"Defunding" or "disbanding" police departments: Revisiting and redefining the role of policing in society

[TheStickisback]

Really do even do reform we have to revisit several supreme court cases that basically say police don't have to protect citizens

[Ellener]

1 hour ago, gaius said:

 

Sending unarmed women out late at night in bad neighborhoods to deal with mentally ill and drugged out people is the worst idea I've heard in a long time. And I've heard some real stinkers.

You are not listening. I could deal with most situations that law enforcement face even now without incident. I'm sorry about your instructor's niece.

[gaius]

10 hours ago, lana-banana said:

I personally see no need for an armed officer to respond to the following:

• Drug overdose --- someone under the influence does NOT need to be thinking about law enforcement!
• Mental health crisis --- you really think guns will help someone hearing voices?

 

You think not having a gun is going to help whoever's dealing with this whacko when the voices start telling them this social worker is really a demon? 

I like this whole attitude that drugged out and mentally ill people are nothing to worry about and you never need force to get them under control or anything. That's going to work out well I'm sure.

[gaius]

4 minutes ago, Ellener said:

You are not listening. I could deal with most situations that law enforcement face even now without incident. I'm sorry about your instructor's niece.

Yeah, in England, in a building you said. That's a little different than wandering out into the night in some of these places over here.

I heard you Ellener and you're not talking about the same thing.

[TheStickisback]

Just now, gaius said:

You think not having a gun is going to help whoever's dealing with this whacko when the voices start telling them this social worker is really a demon? 

I like this whole attitude that drugged out and mentally ill people are nothing to worry about and you never need force to get them under control or anything. That's going to work out well I'm sure.

Mental heath crisis is a case by case thing. From someone that works in the medical field if it reaches a certain point no amout of deescalation will defuse that situation and force has to be used

[gaius]

8 minutes ago, TheStickisback said:

Mental heath crisis is a case by case thing. From someone that works in the medical field if it reaches a certain point no amout of deescalation will defuse that situation and force has to be used

Exactly. And there's no real way to tell when someone calls in about some guy taking a dump in the lobby of McDonald's which kind of case it's going to be. Which is why we send muscular men with firearms to deal with it.

Social workers are apparently 80 something percent female, so unless we're just talking about rebranding the police as "social workers" it makes little sense. Unless @Ellener thinks she can wrestle some 300 pound guy to the ground and get him out of McDonald's and to the hospital without stepping in the turd pile he dropped before she got there.

Edited June 20, 2020 by gaius

[preraph]

The reality of the situation is that you can't diagnose someone on site as mentally ill. That takes time and training and for the person to sit down with you. 

Sure you may be able to pick someone out who's real obvious like someone who has taken off their pants and is standing in the middle of the street singing. But most are going to be pretty indistinguishable from a violent psychopath at first glance. So we will simply be endangering unarmed and untrained people who can't defend themselves. 

 

But that said, I know it would be a huge relief for the police not to have to answer those calls and have to deal with the mentally ill because they are unpredictable. As a whole it's said that they are less violent than the general population, but when they're bad, they're really bad. And you can't discount the fact that many people are both mentally ill and sociopathic or psychopathic or just violent people. Because they certainly are. In fact I would say the majority. 

 

Being mentally ill does not excuse your actions. And just because you get them help doesn't mean they'll take it. A lot of them cannot be helped, and I love the ones who can be helped with meds, 80 percent will not keep taking their meds and follow doctor's orders and stay in therapy if prescribed. That's been that way for decades. 

 

people who are prescribed psychotropic drugs mostly don't take them right or stay on them, so it's not like we can just treat them and release them. At some point they're going to have to be locked up if they're violent or causing problems or are a sex offender. 

 

but yeah I think the police would be hugely relieved not to have to take the call that it's obvious someone is mentally ill because of they're running around naked or directing traffic or talking to themselves wow causing some other problem. I just don't see how you're going to take a person like that into custody without a cop, though. and just being understanding isn't going to make their behavior stop. 

 

Everyone knows mental illness needs to be addressed. It isn't like it hasn't been tried in the past. Usually it ends up with the mental institutions having to be closed down because they're so woefully underfunded and become uninhabitable.

 

 

Edited June 20, 2020 by preraph

[TheStickisback]

Few people have really dealt with someone in a real psychotic episode. A social worker really isn't equipped to handle that or even the average nurse unless they have had experience in mental health. Hell try being a nurse and having to give someone like that a shot of haldol or ativan

[preraph]

You also can assume that social workers don't have their own problems. One I know very well who is no longer doing it thank goodness is herself mentally ill and incompetent at times. She got interested in getting that degree when she herself was in therapy. 

 

She would no more be qualified to handle one of those people than anyone else.

[preraph]

1 minute ago, TheStickisback said:

Few people have really dealt with someone in a real psychotic episode. A social worker really isn't equipped to handle that or even the average nurse unless they have had experience in mental health. Hell try being a nurse and having to give someone like that a shot of haldol or ativan

Yeah, instead of a gun they would have to be carrying a needle full of tranquilizer. and that is assuming they could even get close to him because a lot of them run. Do you think we could stand by and watch them shot at with a tranquilizer rifle like they do at the animal conservation Parks when they need to take the animal into the vet? 

 

I think the most common injury they would get from trying to approach them is being hit by traffic because a lot of them end up in traffic and that's why people call them. 

[lana-banana]

Do people think mental health crises only happen in the US? I have been overseas, lived in the Middle East and seen how the local authorities handle mental health crises in public. Believe it or not, you can help people without pointing guns at them! Somehow everywhere else in the world manages it!

[sothereiwas]

1 hour ago, lana-banana said:

Do people think mental health crises only happen in the US? I have been overseas, lived in the Middle East and seen how the local authorities handle mental health crises in public. Believe it or not, you can help people without pointing guns at them! Somehow everywhere else in the world manages it!

One of the reasons the US has such a serious issue is that we, for whatever reason, found it fashionable to put a lot of institutions out of business and de-institutionalized a bunch of institutionalizable people.

[basil67]

@sothereiwas if someone is reported to be 'a danger to his or her self or others" are they not put on psych hold until they can stabilise? 

[sothereiwas]

23 minutes ago, basil67 said:

@sothereiwas if someone is reported to be 'a danger to his or her self or others" are they not put on psych hold until they can stabilise? 

I'm not an expert, but I believe there is a temporary evaluation if someone is deemed a danger to themselves. In CA the term is 5150 and the hold is up to 72 hours. However the capacity for long term involuntary commitment is not sufficient compared to the number who should be in permanent care. 

[thefooloftheyear]

3 hours ago, Ellener said:

You are not listening. I could deal with most situations that law enforcement face even now without incident.

You're joking, right??

An average drunken homeless guy could(and often do) easily over power the fittest of women without nothing but bodily strength...An average sober/angry/determined big and powerful man would do far worse and in a much shorter time span...

I never could really understand the thinking of women with regard to cops and guns, etc...Women are clearly exposed as weak targets by most rapists, thieves., batterers, etc...Why any woman would want to eliminate the capability to own a firearm to …..you know..."level the playing field" or take all the teeth out of the police department, when they are the one's usually dialing 911 after suffering the consequences of violent crime..is beyond any level of comprehension...

TFY

 

[preraph]

The value of the 5150 is if it's an adult it's the only way to make them even temporarily get assessed by mental health professionals. But usually they're not there long enough to actually do any good.  We would have to spend a lot of money on healthcare to be able to keep someone long enough to even access them and see if med works much less talk therapy. Someone could sure jump in and correct me but isn't three weeks about the most insurance will pay for being institutionalized? And of course that's if the person has insurance which is certainly not a given. 

 

The mental health issue would require really just about as big of a makeover and in this month is national healthcare. And the difference is no one really knows how to accomplish it to wear it really does any good much. You can hold the ones who aren't safe on the streets, and that is kind of what it comes down to you and that is just not that much different than jail. It's a big bad problem. 

[TheStickisback]

40 minutes ago, preraph said:

The value of the 5150 is if it's an adult it's the only way to make them even temporarily get assessed by mental health professionals. But usually they're not there long enough to actually do any good.  We would have to spend a lot of money on healthcare to be able to keep someone long enough to even access them and see if med works much less talk therapy. Someone could sure jump in and correct me but isn't three weeks about the most insurance will pay for being institutionalized? And of course that's if the person has insurance which is certainly not a given. 

 

The mental health issue would require really just about as big of a makeover and in this month is national healthcare. And the difference is no one really knows how to accomplish it to wear it really does any good much. You can hold the ones who aren't safe on the streets, and that is kind of what it comes down to you and that is just not that much different than jail. It's a big bad problem. 

Part of problem is states do a poor job of dealing with mental health. Then in the health care field in general very few are properly trained to handle mental health unless you have a job in a mental facility. Plus throw in instead of therapy shoving pills on a person instead of giving them skills to deal with life. Some need medication but not all of them and the side effects for some are bad so that's why some refuse. For example you have people you assume have Parkinson's but the reality is they took years of antipsychotics. 

[basil67]

1 hour ago, sothereiwas said:

I'm not an expert, but I believe there is a temporary evaluation if someone is deemed a danger to themselves. In CA the term is 5150 and the hold is up to 72 hours. However the capacity for long term involuntary commitment is not sufficient compared to the number who should be in permanent care. 

Indeed.  I would say that the problem is due to funding rather than fashion.  It's the same here.  People come begging for help with loved ones who are unstable and there's no beds.

[sothereiwas]

44 minutes ago, basil67 said:

Indeed.  I would say that the problem is due to funding rather than fashion.  It's the same here.  People come begging for help with loved ones who are unstable and there's no beds.

Here is what I was talking about:

Quote

 

The disappearance of long-term-care facilities and psychiatric beds has escalated over the past decade, sparked by a trend toward deinstitutionalization of psychiatric patients in the 1950s and '60s, says Dominic Sisti, director of the Scattergood Program for Applied Ethics of Behavioral Health Care at the University of Pennsylvania.

"State hospitals began to realize that individuals who were there probably could do well in the community," he tells Here & Now's Jeremy Hobson. "It was well-intended, but what I believe happened over the past 50 years is that there's been such an evaporation of psychiatric therapeutic spaces that now we lack a sufficient number of psychiatric beds."

 

 - /2017/11/30/567477160/how-the-loss-of-u-s-psychiatric-hospitals-led-to-a-mental-health-crisis

[basil67]

Yes exactly.  Lack of funding for crisis beds. 

[preraph]

9 hours ago, basil67 said:

Indeed.  I would say that the problem is due to funding rather than fashion.  It's the same here.  People come begging for help with loved ones who are unstable and there's no beds.

Yes, there's no one to care for them, no place to keep them. But in the United States when we did have more places to keep them, it was just as bad as jail and so they mostly end up in jail if they're doing something to get arrested. Of course every family would like a nice home with staff to give them a comfortable place to live and be treated, but the cost for something like that has always been out of reach through taxpayer dollars because it's just too high. It's also not easy getting people to work in that environment. And it can be a nightmare being an inmate of even a nice mental facility because no one can monitor 24/7 and you're in there with a bunch of other people who are out of control. 

 

So it's been mostly left to families and jail if they're criminal. you know it's hard just to get people to work in nursing homes. the use people that are fresh out of prison and all sorts. add to that a guarantee that everyone is unmanageable mentally and violent to boot, and no one is going to want to do that.

Edited June 20, 2020 by preraph

[sothereiwas]

9 hours ago, basil67 said:

Yes exactly.  Lack of funding for crisis beds. 

It wasn't originally started due to lack of funding, it was some misguided concept that was trendy at the time, which said that these institutionalised people were being put upon by being institutionalised, and everyone would be better off if we could just put them out into the public and let them manage themselves. It may now be a funding issue, but that wasn't the genesis of the thing. 

[preraph]

To some naive citizens who just go along with things their parties advocate, things like this and letting criminals out of jail may seem altruistic, but in truth, prisons are very, very expensive.  For each inmate, it costs tens of thousands a year (Google cost per year to keep someone in prison and it has a state breakdown).   The cost per jail bed to build new prisons is estimated $60-100K per bed.  

http://www.justiceconcepts.com/construction.htm

If people really think their politicians, who have to manage budgets and always have a shortfall that prevents then from funding their pet projects, are really acting out of altruism, I'm afraid they are simply naive.  Prisons have been overcrowded for decades and they simply don't want to have to find a way to fund new ones.  And comes down to it, a lot of citizens wouldn't want their taxes that high either.  So it's a little of both.  With politicians, it's always about money.  They'd rather let criminals out and have homeless and mentally ill and veterans on the street than spend the money.  

 

Of course, this is all part of the overall police funding controversy since it is police who must spend time and resources dealing with these groups and then be criticized for doing so.  

[sothereiwas]

55 minutes ago, preraph said:

They'd rather let criminals out and have homeless and mentally ill and veterans on the street than spend the money.  

I'd like to abolish substance laws, and then we could plow some of the enforcement and prison savings into more useful things like treating the mentally ill and maybe straight up budget cuts. 

[preraph]

I'm okay with everything except hard drugs like heroin, meth, and crack.  I don't see making those legal.  They truly are associated with too much other criminal behavior and would create even more homeless.  Even now that pot is legal many places or just a misdemeanor in others, there's still a huge black market for it.  People used to think that would end, but it didn't.