>> To fix the system we need the folks inside it to understand the system.

Nope. The American justice system does not control itself. It is bound by laws and codes of practice dictated to it by outsiders, those good-idea people who's entire understanding of law comes from a highschool history or civics class they barely remember. It is as bad as it is because the general public honestly want it that way. Rough and violent justice is baked into American culture as much as guns and alcohol.

>>Part of that is education.

I agree, but it isn't the people in the system that need an education. It is the voting public outside who need the better understanding.

> those good-idea people who's entire understanding of law comes from a highschool history or civics class they barely remember

Who are you referring to?

Every community meeting, every political rally, where crime is used as a wedge. Every pundit who says that person X is "soft" on crime and person Y is "hard" as if that makes any difference. Every idiot out there who wants drug dealers locked up for life yet is unable to address their own addition to prescriptions. Every armchair lawyer who will spend hours outlining how judges should rule on hypothetical cases, but has never spent a day inside an actual courtroom. Every idiot who thinks his speeding ticket as important as a murder trial. And every one of the to-be sovereign citizens at YouTube university. After than, then we go after the flat earthers.

> community meeting, every political rally, where crime is used as a wedge

Have you been to these? I have, in states red and blue. It's rarely a rah rah. Instead, people have complaints about specific categories of crimes, usually ones relevant to the community. The question is less locking people up than catching them. Policing. Sentencing is a separate system from policing.

>> Sentencing is a separate system from policing.

Again, not in reality. Absent unlimited resources, street-level police determine which crimes are "policed" based on the severity of associated punishments. Change the punishment for drug dealing from a prison sentence to a minor fine and police will all but stop hunting drug dealers. Start sentencing jaywalkers to prison time and you will see cops at every pedestrian crossing. Sentencing is the guide by which police determine which crimes the public most want to see policed.

I think a few things happened in 2020 that show that at least some of the general public are unhappy and want changes...

Hiring people from a sociology/social justice background would just mean the same abuses of power, but different targets.

Policing has gone in this direction in the UK, and now you have mothers being arrested in front of their children after “misgendering” someone online: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/i-stand-with-kate-scotto...

> St Albans Magistrates’ Court found her guilty, under the Communications Act (2003), of using a public communications network to “cause annoyance, inconvenience and anxiety”.

Fortunately, she eventually won on appeal and her conviction was overturned, but the process itself was the punishment.

Police need less power, not more sociology degrees.

Americans are normally the ones to myopically reduce the world's issues to their own, but sometimes the British are not to be bested!

I’m an American aware of how this idea has played out elsewhere.

That sounds more like a problem with the law than with the police.

Policing isn’t independent of the law or legal culture.

There’s also the entire issue of “non-criminal bias incidents”:

https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/opinion/columnists/5238...

The US has a fairly large political contingent that believes in retributive justice, not rehabilitative or restorative justice. In a lot of places the police have a culture of the "warrior mentality" and well-meaning new officers are either brought in line or driven out of the profession. This is compounded by the huge numbers of private and illegal/black market firearms on the street which make policing extremely dangerous. The combination reinforces the warrior and the retributive justice cultures alike.

Note I don’t believe policing is in even the top 25 most dangerous jobs in the USA. I’m not sure the “extremely “ dangerous applies when driving a truck or most construction jobs are more dangerous.

This is similar to the issue with statistics around shark attacks. Sure, policing overall is pretty safe because 99.9% of the time you're not trying to arrest an armed and dangerous suspect. Sharks are safe too because 99.9+% of the time people aren't even in the ocean where they might encounter sharks.

But if it's your job to go out into the ocean and interact with sharks face-to-face, those encounters are way more dangerous than the general statistics would have us believe. Same goes for police when they have to deal with an active shooter situation. That's what I mean by "extremely dangerous". Compared to Canada or most of Europe, the US has vastly more active shooter situations, and at least some of that can be attributed to the availability of firearms.