The American people are supportive of increased police accountability. This is a great opportunity for us to recast policing in a more sensible way, but they march with slogans like "Abolish the Police" and "Defund the Police" slogans that put us on the defensive and always include a "not really" caveat.
Rethink, Reinvent, Re-imagine the Police - that is what they should be saying. And we should. After all, why send the police out to deal with a mentally ill guy walking in circles talking to himself. Send mental health counselors. The police turn a mental health crisis into a crime by demanding order -
So demilitarize the police, take money spent on equipment that belongs in the military and reduce the number of officers so that we increase the social workers and counselors who should be dispatched to the calls. 911 operators are smart enough, they could triage.
This is a heartbreaking documentary if you've never seen it - https://www.pbs.org/... where we can see how the lack of school funding fuels the school-to-prison pipeline for students that mostly just need a better understanding. It's not even only applicable to special education, but all levels of education and incomes. It's tragic.
School funding for handling crisis management and the well being of students is basically gone, they just call the police over trivial things that could've been managed with a small amount of preventative care.
Once those kids are in the system, all that money that could've been spent on preventative care is now quadrupled or more as they get funneled into our prisons over and over.
MarvelMouse 🐭
: It's the performative aspect of the left that drives me nuts - that values the appearance of being radical over the reality of winning radical reform.
I'm just tired of the spoiled tantrums. Now is -not- the time to be crowing about putting corporate dems in their place, or be knocking any already through their primary candidates....
ty for saying this, I was beginning to wonder if I was the only one who didn't want to abolish the police. Reading things like "We can solve murders with teams of online sleuths, we don't need the police!" has made me wonder if I'm actually conservative. They need huge reforms, and funding priorities HAVE to change but getting rid of police all together is
The police do a terrible job of fighting crime. Only 46% of violent crime cases were cleared and only 19% of property crime cases were cleared in 2017.
But we ask police to deal with school discipline, mental health crises, family crises, and so much more that is about order. So they focus on order themselves, not on the law and fighting crime.
Bisquius
: Yes, unfortunately that person also advocates for abolition as the slogan - which is polarizing and will make winning the reforms needed harder.
Thank you. I've been afraid to say this, but I have family/friends who are police, and the answer is probably to give them MORE resources, not less. This isn't about what happened to George Floyd. That's racism. Period. No amount of money is going to fix that. But day to day, mistakes get made because they departments are understaffed, overworked,
strained to the point of not being at their best. I live somewhere where there aren't a lot of cops, and it's not ideal. The ones we have don't tend to do much of anything proactive or useful. And the lack of a police force means a lot of otherwise non-violent people have a very fearful and quick triggered attitude towards anything they think
"might" be threatening. I don't think fewer cops is the answer. Better cops, more support, better training, better policies, body and car cams, and outside accountability are the answer.
or, we could re-make society so that the motivation and ability to take advantage of others is gone, and the reason to fear that is gone, and THEN we don't need police. But I don't see THAT happening.
My mom just sent me this article because we were trying to understand what they meant exactly by "defund the police". I do think they need a better way to phrase it. Listen: Would Defunding the Police Make Us Safer?
I can make a long list of reforms for police. from seeing it on the inside. and our violent crime solve rate is more than 47. every murder we've had in 12 years has been solved. but we also don't get but 3-5 murders a year.
There is so much willful misinterpretation of “black lives matte,” I don’t think that clearer messaging is going to make a huge difference. At least “defund the police” and “abolish the police” starts a conversation.
I wouldn't disagree with a dismantling of the system and rebuild. and national accreditation required which would include the policies that have been posted by Cajsa before and many other policies. having national organizations like the national sheriff's association and stuff on board with these changes
yes to this. It does seem like the problems are systemic at this point, and hard to address one piece at a time. And we haven't got anymore time to wait for them to get fixed. We've waited way too long already. Dismantling makes sense in that regard. But what does the interim look like? How do you accomplish that in the real world.
The American people are supportive of increased police accountability. This is a great opportunity for us to recast policing in a more sensible way, but they march with slogans like "Abolish the Police" and "Defund the Police" slogans that put us on the defensive and always include a "not really" caveat.