What would be example of something police handles today but would not handle in the new proposed system?
Many schools in the United States have a police officer on staff, known as "School Resource Officers". I can't imagine why any school needs a full-time employee armed with a gun, but that's America for you. There are countless videos on YouTube of School Resource Officers using brutal excessive force on unruly teenagers.
What would be example of something police handles today but would not handle in the new proposed system?
Dealing with panhandlers/vagrants, traffic stops, car accidents, petty theft/vandalism. None of those require an armed officer and could be better served by dedicated units
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You mean beyond murder, slashing tires, beating up the elderly and pepper spraying and shooting people exercising their first amendment rights? Hmmm...
You know, you could actually answer her question. I mean it's actually a pretty good one.
The first thing that comes to mind is domestic disputes. I can definitely see that being an area where having a social worker as a first responder might produce better results than a cop. Also, vehicle collisions, or hit-and-runs where the police are just taking a statement from the person who was hit - I'd bet that's one of the more common calls that police currently respond to. Probably noise complaints? There are going to be others but off the top of my head those sound right.
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Many schools in the United States have a police officer on staff, known as "School Resource Officers". I can't imagine why any school needs a full-time employee armed with a gun, but that's America for you. There are countless videos on YouTube of School Resource Officers using brutal excessive force on unruly teenagers.
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Originally Posted by GirlySports
This defunding the police is interesting.
What would be example of something police handles today but would not handle in the new proposed system?
One great example I heard was along the lines of, don't you think we would all be better off if when you saw someone passed out on a bench somewhere, or a mentally ill person causing a disturbance you could make a call and instead of cops showing up to arrest them, a social worker showed up to provide them with help?
I think that's a great example of how we can do better, and rethink what policing should and shouldn't include.
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Many schools in the United States have a police officer on staff, known as "School Resource Officers". I can't imagine why any school needs a full-time employee armed with a gun, but that's America for you. There are countless videos on YouTube of School Resource Officers using brutal excessive force on unruly teenagers.
Like this one:
And this one:
And this one:
We had one at Bishop Grandin, I don't think they are that rare.
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We had a resource officer at our school here in Alberta - who was a full on cop. Don't think they were on site all day everyday or anything like that though.
We had a resource officer at our school here in Alberta - who was a full on cop. Don't think they were on site all day everyday or anything like that though.
It wasn't actually his job to beat up kids, but I think he thought it was.
School resource officers are actually really good programs and help out in many schools. This is a program that is community outreach as well as intel gathering in anti-gang initiatives. A lot of officers do not carry their gun while interacting with students. Most of them have a casual uniform and don't have their duty belt or vest on when walking the halls. This is all a culture thing though, and if you have an authoritarian regime running the agency it is likely they are going to enforce carry a weapon and maintaining a strict "police" presence.
I think the issue is violence. You don't really know if it's a common call until you get there. Can we send social workers into a domestic dispute where the husband (yes, I'm being sexist) is threatening the wife with a gun? Or simple car accident but turns out to be stolen car that was part of another crime and the driver is wanted everywhere?
I know now social workers handle disputes of the a child reporting to the school that there's trouble at home, but i don't think they're trained to handle more than that.
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On the first one, you kind of have to make a judgment call about whether the information you have suggests that that's a reasonable possibility, in which case maybe the social worker is accompanied by an armed officer. But additionally, someone trained specifically to resolve conflict in those scenarios may be better positioned to defuse the situation in a manner that leads to no one getting shot.
On the second, who cares if the person who hit them was in a stolen car? That doesn't require an armed officer on scene. They're just taking statements and information at that point.
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You know, you could actually answer her question. I mean it's actually a pretty good one.
The first thing that comes to mind is domestic disputes. I can definitely see that being an area where having a social worker as a first responder might produce better results than a cop. Also, vehicle collisions, or hit-and-runs where the police are just taking a statement from the person who was hit - I'd bet that's one of the more common calls that police currently respond to. Probably noise complaints? There are going to be others but off the top of my head those sound right.
I have heard many times over the years that domestic dispute calls are tops among the most dangerous type of calls for officers.
I guess the argument could be made that it's due to the way the police handle them, but from what I understand, more officers are injured and killed responding to domestic dispute calls than any other.
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Interesting. I would have thought it was more likely to be motor vehicle stops / enforcement that produced the most danger.
Hopefully WhiteTiger or another person who deals with this stuff on the daily can weigh in on what types of calls make more or less sense to respond to with an alternative service provider or social worker?
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On the first one, you kind of have to make a judgment call about whether the information you have suggests that that's a reasonable possibility, in which case maybe the social worker is accompanied by an armed officer. But additionally, someone trained specifically to resolve conflict in those scenarios may be better positioned to defuse the situation in a manner that leads to no one getting shot.
On the second, who cares if the person who hit them was in a stolen car? That doesn't require an armed officer on scene. They're just taking statements and information at that point.
If it's a fugitive in the stolen car, they've got a gun and are firing back.
/Or I'm watching too much forensic files.
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Originally Posted by GirlySports
If it's a fugitive in the stolen car, they've got a gun and are firing back.
/Or I'm watching too much forensic files.
Yeah, I think that is a situation that is pretty easily sorted out by dispatch.
Normal situation:
Caller: yeah, I rear ended a guy and the cars are totalled, can you please send out the unarmed traffic division officers to take our statements please.
Dispatcher: Yes sir, they are on their way
Your hypothetical situation:
Caller: Oh my god, I rear ended a guy, I think the car must be stolen because he is threatening me with a gun. I'm pinned down, please send a heavily armed officer
Dispatcher: Oooh, sorry, that sounds like a traffic division call. I'm gonna have to send an unarmed officer into harms way...good luck to both of you
Or you know, they could send the right cops to the right situations.
There is a large portion of police work that can/maybe should be done by unarmed officers. If we put some thought into what we want different types of peace officers to do, we can probably keep everyone safe, encourage good relationships between the police and community, and maybe even save some money.
It's not something we can do overnight, and it would take a lot of work, thought, and training, but it is doable.
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Interesting. I would have thought it was more likely to be motor vehicle stops / enforcement that produced the most danger.
Hopefully WhiteTiger or another person who deals with this stuff on the daily can weigh in on what types of calls make more or less sense to respond to with an alternative service provider or social worker?
While cars kill the second most policemen behind guns a policeman will have hundreds, maybe thousands of interactions with cars compared to any other type of police action.
Defund the police? And replace it with what? Anarchy?
For clarity defunding the police doesn't mean eliminate the police budget. The idea is to lower their budget and invest that money into community programs in poor neighborhoods. The Mayor of LA has said they are doing this by moving 150m of the LAPD budget (which is how much it was due to rise in 2021) and investing it in poor communities.
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The philosophy behind the police not having guns in the UK is interesting, the police there do not want guns, it is felt giving a policeman a gun does two things, it changes the way he or she responds to a situation, tends to make them more reckless and prone to making fast decisions based on the sense of security the weapon gives them but it also changes how the criminal responds, if a policeman doesn't have a gun the police in the UK think there is less reason for them to be shot at, that by making the police less of a mortal threat it reduces the chances of the criminal escalating the violence towards the policeman.
Whether that is true I don't know
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If it's a fugitive in the stolen car, they've got a gun and are firing back.
/Or I'm watching too much forensic files.
I think the issue is that it's not so much "what would/wouldn't they respond to" but a very wholistic change in how they respond, and how budgets are allocated. When Camden disbanded their police force, they added many more officers. Police were basically everywhere, but this also helped to normalise people with police, and police with the people they were supposed to protect. The mandate wasn't about getting home safe, it was about getting home safe and ensuring everyone you interacted with (even criminals) did the same. There were changes to use of force rules, extensive retraining and a huge culture shift. There was a higher focus on supporting the community financially to help steer people away from crime in the first place, instead of just getting the bad guys.
So it's really not a simple answer. And we won't know until we know (obviously). But it doesn't necessarily mean less police, or putting others in danger.
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