>in UK, refusing to talk to police at first contact can be used against you

If you have read any of the anonymous blogs by those on the Job, they almost always tell you to either keep your mouth shut or say as little as possible ─ this was the wisdom imparted by 'Nightjack' before he got outed and had to delete his blog, subsequently going on to win accolades and the Orwell Prize.[1]

https://web.archive.org/web/20090426201221/http://nightjack....

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Horton_(blogger)

> In Europe in particular, police officers are not such an enemy.

Everywhere in the world the police are your enemy. They exist as the manifestation of a state's domestic violence.

In a democracy, the state shouldn't be your enemy either. The state should represent you, as should the police.

Shouldn't, but can't ever otherwise be.

I strongly reject that defeatist attitude.

By definition the police are the enemy of certain citizens.

But ideally only those who actively choose to have the police as their enemy.

So we should abolish police worldwide? Or is there maybe some nuanced angle there that the state might be operating on your behalf?

They're operating on your behalf when they're talking to other people.

When they're talking to you, they're your enemy.

I just don't think this 'enemy' rhetoric is all that accurate. Dealing with the police is like handling volatile high explosives; sometimes you have to do it, but they definitely have their purpose, but you'd be a fool to handle the interaction carelessly. Reducing that to merely 'enemy' conflates them with harmful things that serve no purpose at all. Like stupidity.

Seems a lot like a typical prisoners dilemma. Everyone treating each other hostile would give a worse overall outcome, but individually it seems like the best strategy.

I believe the reason for this is the idea that it's a massive waste of the public's time and resources for you to refuse to reveal evidence which could have stopped the prosecution well before it went to trial.

Yes, most of Europe/the World uses a "civil law" system which is much less adversarial than the U.S. & U.K.'s "common law" system.[1]

Fun fact: because of their French (and to a lesser degree, Spanish) influence, Louisiana's laws still follow a civil law system.

[1] https://www.apprendre-le-droit.fr/anglais-juridique/what-is-...

And yet Louisiana has one of the highest (if not the highest) rate of incarcerations per-100k in the country[0]. Perhaps ‘less adversarial’ doesn’t count for much when it comes to the business end of the law.

[0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_incar...

Since most European countries (civil law systems) don't have such high incarceration rates and considering the U.S. (common law system) has one of the highest I don't think it's fair to attribute Louisiana's high incarceration rate to the state's civil law system.

Louisiana is one of the poorest states in the country and has one of the highest contracted private prison quotas in the country (96% occupancy).[1] And until recently, Louisiana had some of the harshest mandatory minimum drug sentencing requirements.[2] They still have harsh mandatory minimums for other offenses. If you're looking for an explanation for Louisiana's criminal justice issues those factors are the far more likely explanations than the existence of a civil law system.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_Department_of_Publ...

[2] https://www.pewtrusts.org/-/media/assets/2018/03/pspp_louisi...

That sounds pretty dysfunctional to me, unless UK laws are so simple and clear cut that anyone can be expected to know and recall them.