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US probably has better law enforcers, but as a whole, Europe has better law enforcement. This is because they have more cops than US, but less crime. Because of this, when American cops must heavily prioritize their efforts, European cops are under much less pressure, and can afford to spend their time on investigating and prosecuting much more trivial offenses. The result of this is that all crime is at risk of being prosecuted; shoplifters know that if they get caught, they face jail, and so do people who do drugs (yes, simple possession is illegal and heavily enforced in huge swaths of Europe). This makes people respect law much more, which feeds the virtuous cycle of less crime -> more time to enforce the law -> more respect for law -> less crime.
On the other hand, the gypsies seem to violate the law with significantly more impunity than underclass Americans and that's despite there being 1/3 more cops.
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America and the EU spend similar shares of GDP on law enforcement we just spend a much larger share on prisons than the EU does.
Gross spending aside, the US has 2.4 cops per 1,000 citizens while the EU averages 3.3. So they have about a third more cops per person than the US does.
The EU is also roughly half the size of the US; this means that there are significantly more cops per square mile, and cops are far more effective when they don't need to travel an hour one way to respond to a call.
I really doubt that has much to do with it, since crime tends to concentrate in high-population areas.
For one obvious counter example, Canada's population density is 90% lower than the US, and they have 30% fewer cops than the US, yet crime rates are significantly lower. There are other factors involved too, obviously, but I don't think there is much evidence for the thesis that the need for police officers scales by area rather than population.
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