RE: Defunding Police not working out.
October 1, 2021 at 6:59 am
(This post was last modified: October 1, 2021 at 7:01 am by BrianSoddingBoru4.)
(October 1, 2021 at 5:36 am)Ten Wrote:(October 1, 2021 at 1:21 am)vulcanlogician Wrote: I'm all for solving poverty and/or foundational flaws in our criminal justice system. But that ain't gonna happen overnight. A good interim solution might even be necessary to make the changes you guys want to see come about.
And be careful not to underestimate the power of education. A police force full of social workers with 4 year degrees not only would serve greater benefit to communities, something like that may be instrumental in dismantling the meat grinder in the first place.
I like this idea. It's not like saying "just educate a bunch of rookies and they'll stay beat cops forever." Long enough in the system , they move up the ladder, yeah? So the police chiefs and lieutenants will become those with that education too.
I was watching a thing about this police psychologist who talked about the damaging cycles of building pressure that cops get into. Where they get a rush from working the streets and find trouble relating to things at home. So they work more, in this high threat environment every day, never getting down time because going home and doing domestic stuff feels like a depression of the rush from work. But if they don't get that down time, that high alert mindset builds and builds until they start having stress and trauma responses, making mistakes.
If police officers were educated to understand the psychology of those they deal with, it would extend to understanding what is going on inside themselves and recognizing what they themselves need. I think that cycle sounds addicting and not a lot of people have tools to break down what is going on inside nor having any solutions to fix it.
An adjunct to this might be to restrict cops to dealing with things that require cops, and have social workers deal with the rest. I don't really see the need to send out a car and two cops with guns, batons, tasers, pepper spray, and body armour to deal with a homeless person sleeping on a bench. Maybe it would be better to reserve them for things like active shooter situations and robberies in progress.
Boru
‘I can’t be having with this.’ - Esmeralda Weatherwax