Lots of reasons that can be distilled down to money and racism.

Don’t sleep on it in Switzerland either. You have a racism problem embedded in your police force too, and constant push to militarize. You’re just not as bad as the US (yet) and don’t get flooded with movies and media about it.

You don’t hear stuff like “black person gets shot for holding an object” in Switzerland frequently, since that barely happens. The reason may be that the populace is homogenous (consisting of predominantly Caucasians) and less public distrust towards authorities.

The training for Swiss cops is 2 years (not that different from Denmark or Germany where an officer needs 3 years training before they’re considered a cop), compare that to California police training which lasts 6 months (like WTF? That’s not even long, let alone fit enough for the job).

On top of that the training consists of

• everyone is a fatal threat, so be constantly defensive and aggressive
• here is some equipment most militaries don’t have

The warrior mindset that US cops have is exacerbating the problem, as in they train cops the same manner as soldiers (which isn’t even comparable). In Europe, there’s emphasis on LE serving the community and they have actual teams specialized in mental health de-escalation.

Because it’s working exactly as intended.

No need to change what isn’t broken.

/s but still sadly true

Police in the US originated from slave-catching militias and bounty hunters and developed from there as a means of oppressing, controlling, and re-enslaving (through convict leasing and prison labor) black people after slavery formally ended. At no point has preserving the lives, dignity, or well being of these people been a priority of police forces. All of this gets extended to anyone considered “other” or marginal from the majority.

Prison labor is big business in the US today and acts as a way of reducing the power of labor. This depends on a steady stream of new inmates, so capital pressures legislators and police departments to pass harsher laws and policies and ignore deescalation.

I know nothing about Norway, but I urge you to research how your police treat immigrants, indigenous peoples, and anyone else considered “other” in your society, compared to the majority. it won’t be like American cops, but i wonder what you’ll find.

There are many syllabuses available about the history of police and prisons in the US. if you want a real answer, try some of the materials here: https://www.aaihs.org/prison-abolition-syllabus-2-0/

This doesn’t really answer the question of why US police training can be as short as four months.

Also European police forces (and London Metropolitan, which was the template to many police forces around the world) were primarily to prevent theft and beat organized labour. It’s all tool of class war, and it’s not uniquely American.

Without any facts to back this up: I would assume the barrier to entry is so low because, without it, no one with any amount of intelligence or empathy would apply.

One of the things that made our prison system make sense as a machine for me was the explicit carve out in the 13th Amendment:

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Emphasis mine. If you’re on the outside looking in, and you don’t understand why the US prison/LE system is the way that it is, it’s because we never actually abolished slavery. We just gave it justification and some window dressing.

And to be clear, I don’t agree with any of it. But it is a thing that bears mentioning in the context of law and justice in the US.

I think training is crap because the leadership is crap and they set the tone for their trainees. My Repiblican loving uncle joined our city police force for a bit but quit because he said it was too corrupt.

In an environment like this where the leadership says what is and isn’t acceptable, anybody who doesn’t submit to the “blue line” gang style policing is pushed out and only the shitty cops remain.

I come from a country where police training takes 2-3 years and cadets must possess a Batchelor’s degree in law or psychology. For example, in Sweden: there’s a watch dog that hold cops accountable for corruption. Since cops are meant to serve the community rather than flex hostility treating civilians as enemies.

Also, as an aside, the right wing in your country (if they are anything like the right wing in both the US and Europe) will want to make your police forces more like American cops in order to brutalize immigrants and “others”, then anyone they can label as “other” even if they are currently accepted (e.g. LGBTQIA+ people, people from opposing political parties, religious minorities), then extend it to anyone that disagrees with them. It’s up to you to organize with your neighbors against them, because they will tear your society apart as they are doing in the US and elsewhere. They may start with your border police or other specialized forces before attempting to coopt local police.

America is a country where every criminal has been given a gun. It must be a different thing to de-escalate a situation where every party has a gun than if no one had a gun.

Are you telling me Police Academy was a lie?!

They have training for police in America?

First hand experience in CA, the training is pretty minimal and you’re basically thrown into the deep end. It’s like reading about driving and then your first driving experience is the Indy 500.

Most people you interact with are belligerent (cus 99% of the time you’re not there to help them) or mentally off (yay for the lack of societal safety nets) and it’s drilled into you that every encounter could be deadly

I think the training is crap because of historical reasons initially, but now because it’s a political machine and there’s no reason for those in power to want to change it. They’re seeing the results they want to see, otherwise things would’ve changed by now.

It is not about the lack of training but lack of accountability

I think you are starting off with an incorrect premise: In the US, the role of the cops is not to keep people, or society safe. It often also has very little to due with “the law”.

The role is to keep the rich and powerful, rich and powerful. They are meant to oppress people, and keep the slave-machine running. Cops shooting people, stealing from them, escalating situations, and not knowing the law is the intended situation.

In that sense, the cops are doing their job to great effect, and don’t need any more training.

You know why, we all do even if we don’t admit it openly.

The powers that be are attempting a fascist coup controlled by an oligarchy, (for now, wait until they get what they want and get kicked out of the club, kicked out in front of a moving bus.

Part of it is a cultural difference. There’s a formal training and apprenticeship program in Switzerland to become a waiter. The USA relies more on informal on-the-job training than formal education in many fields. In a large, professional police department, it’s often the case that a new hire will be assigned a field training officer for a while; that’s likely to be longer for someone without experience.

The higher level of violence isn’t just lack of training. Some of it is cultural, based on an “us vs. them” mentality. Some of it is based on actual dangers; people in Switzerland pretty much never respond to a traffic stop by shooting at the police, but that’s not a rare occurrence in the USA.

The USA relies more on informal on-the-job training than formal education in many fields

In the United States, in many areas, shoddy and spectacularly cheap on-the-job training is just another low-value thing that is more highly prized than formal education.

The US also has the most powerful police unions in the world, and they fight tooth and nail against every single reform you can imagine.

The USA relies more on informal on-the-job training than formal education in many fields.

more like new hires get thrown to the wolves and the ones that make it stay on the job

strange though as the job of policing is still statistically less dangerous than being a farmer or a pizza-delivery driver.

It’s a different job with a different intent.