[jacquesm]

I've spent time in both countries. The difference could not be much larger when it comes to policing.

Laws certainly are not policed better here. The big differentiator is the much smaller wealth gap (though it is still sizeable and should be further reduced) as well as the much more relaxed attitude towards things that we consider illness and/or self-harm, a lot of which ends up being dealt with as crime in the USA. Furthermore, a hospital procedure isn't likely to bankrupt you and when you do become homeless there are - if you want - institutions that will help to get you out of that situation.

It is far from ideal. But it is night and day compared with the USA. I don't recall seeing as much police anywhere else (including such diverse places as Colombia, Panama, Canada and almost every country in Europe), nor did I see people in general being afraid of the police. Sure, you still don't fuck with them but as a rule they're really there to serve and protect, which - ironically - they have to write on the side of their vehicles in the USA, either to increase the pretense or as a personal reminder to the occupants of the vehicle, it is hard to tell which.

[runsWphotons]

I will add that in addition to my longer comment, I doubt that "wealth gap" has much at all to do with these differences in criminality.

Yes, the US has a high gini coefficient. But the median income is very similar to the netherlands, with NL being maybe 5000$ higher. Median wealth per capita is very similar between the two and Americans have slightly higher purchasing power, although again pretty similar. I don't think crime is higher in the US because rich people are sending the poor into a murderous rage, and if it is so then it just indicates there really is a culture problem.

[runsWphotons]

Bureau of Justice statistics says that the US has about 1,200,000 police across agencies. Given a US population of 340 million this is about 283 people per employee (it says this includes civilian personnel, idk how many): https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/census-state-and-lo....

The Netherlands has about 51,000 police officers. They also have 14,000 support officers and some other civilians with some law enforcement powers (I will leave these out since idk how civilian support officers counted in BoJ stats). That is something like 352 people per officer (18 million over 51,000). On top of this there are around 7,000 gendarmie who you will see around at events or government sites, under the ministry of justice.

Australia has a little less per capita (27 million people, 65,000 officers 415:1) but also their defense forces have some domestic authorities that in the US might be law enforcement. Some forces are protesting because they want to hire more people, take that for what you want.

I wouldn't call this a drastic difference and in my anecdotal experience, as opposed to yours, the police are about as visible in all three places, maybe more so in Australian cities because they walk around in large groups wearing hi-vis.

Note that these are similar police presence rates despite probably higher crime in the US (I guess this would depend on offence). If you have higher crime, why wouldn't you have more police?

In contrast to what you say, crime clearance seems to be much higher in the Netherlands. The homicide clearance rate is around 80% compared to 50-65% in the US (depends on year). I believe clearance rates for burglary are also several times higher. So the laws are better enforced.

Colombia, since you brought it up, has a very similar police presence to all of the above. They should probably get more since they have 5x the murders of the US.

I do not really see the relevance of the attitude towards healthcare bill costs to this discussion. Your view of the US as extremely over policed compared to other societies seems misguided based on the data, and maybe driven by ideology since you bring up mostly irrelevant facts like hospital costs (these don't generally bankrupt the homeless in America because they usually don't pay anyway, since they have no money and just go to emergency room). The statistics I see on homelessness do not even indicate that America has a particular homelessness problem in comparison to the Netherlands, for example, in fact they are right next to one another on this list (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_...) with Australia being higher. I am sure you can quibble about how the statistics here are collected or what it means.

My thesis is simple. I think Americans commit more crimes because they are more criminal and it is more normalised in society. I think we have all the laws we need, but a lot of inertia preventing us from enforcing them. I think this is particularly true in certain urban areas. I think deploying hundreds of national guardsmen in the capitol is an interesting experiment which stands some chance of changing this a bit, and that it comes as minimal cost to civil liberties of law abiding citizens. Maybe it will work or maybe not, but it doesn't seem outrageous for a city with 200 murders per year in the richest country on earth. I think a more criminal population requires more intensive policing than a less criminal one.

[jacquesm]

I've spent close to 45 years out of 60 in NL, and I've interacted with the police a handful in that time, and usually I initiated the interaction (other than random alcohol checks). I've spent less than a year contiguously in the United States and have interacted with the police there on every visit, sometimes multiple times per visit. And I never initiated the contact.