Law enforcement agencies elsewhere, including in much of Canada and the United Kingdom, also profit from asset confiscation. ![]() policing has also drawn controversy over excessive fines, fees, and asset forfeiture, a widespread practice in which departments profit from seizing the assets of citizens, many of whom are never charged with a crime. One exception is Switzerland, where many municipalities finance local departments to augment regional forces. Australian and Western European cities generally don’t fund their own police forces. Critics say the result is that wealthier areas have better trained and equipped forces. In Mexico, as in the United States, states and cities fund police forces to supplement federal law enforcement. Canada’s military also supplies police with equipment. In the wake of protests over Floyd’s murder, the legislation that authorized the Pentagon’s spending for fiscal year 2021 prohibited transfers of certain equipment, including weaponized drones. For example, the Department of Defense transfers excess military equipment to police, which has raised concerns that American police have become overly militarized. municipalities and states can receive financial and material support from the federal government. Still, voters in Los Angeles County, California, approved a measure that requires the county to spend 10 percent of its general fund budget on alternatives to incarceration, such as youth outreach programs and mental health care. ![]() During the November 2020 elections, no jurisdictions had ballot initiatives to directly reduce police funding. cities found that, despite public pressure, more than half increased their spending on police for the 2021 fiscal year. To many people, this means diverting police funds to other services, including education, housing, mental health care, and community-led safety initiatives.Ī January 2021 analysis of the fifty largest U.S. Activists and lawmakers have recently called to “defund” U.S. Local governments fund most of this, though state and federal governments finance their own law enforcement agencies. The United States spends close to 1 percent of its GDP on police. At the low end, Finland spends less than 0.5 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP), while Hungary spends the most, at roughly 1.4 percent. Spending on law enforcement varies among similarly wealthy OECD members. Human Rights How do countries fund their police? The government later admitted that the reform was too ambitious, though it continues today. In one effort, the Netherlands consolidated its twenty-five police divisions into a national police force, but tensions remained between local and national officials. However, centralization can be a challenging process. “Centralized administration of policing makes it possible to set and enforce uniform standards throughout the police force,” says Paul Hirschfield, a sociology professor at Rutgers University who has studied policing in Europe, where most forces are centralized.Ī recent wave of legislation at the state level has helped standardize U.S. Many experts argue that standardizing training, oversight, and disciplinary procedures through a central authority, such as a state’s attorney general, could help to address issues in U.S. ![]() Will Abe’s Legacy Be Constitutional Revision?
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