Why is American police so powerful?

The latest budget proposal for the city of Los Angeles triggered a wave of anger in social media. Mayor Eric Garcetti wanted to equip the police with more funds and to give $1.8 billion from the total budget of US$5.4 billion (U.S.) (U.S.) compared to all other sectors. By comparison: the housing sector and community investments receive less than $82m.

Still the budget has not been approved, and Garcetti has promised to provide part of the money funds to police for nearby American communities and other ethnicities, but police spending remains extraordinary, however. Well, this is a common practice everywhere, not just in Los Angeles.

Police funding is the result of loon activities that peaked in the 1990s, says Stuart Schroeder, sociologist at Johns Hopkins University.

“The International Association of Police Leaders not only tried to shape the Law on Combating Crime, but it tried to force politicians to account for police rather than the opposite”, writes Schroeder in a study published last year for the American police.

Seen by lower crime, according to Schroeder, police work in many regions could be reduced. But, police “save their resources instead of releasing the” capacities.

The police are no longer willing to release their profits and put their own interests ahead of its true mission, fighting crime. ”

There is a movement in the United States that requires cutting police vehicles and its complete removal. The discussion has won a new dynamic these days. Ralikh Hayes, co-founder of the organisation “Organisation Black”, an activist group at Baltimore in the eastern state of Maryland, requires that funds provided for police regions be used elsewhere. He says cities need to finance creative processes, experiment with other ideas and think about how to achieve security. They have to invest in things that people need. Because we know that crime is normally caused by what people don't possess resources they need. ”

Police try to preserve the status quo with another strategy. It allows access to evidence and data only inside.

The data collection, to investigate incidents between police and civilians, is difficult”, says Alyasah Sewell, sociologist at Emory University in Atlanta. “Even in police reports, we rely on what the police tell us, what happened. ”

When a white policeman has again killed a colored person, this policeman is appointed by colleagues, politicians, and opinion often as “bad appled” (broken apple), which means this police officer will see as an isolated case. Even the national security adviser Robert O'Brien used this in an interview with CNN television when he spoke of the violent death of an American named George Floyd.

I don't think there's institutional racism”, O'Brien said. I think 99.9 percent of the cops are extraordinary Americans, but there's, of course, bad cars.

Sociologist Alyasah Sewell does not see enough focus on special cops.

“A bad cop is like a weed”, she says. It creates networks that support it. You have to wait half the apple to get to the seed. And if this seed is broken it infects the rest of the apple. ”

The researcher for structural racism points out that the same story continues with police authorities today.

You must go back to the time of slavery. Former slave patrols are the ancestors of the police today. Workers classify colored people still as criminals because of their appearance. If you consider anyone to be a criminal, then you give yourself the right to remove him from his company. ”

Police violence in the United States is not only tolerated, the US president himself indirectly promotes it. At the beginning of the week, Trump accused the governors that their response to continued protests is weak: “if you don't dominate, this is a wasted time; then you look like a bunch of idiots. You must dominate” / DW/