Comment by ericmay

> US lacks some sort of Federal "inspectorate of police"

I don't think this is true, or at least it's not entirely true.

Various states and law enforcement agencies have an office of the inspector general which at least should provide some oversight. We also have the courts and individual officers and agencies can be sued in the court of law which also provides a means of oversight. You seem to be suggesting that everything is corrupt, corrupt local authorities, corrupt feds captured by the party. I think that level of perceived corruption is not reflected in operational reality.

Some states or local police organizations do in fact look at past police records for applicants. There's a bit of variation here, but it's probably a bit better organized than, say the EU where outside of other bureaucratic hurdles I don't believe there is any real way to stop some German citizen who should be banned from being a police officer from moving to Estonia and being a police officer. Though perhaps I'm wrong and there is an EU-wide database that all countries and their police forces use?

I know the UK isn't in the EU, but I just bring that up as I think it may be a bit closer of an example.