The US has an order of magnitude more crime than Europe but is policed by roughly the same number of officers. That, justifiably or not, leads to short cuts where extrajudicial and unjust tactics are used to enforce compliance.
...how could this be justifiable?
Obviously the ideal solution is to 10x the capacity of the criminal justice system but nobody's paying for that.
Perhaps less people would see fascist, totalitarian overtones in law enforcement if some segments of the police wouldn't openly state this.