POLICE VIOLENCE

Police violence in Sweden and the United States

In society, the police should be a safe place for the people. The organization is there to protect people in need. However, sometimes many police officers can get out of hand when arresting people. An example of this is the George Floyd incident, which later escalated into hundreds of worldwide protests. This makes people wonder whether the police have the right to use excessive force, and is it just a matter of people acting in the wrong way or about their ethnic background? Is police violence based on racism in Sweden and the US or are there other reasons why?

I don't think it's entirely about racism but about how to prepare cops in a country. I assume that because the police training is too short in the US contrasted with the Swedish police training. The training is anything between 10 and 36 weeks depending on where you are in the country.

But in Sweden, the training includes five semesters of full-time studies and six- months of training in a police region. That means that a police officer trained under the Swedish government can handle both weapons and people much better than a police officer who received their training in the United States. That is one reason why hundreds of Americans die every year. While in Sweden an average of 15 people are shot per year and over the past 20 years, an average of 1 person has died. So maybe if George Floyd lived in Sweden, he would get home safely and without any troubles.

The US decision to use excessive violence and ignore it has led to violent protests that led the people to turn against the police. Perhaps people will lose their trust in the police just because they're scared of getting themselves hurt or someone they care about. You could say that it’s a norm to be afraid of the American police, and it’s no wonder people are uncomfortable with the police. This is a general picture of it because in every country there are great police officers and not so great ones and Sweden is no exception. However the Swedish government has chosen not to give police officers the right to use excessive force if not necessary. And I personally assume that the way Sweden handles situations like this is much better, because as a sweddish citizen I feel safe around the police but I don’t think that the american police could make me feel safe especially after everything that i hear in the media about it.

In Sweden, the police try to avoid the use of weapons and it does not matter who the person is. But the United States has a long history with African-Americans. In a large country like the United States, there are probably nationalists who don't think African-Americans belong there. Even though society says it's equal, you can see that a black individual in the U.S. doesn't have the same opportunities as a white individual. That makes it easier for African-Americans to commit more crimes in order to get money. That leads to more contact with the police which makes African Americans the police's targets.

Sweden is a considerably smaller country and has no long history with Africans and other ethnic groups, so it will be easier for the country's population to accept people from different ethnic backgrounds. However, this does not mean that racism or excessive force does not exist in Sweden, but compared to the US, it is much less.