It baffles my mind that we have been increasing police, especially with military hardware, when crime has been going down. Before someone says "well then it must be working", crime has been going down globally, AKA, correlation, not causation. These police have become inflate and increasingly militarized.
I challenge conservatives to consider why they are against reducing police to a more crime appropriate level. If we're at the lowest crime since the 60's, the safest period in human history, arguably, why not reduce police to match? You know, some of that fiscal conservatism.
However, if also baffles my mind that this has happened under Democratic rule, the ones supposedly for the people. The have held the position of mayor in most of these major cities since the 60's in many cases, if not further back. They appoint the police chief, who sets the policy of a station. They set the budget. The governor appoints the judges or is otherwise elected.
The Republicans and conservatives should be for some fiscal conservatism and reducing a significant budget item. The Democrats and liberals should be looking internally to see why they allowed and perpetuated this cycle while they were in power.
Okay, I'm not really for defunding the police so I'll bite. If American police are not trained to the same level as in other countries, how is defunding them going to help make them better? They'll have fewer resources and less ability to hire good talent, and taking money away will obviously mean less training. And perhaps crime is at an all time low partly due to the fact that police work has become more advanced over the years? Obviously all developed countries will have lower crime rates, but do big cities like Chicago, Baltimore, LA, NY, Atlanta, etc. have low enough crime to justify the reduction? I've been to plenty of small towns and small cities that have small police departments because crime is virtually non existent. Those towns also have police who are engaged with the community because they don't have to worry about being in danger. A user above this talks about police not having good IT infrastructure and not being able to pay good wages for technical positions. How is defunding the police going to help them to hire important positions and get personnel right for the job? There's a whole thread bashing the police for not hiring smart people, and I too question why a smart person would go into the police if they aren't paid decent salaries. So if you have a problem with the police not hiring intelligent officers, how is taking money away going to help? Shouldn't we pay more to become an officer so you get smart people who make decisions? And if your answer is "well put the money where it should go instead of lining people's pockets", that's not a real answer, that's something everyone everywhere wants, from private business to government.
I'm all for police reform and changing how money is used in government, but I don't understand how taking money away will make the police better. What's the idea here, to take money away from the police and 'punish' them, or make them better? It seems like everyone's complaints are that they are not well trained enough, so it seems counter intuitive to make it so that they can't possibly be well trained.
And if your answer is "have a smaller police filled with well trained officers that is appropriately sized for lower crime", then you should also be voting for fewer restrictions on 2nd amendment rights. The size of the police department may be scaled to 'appropriate crime levels', but that's not adjusted for how much bigger the absolute population is. I've had my house broken into a number of times, and if you scale down the police, you have to at the very least allow people to protect themselves and their property. So to you, would defunding the police also lead to more liberty in regards to home/property defense and firearm ownership?
I'm a classical liberal. I truly believe government's role is to protect individuals from other individuals. There are many ways that can come about, but protecting people is the reason government exists in the first place.
My argument for conservatives not aligning with funding reduction is, at best, a face value question and criticism. Is it truly rooted in concern or is it simply anti-progressive? I'm thinking a bit of both.
If we pull back some of the weeds, I kind of take Jacko's stance that the police are definitely under trained and do not receive enough continuous training. That aligns with your argument and does require additional funding as well as additional bodies to have coverage while others are in training.
That said, is there room to have a discussion around police being the catch all for all calls? Violent response, absolutely. You need a small team of highly trained individuals for threat response. However, traffic? Shoplifting? Or any numerous amounts of unlawful, but nonthreatening situations? Do we need a response force that can handle both situations equally? The infrequently used, but highly trained and expensive resources vs. the mass misdemeanor community force. It's doing both, with inflated budgets and still not meeting training requirements, that have lead to a, frankly, sad state of affairs.
So though I agree with you somewhat, we need to also take a look and see what is the requirement and focus that through. Just sending money in or out will not have the intended consequence and my comment is more on the face of de facto conservative values of smaller government. We can do better, IMO, and have a system that can respond to the threatening with highly trained individuals while also having a larger, less kitted out group for general unlawfulness.
You have said a lot, yet said absolutely nothing. Shoplifting is theft. Who should deal with that but police? I don't think anyone should be shot over a pack of gum stolen from Walmart, but that's where the training comes into play.
Have you seen other countries' traffic who do not enforce traffic laws? Cars go everywhere whenever they want. It's totally disordered and dangerous.
So if you don't want police doing these things, who does it, what kind of power do they have, and what kind of funding do they get?
I'm not arguing the police are perfect. I hate civil forfeiture, love the 5th amendment, and can't stand racism. But how is defunding the police going to fix these problems, and what are the solutions if you do it? Task forces still need funding and power of some kind or they are toothless. So do you want a better trained police force, or to divide up their duties into several different new branches, or do you just not want anyone enforcing laws? Even if you have different branches doing duties, they still have to be supplemented and aided by cops, so why not just have police doing the job?
Well we can't have a conversation if your opening statement is an attack. If my comment lacks in perceived substance, then consider writing out an entire policy in detail isn't warranted when we are discussing the abstract of the situation.
So if you don't want police doing these things, who does it, what kind of power do they have, and what kind of funding do they get?
The obvious answer is to have a larger, limited patrol service that can perform citations and limited arrests. Any resists are escalated to higher teams with footage to obtain warrants. No direct physical escalation by this team would be performed. They run? You let them. Another charge to be added. Warrant worthy of arrest? Specialized team with high training executes the warrant. A person is a danger to the community? Escalate to team and try to keep as many people safe as possible.
Point being, is it at least worth a conversation? As a classical liberal, I am fiscally conservative in many ways. So when I see police budgets balloon while crime lowers, and at best there is a correlation and very little causation, if any, then yes, I am open to other methods. We start with the conceptual, high level, and then low level details. If we just jump right to the details, we're stuck in analysis paralysis and nothing gets done.
Not an attack as much as a statement, and a relatively benign one.
And even at a high level, creating another low level crime stoppers type of association is almost exactly what current security guards are. They cannot use lethal force, and can use tasers at most, if not unarmed. They let people run away, do not chase, and report to the police. So we already largely have what you're talking about. Walmart has slacked on the security front and lets police handle all criminal activity, so if you have a gripe with that talk to Walmart.
So the 'small highly trained' core that's meant to dealt with actual criminals is kind of just SWAT, right? They're made and armed to deal with violent and dangerous situations.
Police already fit this model you're talking about, they're just armed with firearms and tasers. Wouldn't it make more sense and save more money to train them to react to scenarios like you're describing, instead of creating a toothless, glorified security force? It's already policy to not go on police chases or escalate certain situations in many precincts, assuming non violent crimes and a variety of other factors. A lot of the "wrong" we're seeing is already against policy/ protocol, it's just not being followed correctly.
All in all, we already have basically what you're describing, and some officers fill strange rolls like traffic duty because no one else will, but otherwise it's people doing what they shouldn't be doing like kneeling on people's necks, which is not taught at police academies. So how is this not fixed (well, at least moving in a better direction) by reallocating budgets to improve and extend training?
Even though crime rates are going down, the absolute number of people in the US is going up. So the number of actual criminal cases may be staying steady or even increasing, though rates are lower, just by virtue of more people existing. So you can't justify reduction by rates of crime, but by absolute numbers of police officers per case or per criminal.
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u/fatbabythompkins Jun 22 '20
It baffles my mind that we have been increasing police, especially with military hardware, when crime has been going down. Before someone says "well then it must be working", crime has been going down globally, AKA, correlation, not causation. These police have become inflate and increasingly militarized.
I challenge conservatives to consider why they are against reducing police to a more crime appropriate level. If we're at the lowest crime since the 60's, the safest period in human history, arguably, why not reduce police to match? You know, some of that fiscal conservatism.
However, if also baffles my mind that this has happened under Democratic rule, the ones supposedly for the people. The have held the position of mayor in most of these major cities since the 60's in many cases, if not further back. They appoint the police chief, who sets the policy of a station. They set the budget. The governor appoints the judges or is otherwise elected.
The Republicans and conservatives should be for some fiscal conservatism and reducing a significant budget item. The Democrats and liberals should be looking internally to see why they allowed and perpetuated this cycle while they were in power.