Why would you need a quasi-official sanctioning body for a profession that should be sanctioned by the federal government or state in the first place? Is this yet again a case of Americanism that the rest of the world does just not understand?
I’m not American, but yes, it’s a specific Americanism — in that American police regulation happens at the state level, and the federal government doesn’t really get a say in it, and so (as far as I understand) cannot impose such a sanctioning body as a part of federal policy.
(The FBI, in its role of being external federal auditors for police corruption/malfeasance — but with no power over police departments, only the power to charge individual officers with federal criminal acts if that applies — is essentially the best the federal government can do.)
But if there just happened to be a private-corporation licensing body operating in multiple states (and thus performing “interstate commerce”), which police officers in those states were already members of… well, then the federal government would be perfectly within its rights to regulate that corporation! As long as they kept it at arm’s length, and didn’t attempt to nationalize it.
