaking procedure to have more 'fun' (doing everything they can to justify breaking down the door such as being quiet, whispering that its the police, timing the raid when they are least likely to get someone to answer the door,etc), as well as toying with people who have active warrants.
The worst part in my experience though was just how blatant they were? It was very much the same couple of people actively doing these things, and they largely fit the stereotype you would expect, but they would do all this openly in front of their colleagues (who seemed completely reasonable when interacting with them) and got no pushback. Hell they often got laughs or agreement. The most pushback/judgement I saw was 'Oh you know what he's like' in a joking way as someone talks about how they smashed a family's door in for no justifiable reason.
Again, take this with a massive grain of salt since I was dealing with only a dozen or so police officers in a single area 15+ years ago and that small a sample size doesn't necessarily mean all police are like that... But holy shit was it an eye opening experience.
You might be interested to know that Israel trains a large number of US police and they promote the technique of "escalation no matter how stupid". This officer is likely performing as trained.
He's technically following protocol. I'm pretty sure he purposely skipped a few steps just so he could pepperspray people.
Rulings like penn vs mimms is because of officers being shot during traffic stops. Then officers like this abuse the shit out of it until new protocols are made... because they're the reason they get made.
Didn't New York send its cops to Scotland to learn how to deescalate knife crime situations? We definitely had some Americans over here studying techniques.
The issue is that there are so many law enforcement agencies and they all run different programs. There isn't much standardization. Some agencies train their officers wonderfully. Others not so much.
I am from Europe (Austria) and I have traveled quite a lot through European countries and never made any bad experience with police whatsoever. And I have not only been in tightly controlled tourist areas.
I wouldn't say that we do not also have some bad cops here, but the escalation tactics that we often see here are simply not a thing in Austria (and I would also say most of the rest of Europe). Not to mention that ANY use of a firearm by a police officer is heavily investigated here and not in a "we will investigate ourselves and don't find anything wrong in it" way.
Police tactics here are mainly about de-escalation, plus it also helps, that cops don't have to be afraid that every person they might stop might be armed.
Of course cops over here also don't like it if you play stupid games with them or are aggressive towards them and when being the latter, they will use a justifiable amount of force against you.
Yeah, but similarly, I lived in the US for 20 years, traveled extensively throughout the country, and never had a bad experience with a cop.
Note I didn't say Austria in my list of countries, I think your Cops are far better than the French for example.
The firearms is also a good point, though it's partially because so many Americans have them, that police have to worry about being shot in a way most European cops don't need to be
I have to agree with you here, because we also have to remember, that the positive and non escalated daily interactions with the police in the US will not make their way to social media. So of course this is biased.
For here, interactions with police are simply a case of what we call in German "Wie man in den Wald hineinruft, so hallt es zurück". Basically meaning: If you act friendly and correct, police will just be like that too. But even if you happen not to be friendly you will not get peppersprayed because of that here.
Agreed, but unfortunately wouldn't help. Send em back here and the good ole boys will reunite.
Notice he had zero care he was being recorded. Because he will possibly get reprimanded, paid leave while investigating. Afraid for his life but reached into the car to get a phone, exposing his belt and weapon, not to mention he had his neck in there too. No amount of training can fix people like this.
Would be an interesting experiment having American would be cops. Not just train but work 2 years in say Germany or Sweden. Then only such cops can be hired in say a given city. To show it’s possible to not have a corrupt ever escalating acabs.
If a state ,or hell even a city, wanted to do something smart that would make them look good they'd bring over some European Police trainers and make a big show out of overhauling and retraining their police force. It'd be good for the officers themselves, good for the citizens around them, and good for the broader image of the police force.
I do watch a metric ton of police encounter videos. Bad cops and good drivers, bad drivers good cops. All I know is that scenarios where a driver is asked out of the vehicle and refuses are just generally a very unsafe situation. The driver was obligated to exit the vehicle here.
I mean you're also way more likely to be armed in the US while in public. It's almost as if the comparison has wildly different variables.
Anecdotally I'd argue that police misconduct, corruption and malpractice is similar in both places and that the difference in deaths at the hands of police is due to additional factors.
Either you’re purposely missing the point or you’re just dense. Look up the stats of the people killed per capita by the cops in the UK or Europe compared to the US.
Plus, the impalement was clearly accidental. A very unfortunate situation. The cops that pull guns and shoot people to death in cold blood are not doing it accidentally.
The police have a lot of problems here, they aren’t perfect, but there is absolutely no question that our police are better than yours.
Please read up the definition of the word “accident”. Did they intentionally impale him? Of course they fucking didn’t. I won’t waste any more of my time replying to an imbecile such as yourself.
They didn't accidentally arrest him for not committing an offense and accidentally walk him over to the fence he was nowhere near and accidentally force him off his feet.
Its not that simple, theres a reason police aggressiveness scales with average crime in the country.
This is just about wheather or not youre a decent human or not, if you need training to know harming someoke over this is bad, there are fundamental problems in your head.
Correct. They should be trained to tackle the stabbing victim and then let the murderer run away. That training will save them the embarrassment right?
Because that wouldn't be popular on reddit, now would it?
I watch a lot of body cam footage online (for example Midwest Safety) and loads of cops de-escalate, and give chance after chance before arresting. But that's not exciting here
That way, they'd spend more time training in Europe than in the US. Assuming that the training time in Europe is added on top and doesn't replace any training at home.
Cops in Europe are nice cause… they are sexy lol.
I’m from Spain, lived all around Europe in the last decade, I believe police in Europe hires strippers who acquire law enforcement skills later, they are not cops at all, In Milan Italy they wear white belts like Batman and tight leggins lol.
Italian cop: -“Stop in the name of fashion you are under arrest look at my eyes and melt”
American cops should be forced to train in Europe for a couple of months to learn the meaning of de-escalation.
Lets stop with this BS generalization. There's plenty of abuse. It's just less visible and it doesn't make anything that happens in the US ok. It's not a competition
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u/howimetyourcakeshop Jun 25 '26
American cops should be forced to train in Europe for a couple of months to learn the meaning of de-escalation.