Re:Louisiana prosecutors are using fake subpoenas to pressur...
by Maarten88 on Tuesday May 02, 2017 @07:02AM
(#14245409)
That can't be right. And it isn't. Maybe you mixed up imperial and metric units?
Amsterdam has 12.7k people per sq mi[1]. Not NY-dense, but certainly more dense than San Jose.
I am sure that Dutch police get longer and higher education than their US colleagues, on average. But more importantly, I think the culture in the police here is completely different, they attract a different type of character. In the US, using the "soft" approach is not popular with politicians and voters, so the police seems to have developed into an "army-light", attracting mostly "tough guys" who like the use of force.
Re:Louisiana prosecutors are using fake subpoenas to pressur...
by tobltobs on Tuesday May 02, 2017 @06:01AM
(#14245216)
Or maybe the difference is just that money goes into education instead of militarization of the police.
Re:Louisiana prosecutors are using fake subpoenas to pressur...
by grenoire on Tuesday May 02, 2017 @09:32AM
(#14246158)
The nominal ratios spent on education actually do not matter much with a basic comparison because it is not a metric of how efficient that money is used and if citizens get equal benefits from the spending. I am quite certain the Netherlands is better at govt. spending than the US.
New York City (#1) has 8.5 million people at a density of 27,012 people per square mile. In other words, NYC has over half of the population of all of The Netherlands and roughly 20 times the average density. I don't think you should assume that anything about policing strategy in The Netherlands can be applied to these fairly radically different environments.
Edit: I can't reply to the comment below this about education spending. Let's look at the data:
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.XPD.TOTL.GB.ZS
"Expenditure on education as % of total government expenditure (%)"
> Netherlands 12.1%
> United States 13.3%