I don't want to be the guy defending cops, but there is usually more than one officer in a squad car. There is no rule against a passenger being distracted.
I think higher numbers would lead to reform on its own. When you're scraping by at the bare minimum, a lot of stuff gets overlooked just to maintain numbers.
More cops would make it a lot easier to have better standards, and raise the average competency level.
I don't want to be the guy defending cops, but there is usually more than one officer in a squad car. There is no rule against a passenger being distracted.
Where I live it's strictly one cop per car unless they're training. That's why they pull people over in packs.
That's something I never got about cops in the US. Everywhere in Europe, there are always two cops per car, at least in the places I have been.
It's to create the illusion that there's more cops than there really are. Same reason behind take home cars.
My city of about 300k people has about 30 cops patrolling at any given time.
San Jose, California has some wild numbers perhaps like that.
Would you take more if you could? Assuming no reform, just more of the same.
I think higher numbers would lead to reform on its own. When you're scraping by at the bare minimum, a lot of stuff gets overlooked just to maintain numbers.
More cops would make it a lot easier to have better standards, and raise the average competency level.