I kind of assumed that the US is uniquely bad at solving crime, but it is still shocking.
https://www.criminallegalnews.org/news/2018/feb/16/us-murder-clearance-rates-among-lowest-world/I don’t even trust the cops to adopt any kind of metrics or data based solutions because we only have to look as far as the schoolcraft recording to see what happens when mayors-commanders-cops want to play with stats.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_SchoolcraftI don’t know how to fix it and I don’t know how to disentangle it from our gun culture because it is what attracts a lot of gun nuts to the profession and it is what makes gun nuts paranoid freaks that shoot dogs and kids and random people and the sense of absolute power and victim hood that pervades the profession makes it very easy for people to justify the cruelty and indifference they have for the people they “serve.”
I agree that police unions are a part of this problem, but it is much more than that. I think if we had fewer cops and more mental health crisis response units, and a better welfare state we would have some better outcomes and less crime. I also think undoing the gun culture or doing even modest reforms like mental health crisis teams or housing the homeless are almost complete non starters in this America.
As to why our cops can’t solve crimes compared to European countries I would like others ideas as well.