[stupidcar]

I can't really believe there's a straight up choice between non-corrupt police and bankrupt police departments. It is true that US police seem to funded in ways that create incentives to corruption. An ideological commitment to low taxes means institutions like the police need to find other sources of revenue. This leads to a proliferation of regulations and drug and driving laws that can be used to impose fines, systems like civil forfeiture, and reliance on private "donations".

In the long term, this leads to a fundamentally adversarial and extractive relationship between the police and the populace, and the situation right now where police are widely hated, or at least distrusted, by significant sections of the population.

The solution to all of this is to break this extractive relationship: To prevent the police from profiting from the enforcement of some laws over others, or from seizing property only to sell it for their own gain. And, yes, to accept a rate of general taxation and redistribution that can be used to fund the institutions of a modern state. So long as the US continues to pursue the current tax model, the same shortfalls and perverse incentives to find alternative sources of revenue with exist, leading to the same poor outcomes in so many areas of government.

[libertyEQ]

The US is not a monolithic entity, and various states handle civil asset forfeiture differently:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United...

Many places in the US don't have these problems, so there is nothing to solve.

[uoaei]

Ok so hunger isn't a problem because people in Europe are generally well-fed? This follows the same line of reasoning as the one you are using now.

[libertyEQ]

My point was that localities differ greatly across the US (and Europe for that matter), and should be taken care of at a local level rather than from the centralized location of DC. I don't want to live in a police state, so I choose to live in a small town that doesn't have the issues that our big cities have.

[bobbinsbob]

Like I say I can't comment on the US system regards it's policing practices, from the outside looking in it all seems open to abuse. Where I come from the government funds the police, they don't make any profit from the likes of tickets etc.

Currently the police are savagely being under funded as are all public sectors and crime is on the rise but the difference between the police and other public services is that people seem to understand why the other public services are not performing as good as they were, but it's the fault to the police they aren't performing as good.

Like I said I would love to see bodycams on all police but as with every public body ICT project it will be mismanaged and cost way more than it needs to. Currently the police where I am can't afford it.

[dnautics]

Crime is not on the rise and the police are not underfunded(0). Where did you get this information?

(0) Their pension plans are underfunded, but those plans are rediculous compared to private sector plans.

[libertyEQ]

The person you are responding to stated that they are not in the US.