Defunding Police not working out.

[zwanzig]

There was a court case a few years ago where a department refused to hire a candidate because he scored too highly on an intelligence test. The department's argument was that candidates who are overqualified for the position or too intelligent are at greater odds to leave the department sooner rather than later, costing the department in terms of officer training gone to waste. The department won that case.

How would you respond to such arguments if you were advocating for higher educational standards for police officers?

I liked Boru's compromise where we stop sending cops at all to those situations where a gun isn't needed, focusing on social workers being trained and readily available instead. We'd need more social workers in that capacity but it'd be better I think to just keep police powered weaponry out of there altogether if it's not a situation that calls for such weaponry to be used.

Other than that, I don't know. I don't think looking for lower intelligence officers is a good goal to begin with. So, I'd maybe argue that they should stop putting grunts in a position of power and authority over regular citizens in often complex and emotionally taxing situations.

[Mermaid]

There was a court case a few years ago where a department refused to hire a candidate because he scored too highly on an intelligence test.  The department's argument was that candidates who are overqualified for the position or too intelligent are at greater odds to leave the department sooner rather than later, costing the department in terms of officer training gone to waste.  The department won that case.  

How would you respond to such arguments if you were advocating for higher educational standards for police officers?

I liked Boru's compromise where we stop sending cops at all to those situations where a gun isn't needed, focusing on social workers being trained and readily available instead. We'd need more social workers in that capacity but it'd be better I think to just keep police powered weaponry out of there altogether if it's not a situation that calls for such weaponry to be used.

Other than that, I don't know. I don't think looking for lower intelligence officers is a good goal to begin with. So, I'd maybe argue that they should stop putting grunts in a position of power and authority over regular citizens in often complex and emotionally taxing situations.

Pretty sure this is the intent of the whole poorly-named thing. Nobody wants to ABOLISH the police.

[vulcanlogician]

Don't mess with me!

Or I'll reach in my pants and pull out my big ... throbbing ... scary ... gun.

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[onlinebiker]

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

Your solution SOUNDS good....

But......


In the real world?


Cops will tell you - rightly so - that the most dangerous calls they have been on SEEMED like not much at all till things went sideways in a big way in a big hurry.

You are putting a SHITLOAD of pressure on dispatchers - who frequently have an incomplete, unclear view of the situation. This isn' t TV with a script you get to follow.

What WILL happen is your social workers will get sent into what turns out to be a rather lopsided firefight. 
Keep in mind - with budget restraints being what they are - when you take on MORE social workers - you are going to have that many less cops. When the shit hits the fan - you might not have enough armed cops to help out. Or you could send in more targets....errr... social workers....



It' s the advantage of all cops being armed.

[Angrboda]

It' s the advantage of all cops being armed.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

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

Your solution SOUNDS good....

But......


In the real world?


Cops will tell you - rightly so - that the most dangerous calls they have been on SEEMED like not much at all till things went sideways in a big way in a big hurry.

You are putting a SHITLOAD of pressure on dispatchers - who frequently have an incomplete, unclear view of the situation. This isn' t TV with a script you get to follow.

What WILL happen is your social workers will get sent into what turns out to be a rather lopsided firefight. 
Keep in mind - with budget restraints being what they are - when you take on MORE social workers - you are going to have that many less cops. When the shit hits the fan - you might not have enough armed cops to help out. Or you could send in more targets....errr... social workers....



It' s the advantage of all cops being armed.

A lot of those situations that go sideways do so because cops are sent out to resolve them. The perception of cops - rightly or wrongly - is that cops arrest people and take them to jail. Cops simply showing up at, again, at a homeless guy on a bench heightens tensions.

Even cops don’t get into firefights all that often. Less that 5% of police call-outs (in the US) turn violent.

It’s perfectly possible to increase the number of social workers without reducing the number of cops - don’t be so quick to equate ‘defund the police’ with ‘fire a bunch of cops’. What I suggested would actually free up more cops to deal with the nightmare scenarios you’re concerned about.

Boru

[Angrboda]

More than 17,000 deaths caused by police have been misclassified since 1980

Deaths involving police have been greatly undercounted in the United States, and African American people die in such encounters at 3.5 times the rate of whites, according to a new analysis by public health researchers.

In an article published Thursday in the medical journal The Lancet, researchers found that deaths from police violence between 1980 and 2018 were misclassified by 55.5% in the U.S. National Vital Statistics System, which tracks information from death certificates.

"For most causes of death, the death certificate filled out by a physician is sort of the gold standard," says Chris Murray of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, who is one of the study's authors. But he says that in this area, the certificates seem to fall short. "There is a pretty systematic underrecording of police violence deaths. "

That realization isn't entirely new. After the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., news organizations started to keep their own tallies of police-related deaths, which turned out to be higher than the government's numbers.

[onlinebiker]

Your solution SOUNDS good....

But......


In the real world?


Cops will tell you - rightly so - that the most dangerous calls they have been on SEEMED like not much at all till things went sideways in a big way in a big hurry.

You are putting a SHITLOAD of pressure on dispatchers - who frequently have an incomplete, unclear view of the situation. This isn' t TV with a script you get to follow.

What WILL happen is your social workers will get sent into what turns out to be a rather lopsided firefight. 
Keep in mind - with budget restraints being what they are - when you take on MORE social workers - you are going to have that many less cops. When the shit hits the fan - you might not have enough armed cops to help out. Or you could send in more targets....errr... social workers....



It' s the advantage of all cops being armed.

A lot of those situations that go sideways do so because cops are sent out to resolve them. The perception of cops - rightly or wrongly - is that cops arrest people and take them to jail. Cops simply showing up at, again, at a homeless guy on a bench heightens tensions.

Even cops don’t get into firefights all that often. Less that 5% of police call-outs (in the US) turn violent.

It’s perfectly possible to increase the number of social workers without reducing the number of cops - don’t be so quick to equate ‘defund the police’ with ‘fire a bunch of cops’. What I suggested would actually free up more cops to deal with the nightmare scenarios you’re concerned about.

Boru

True - not that many turn violent - in no small part because the cops ARE armed. You don' t try to stab or axe a pair of guys packing sidearms.....

A social worker?


....

I' m sure they' ll be hiring... You should look for a job in LA, Chicago or Detroit.....

I'm sure they will take you.....

[The Grand Nudger]

You might not be interested, but you've made it clear that you're human garbage. Other people will be, and already do that work. It's more dangerous than police work, sure....but just about everything is, so that's not saying much.

[The Architect Of Fate]

True - not that many turn violent - in no small part because the cops ARE armed. You don' t try to stab or axe a pair of guys packing sidearms.....

Assertion 

A social worker?

I' m sure they' ll be hiring... You should look for a job in LA, Chicago or Detroit.....

I'm sure they will take you.....

Good job not addressing his point

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You might not be interested, but you've made it clear that you're human garbage.  Other people will be, and already do that work.  It's more dangerous than police work, sure....but just about everything is, so that's not saying much.

Hell cop isn't even in the top ten of the most dangerous occupations in the US