If you compare the standards to let’s say: Switzerland (2 years in the academy, the candidate must graduate with a diploma in policing. The first year is theoretical: mainly in the classroom learning about law, tactics and de-escalation. The second year is spent on the job in practical field training with a respective police force).
While police training in the US varies on state: but it’ll last up to 16-21 weeks (it’s pretty bad) before they’re sent on the streets, no wonder why you hear about cops resorting to violence first rather than a de-escalation. There’s an example from Norway where cops didn’t point their guns at a drunk guy, instead they laughed with him.
Both Norway & Switzerland DO NOT have qualified immunity for officers, meaning they are subjected to the same laws as every other citizen. But apparently the USA likes to consider cops above the law via qualified immunity (which is a reason why you barely hear an American cop being held accountable for their actions).
The responses are different: since US cops are like “GET DOWN!” or “DROP YOUR WEAPONS!” while Norwegian cops are like “Please, stop doing that” being said in a more pacifist tone that doesn’t evoke hostility (that’s an issue you hear from American cops, as they shoot first rather than trying to talk their way out).
Police in the US originated from slave-catching militias and bounty hunters and developed from there as a means of oppressing, controlling, and re-enslaving (through convict leasing and prison labor) black people after slavery formally ended. At no point has preserving the lives, dignity, or well being of these people been a priority of police forces. All of this gets extended to anyone considered “other” or marginal from the majority.
Prison labor is big business in the US today and acts as a way of reducing the power of labor. This depends on a steady stream of new inmates, so capital pressures legislators and police departments to pass harsher laws and policies and ignore deescalation.
I know nothing about Norway, but I urge you to research how your police treat immigrants, indigenous peoples, and anyone else considered “other” in your society, compared to the majority. it won’t be like American cops, but i wonder what you’ll find.
There are many syllabuses available about the history of police and prisons in the US. if you want a real answer, try some of the materials here: https://www.aaihs.org/prison-abolition-syllabus-2-0/
One of the things that made our prison system make sense as a machine for me was the explicit carve out in the 13th Amendment:
Emphasis mine. If you’re on the outside looking in, and you don’t understand why the US prison/LE system is the way that it is, it’s because we never actually abolished slavery. We just gave it justification and some window dressing.
And to be clear, I don’t agree with any of it. But it is a thing that bears mentioning in the context of law and justice in the US.
This doesn’t really answer the question of why US police training can be as short as four months.
Also European police forces (and London Metropolitan, which was the template to many police forces around the world) were primarily to prevent theft and beat organized labour. It’s all tool of class war, and it’s not uniquely American.
Without any facts to back this up: I would assume the barrier to entry is so low because, without it, no one with any amount of intelligence or empathy would apply.