Quote:
Originally Posted by jar_e
Police are unfortunately the lowest and cheapest common denominator. The requests made for police are far from “law” related. Mental health, addiction issues, checks on welfare, etc. Patrol work has become this catch all and jack of all trades, master of none.
People want a mental health professional to deal with mental health calls? Sure. Enjoy paying a psych nurse/psychologist and all associates costs. Want a counsellor to help with a domestic situation? Sure, pony up with tax dollars. IMO, there is a TON of work that could be taken away from policing in a heartbeat that would eliminate a ton of unnecessary police interactions. Obviously training, etc is always an issue but unfortunately that requires funding as well.
In the last rounds of budget cuts with CPS, numerous multi agency units have been disbanded and just rolls to patrol. These things are complex and come at a cost.
|
Yep, we need far greater funding in a number of mental health and addiction services, but as society starts to crumble with jobs being lost to automation and globalization taking over, things will only get worse and more reliant on policing. Which as you point out is
also losing funding.