his upcoming birthday in july marks the first year that my son will have lived in canada longer than the us. today, we are visiting my parents in the states and he excitedly told me in conspiratorial whispers that he went shopping with grandma at the tj max and there was a police officer "just standing there doing nothing even tho there wasn't anything happening" and was like "wow the police really are everywhere in america, huh???" and i was glad that for him it is almost just a meme to him and not a lived reality
Before I moved to the Netherlands, I took a walk through a neighborhood in Massachusetts that is largely inhabited by nonwhite immigrants. There was no specific crime problem there above and beyond "teenagers exist." I saw something like eleven cop cars just prowling around side streets in the space of twenty minutes.
I think I saw cops just being present for no clear specific reason maybe three times in two years in inner city Leiden. Part of that is because they make a distinction here between cops and "handhaving", (literally "maintenance") people who work for the government and will sternly tell you not to litter but aren't armed and aren't gonna slam you to the ground, choke you out and arrest you for littering.
please do not @ me about the violence inherent in the system, this is not some sort of assertion that everything here is perfect and free of systemic racism or whatever