Defund the Cops?

I saw two people interviewed on fox news say COVID-19 was a hoax perpetuated by Democrats and the media. I saw two people on fox news say the riots were hoaxes perpetuated by Democrats and the media. I saw two people on fox news...

 

im definitely hearing some talk about de-funding the police...not really a credible argument imo.

however, im all for reducing funding for police and using those resources elsewhere in our communities.

im also very much in favor of demilitarization of police, stricter standards and longer training. it shouldnt take more time to get a haircutters license than a police badge. how about requiring at least an associates degree to become a cop? take some classes in sociology, psychology, government and american history.

i also think that all the police chiefs who authorized brutal tactics against peaceful protestors should be fired including chief brian manley in austin. on that note, we need greater accountability in police departements...bad cops should be fired, not covered up for. thats one thing i respected the hell out of about art acevedo. he held bad cops accountable. its really what drove him out of austin. he got sick of fighting with the police union, the city manager and city council.

police brutality settlements should be paid for out of their retirement funds instead of the taxpayers having to cover them...that will go a long way to reducing police violence.

and bring back 'beat cops' who patrol the same neighborhoods and know the people there. that concept seems to have gone away in the last few decades.

 

This post illustrates part of the problem. This nonsense will foment more unrest.

 

its clear to me after the last couple weeks that some cities police departments are beyond repair. maybe they need to clean house, fire everyone and rebuild from the ground up.

 

That's disgusting.

If any good has come from these protests it's that more people are seeing what too many of our policemen are really all about. Hint: police brutality isn't a minor problem. We have widespread issues with racist and sadistic cops in this country. Widespread. But how dare we complain about it. How dare we look for solutions.

 

Rather than dismantling the police - I think we need to take a closer look at why this is happening in the first place.

Simply calling it a race issue is a mistake - this happens to people of all colors , yes blacks are disproportionately represented .
What we need to look at here is what the victims have in common , aside from race and for the most part that is an economic issue.
These people are generally poor regardless of their race. The people lowest on the economic scale come into contact with police far more often than any other economic group , this isn't happening out in the suburbs or in River Oaks. Just so happens that a large percentage of blacks fall into this low economic group.


Secondly - the people committing these acts against society have something in common as well - they have personality disorders from narcissism , sociopaths , sadists. We're hiring the wrong type of people.
You take Chauvin for instance - I don't believe he had any intention of killing Floyd from the outset. He did however want to inflict pain on him , make him suffer for whatever reason - he enjoyed what he was doing to that man , he found pleasure in cruelty.
He's probably done this countless other times over the length of his career .... This time it blew up in his face.

There's two things we need to do to eliminate this - first is pulling the victims out of their economic dismay and second , eliminate the hiring of people with these social disorders that allow / cause them to commit these acts of cruelty. We can't put them behind a badge from the get go.
I don't know which of these is more difficult - pulling millions out of economic hardship or knowing the measure of a man's character before he shows you who he is.

For the idea of police to work in a free society - we have to trust these people are ethically and morally upstanding .... We expect criminals to be bad , not the people charged with protecting us from them.

 

I could find and post several links to support it. I'm not going to. I really don't care.

 

With most police departments, it's not about how much money, it's about where you appropriate it...

Some PDs are strapped for cash and therefore can't pay enough to recruit higher caliber individuals and can't afford to train them properly.

Some PDs are awash with cash and burn it all up buying military toys.

Oversight, training, and de-militarization are the holy trinity.

 

Don’t fall for this bullshiet. Once again, the people mostly effected by this crap are black people. These rich asswipe liberals are living in their ivory towers using the minorities to do the dirty work for them. Remember, they live in gated community with security cameras and bodyguards, while black grandmas down the street in the ghettos have to fend for themselves. If this is not the ultimate hypocrisy and racism from the left, I don’t know what is? Don’t put up with this shiet black people, just #WalkAway

 

These are good points. If I were police and didn't enjoy violence, I'd want an easier assignments away from bad neighborhoods. That's probably why psychopaths are shielded in the thin blue line. They take the tougher jobs.

The problem is that system isn't working. The fact that this was a "training routine" probably meant they weren't out to harass or lynch Floyd, ala Training Day, but more of a measure to subdue a big "superhuman" guy with the purpose of asserting authority and control.

Chauvin expected Floyd to flip out and start struggling violently to grasp much needed air, which would give them just cause for the other officers to jump in and haul Floyd's ass to jail.

That was the lesson he was trying to teach the newbies.

Vile and disgusting in anyway you see it.

 

In Los Angeles, the defunding they have talked about would be immediately transferred to programs helping predominantly African American communities.

Also, the police have had increased budgets while other city workers have been furloughed and laid off. They are talking about more furloughs and lay-offs next year. I don't want Police to earn less money. But some of the military equipment can definitely be removed from the budget.

I'm unsure, but I believe it could be done effectively. What needs to happen when they make the decisions is to have representatives from the communities involved. Not the current power structure thinking they can just fix it on their own, and then complain when it doesn't work.

 

I'm afraid defunding law enforcement will result in even less qualified officers.

I'm for defunding their access to military equipment but I think standards for law enforcement especially at the local level need to be drastically increased. That probably means also paying officers more.

 

Change the funding mechanisms, and re-prioritize how that money is spent; higher standards for recruits and better training would be at the top of my list.

Civil asset forfeiture is a controversial law-enforcement tactic that is based on a legal fiction dating back to the days of the pirates. The fiction is that property can be a “criminal.” Police can seize property they think is connected to a crime, even if they don’t charge the owner of the property with a crime — just as navies seized pirate ships in colonial days.

The practice skirts the Fourth Amendment's guarantee that Americans are free from unreasonable searches and seizures, and it provides a potentially corrupting incentive for police to circumvent the law to fund their departments.

An unusual alliance of libertarians and liberals — from the ACLU to Cato and the Koch brothers — says civil asset forfeiture often amounts to highway robbery. The alliance is crusading for reform in court, Congress and the state legislatures.

https://pulitzercenter.org/reportin...-school-how-police-use-civil-asset-forfeiture

 

You say less qualified .... but what are the actual qualifications ?

Education or work history isn't applicable here. It doesn't correlate to who you are as a person - good , bad or indifferent.

I know a lot of highly educated people who are downright assholes , sociopaths , narcissists , sadistic .... Same can be said of any education group.

Ethics and morals is what the focus should be ..... then again , I think we've seen a degradation of ethics and morals across society as a whole in recent decades so we're fighting an uphill battle.

 

If anything, I'd want the police (and firemen, teachers, social workers) to get a raise. Their jobs are so difficult, and so important.

The phrase "defund the police" is sensationalist once you read about the actual policies proposed.

There are a few extremists who want to abolish the police and not even a far lefty like me can get behind that; it's politically impossible and the people who propose that need to give concrete evidence for how/why that's going to be a net positive.

Once you learn that "defund the police" actually means "re-prioritize city budgets to move funds away from policing (punishing) poor communities and towards investing in them", then it starts to make sense. Less stick and more carrot.

I found this from The Guardian to be helpful:

The answer to police violence is not 'reform'. It's defunding. Here's why
Excerpts:

The over-reliance on punitive force creates a vicious cycle that makes it even harder for the poor to escape their circumstances. A more rational allocation of funds towards improving the lives and opportunities for the poor would also be more humane than beating the crap out of them, killing them, while simultaneously telling them to bootstrap themselves out of their situation.

 

Psychological testing has gotten to the point where you should be able, if utilized properly, to weed out a whole bunch of non-desirable recruits. I honestly do not know how extensively it's used, and what it would take to disqualify someone, but I imagine the bar is not very high at all.

 

Aren't police departments facing shortage issues as it stands? Maybe that plays apart.

Frankly, I'm surprised the shortage isn't greater. There has to be a limited number of people willing to deal with criminals on a daily basis for a $60k median salary. Also, I'm not sure if increasing the salaries a couple percent is going to increase the pool of prospective policeman all that much.