The UK tried the experiment and gave up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_and_crime_commissioner

They were quite overpaid compared to other local government roles, and had very poor public visibility. WP says they were originally going to be called "sheriffs" but that was rejected as "too American". This does make it clear that it was an attempt to copy the US system, but I feel obliged to point out that the Scottish court system has had Sheriffs for longer than the US has existed.

Does any sheriff have better name recognition than the Sheriff of Nottingham, England?

It's democratic. You don't have much democracy if the population is only allowed to elect some of the powers. Americans elect their sheriffs as well.

Yes, it's democratic. But there's a reason we're not electing doctors and engineers.

The reason being that they're not part of the government?

Is that like how european's don't understand not to burn down cities over school employee pensions?

The French are just exercising their second amendment rights as originally envisioned by the founding fathers. They're doing America better than Americans!

The right to loot and burn buildings and threaten shopkeepers with rape

America was founded on vandalism and violence, and Americans used to be proud of that. What happened?

Decades of reckless deregulation and -er- corporatism, the inevitable corporate consolidation that that behavior encourged, and "Stranger Danger!"-type fearmongering... I reckon.

The previously-super-illegal pervasive domestic surveillance programs sure don't help things, either. No cost is too high to stop "terror" at home and abroad, amirite? :(

Exactly how the American slavers called the civil rights movement.