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

[Piddy]

31 minutes ago, enigma32 said:

No, that is NOT the story here. Camden found that their policing costs were too high. After they disbanded their force, they started anew keeping the cost per officer lower so that they were then able to hire more officers than before. The reduced the costs significantly and were thus able to hire a significantly higher amount of officers. A new mission statement is nigh useless and if you think that a new mission statement is more significant than hiring a ton of new cops, then i don't know what else I can tell you that you'll be able to understand.

https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/local/protests/stopping-systemic-racism-in-police-departments-protests/65-c8f377a4-c2d4-4659-86e0-3fd13ec3dbc2

I'm afraid that is (a new mindset) the story here, but you continue to ignore it.  So again, to just say all they did was hire a few more cops is about as misleading as you can get.  It was all about a new mindset and concentrating on community policing etc.. 

They took a holistic approach and started over with things such as bias training and the sanctity of life being paramount along with getting to know the people by knocking on doors etc..  

Here's the Chief in his own words.

"Camden County Officers continually undergo implicit bias training. They revamped the department’s “Use of Force” policy.The sanctity of life is paramount,” Capt. James explained. “Our use of force policy says we use the minimal amount of force to obtain our law enforcement objectives.

In less than 10 years the department went from more than 60 excessive force complaints down to just three. This decrease in complaints has helped in other areas.  We’ve dropped crime to a record low. A 40 percent low. It’s the lowest it’s been in 50 years.

Capt. James believes that the basis of their department, protecting the “sanctity of life first” is a great starting point for any police force."

So in this case,  I choose to believe the Police Chief. 😉

Edited June 30, 2020 by Piddy

[Ellener]

1 hour ago, enigma32 said:

if you think that a new mission statement is more significant than hiring a ton of new cops,

Its a mission statement in action, rebuilding the whole culture. I understand there was a massive 'meet the community' initiative. Saying that I still think less police and decriminalisation is better than policing every little thing for quality of life. People need to police themselves and be invested in their own communities.

 

[schlumpy]

On 6/23/2020 at 7:08 PM, Ellener said:

Social workers work alongside a number of other professionals to keep people safe in all segments of society.

Emergency services are not social services. I understand that but they sit idly by as the building burns or more people die until the police secure the area. Why would it be any different with a social worker?

[preraph]

Cost to hire police goes up where are there have been police killings. Since the ambush of the police officers in Dallas 4 years ago that killed five during the BLM protest, we had a lot of officers leaving to go to other departments and a lot fewer applying for Police academy. Therefore we had to increase funding significantly to pay police more to work here in Dallas. At the time, data was released showing increased crime and especially increased response rates we're police were simply never able to get to a lot of calls. We also lost our police chief after the ambush even though he did a remarkable job handling it and was a good leader as far as community policing and making progress. That person was unfortunately replaced by someone from Chicago what you would think would be reason enough not hire them. 

 

So the cost of having police stay in your town is about to go up if you are allowing violent protests there and police killings are being tacitly approved. 

[Ellener]

3 hours ago, preraph said:

the ambush of the police officers in Dallas 4 years ago that killed five during the BLM protest

That wasn't BLM, it was an organisation called Next Generation Action Network, and the man who did the murders was a former veteran acting alone; then he was killed by police with a robot bomb. 

4 hours ago, schlumpy said:

Emergency services are not social services. I understand that but they sit idly by as the building burns or more people die until the police secure the area. Why would it be any different with a social worker?

It would be the appropriate services responding I imagine. There would be no need for a social worker at a burning building? but might be a lot of use if someone's threatening to burn a building? and even more use helping people in poverty or distress way before it gets to that point by investing in community services and facilities.

Moderator's note: Wikipedia, as of this edit, has compiled in depth background information of the event and individual committing the atrocities with citations regarding the 2016 killing of Dallas police officers by Micah Xavier Johnson. Comments suggesting that this individual acted upon the behest of a particular political organization are unsupported and conjecture, and off-topic for this thread.

[Paul]

All,

Note that due to a bug we reported to our developers, it is not presently appearing that I have made an edit to @Ellener's post above. The fix will be put in place in our next upgrade, coming soon. I added the following to the end of her post:

Moderator's note: Wikipedia, as of this edit, has compiled in depth background information of the event and individual committing the atrocities with citations regarding the 2016 killing of Dallas police officers by Micah Xavier Johnson. Comments suggesting that this individual acted upon the behest of a particular political organization are unsupported and conjecture, and off-topic for this thread.

Best,
Paul

[CAPSLOCK BANDIT]

Anyone who has ever had to defend themselves or their property will understand the necessity of the police.. They will also understand the force required by police...

I used to work in group homes, I've had to defend myself from a knife attack, amongst other physical altercations... I'm not able to use chokes in those scenarios, so the holds/positions I would have to put the individual in is actually worse than a choke, but i'm not directly obstructing their airway... Like for example, if you are taller than somebody and you grab their wrists, raise them above their head and cross them, you can lift the person up and literally choke them unconscious, even kill them in some circumstances, so with that hold inparticular, we are barred from using it against individuals who are shorter than us.

The point is, a choke hold is a very effective means of controlling the body, not just one body, but all bodies, there isn't a specific choke hold that you cant use against this person or that person for this or that reason, its very straight forward and can be applied generally safely across the board... Case of George Floyd is an outlier, has basically nothing to do with chokeholds, he knelt on the guys neck for almost 10 minutes, like what did he think was going to happen... Choke hold should be deployed for like half a minute tops, if you get somebody in a good hold you can choke them out almost instantly, so 30 seconds is a lot of time.

Without the means to use a choke hold, police are going to have to defer to their weapons more to control situations, so the entire idea is actually counter intuitive to solving police violence, its in fact going to make it much worse... Like I cant stress enough the difficulty of having to control the body without a choke hold, the difference is very real.

[carhill]

We have minimal police presence, an elected sheriff and a few deputies, for a ~5000 square mile county and we're all open carry pistol/rifle and crime is pretty much non-extant so the minimal funding the sheriff gets is worth it IMO for the few emergencies which do inevitably occur. They do have pretty new vehicles, mostly pickups/SUV's and the Fed gave them a MRAP and some M16's back during Obama's presidency.

Here's some content, apparently today, from Alexandra Cortez in New York...

Some history of Cortez' stance, this from before the primary she handily won....

https://deneenborelli.com/2020/06/rep-ocasio-cortez-calls-for-defunding-nyc-police/