An odd twist on "defund the police"

[pmv]

Quite curious/apprehensive what the effects of this policy are going to be. I have the impression the police are called for mental health crisis situations fairly often. And from what little I've seen the Met aren't actually that bad at dealing with people in those situations.

Reluctant as I am to say anything positive about the Met, I've actually personally witnessed them dealing with such situations more than once, and they seemed to do so pretty well. (When guns aren't a factor on either side it seems things work out a lot better.)

The cops themselves deciding they no longer have the resources to do it seems entirely the wrong way round regarding "defunding" though, especially given that mental health services seem to be close to collapse themselves.

Met police to stop attending emergency mental health calls

Exclusive: move will come into force on 31 August and will only be waived if a threat to life is feared

www.theguardian.com

 

[Captante]

If they were to stop attending them in the US, who would be there to gun down the perp's ... erm ... patients I mean! /s



Seriously from what I've seen with one of my neighbors the New Haven cops do a pretty decent job too and have "dedicated" officers who know what they're doing.

*(disclaimer: My neighborhood is 75% white and/or wealthy Yale people... YMMV)

 

[pmv]

The irony is they are doing this because _the Conservatives_ cut their funding. Here it's the right who have been defunding the police (along with everything else).

It intrigues me how the current crop of Tories have a different attitude to the cops than their predecessors did.

Thatcher gave them a big pay rise, because she knew she was going to need them in the class war she was about to embark on. This lot seem to see the cops as just more 'feather-bedded' public-sector employees. They seem to want to see them replaced by the private sector, just like everything else.

I think it's the difference between the small-business backgrounds of the Thatcher generation and the more ultra-rich privileged backgrounds of Johnson, Sunak and Cameron (I exclude Truss as an anomaly, as she was just a deranged cultist who stumbled into power amid the chaos caused by the others).

 

[darkswordsman17]

The irony is they are doing this because _the Conservatives_ cut their funding. Here it's the right who have been defunding the police (along with everything else).

It intrigues me how the current crop of Tories have a different attitude to the cops than their predecessors did.

Thatcher gave them a big pay rise, because she knew she was going to need them in the class war she was about to embark on. This lot seem to see the cops as just more 'feather-bedded' public-sector employees. They seem to want to see them replaced by the private sector, just like everything else.

I think it's the difference between the small-business backgrounds of the Thatcher generation and the more ultra-rich privileged backgrounds of Johnson, Sunak and Cameron (I exclude Truss as an anomaly, as she was just a deranged cultist who stumbled into power amid the chaos caused by the others).

That's who has actually been defunding the police in the US as well. Same with military. Right wingers scream that liberals are doing it then they turn around and do it because they're just goddamn liars.

And yes, you're seeing the exact same schism between old conservatives and modern ones that we're seeing all over, with the former being proto-fascist and wanting to force a certain order in society, and the latter wanting to fuck everything up so they and their rich backers can take advantage and/or so they can go to a full blown Nazi level of fascism and murder people they don't like.

"Defund police" was almost never actually defunding the police force, but rather either withholding funds unless police agree to reforms (and if they didn't agree then forming new police that does actually follow the desired reforms), or putting that money towards mental health responders and other that would be better suited for dealing with the wide variety of things that police (unfairly I would say - although that's not defense for behavior like them deciding to not show up for domestic violence calls, among many many many other bad behaviors that are rife in policing) were being tasked with responding to.

In the US its more complex because of our military industrial complex, wherein we funnel former military into police, which might be why there's such an issue with sexual misconduct (it is ridiculously rampant in the military as revelations after Vannessa Guillen situation exposed). And we overfund police in giving them military hardware, which wasn't just a conservative problem (Obama ok'ed a bunch of it). A good chunk of the defund police movement was about defunding that aspect and de-militarizing our police force.

 

[Stopsignhank]

I don't think that is an odd twist, I think that is the goal of the defund the police movement. To take the money that is spent on Punishment and spend it on prevention and care. From Wikipedia

In the United States, "defund the police" is a slogan that supports removing funds from police departments and reallocating them to non-policing forms of public safety and community support, such as social services, youth services, housing, education, healthcare and other community resources.

You know, how the conservatives always talk about the way to stop mass shootings is to increase mental health care. And then not spend any extra money on mental health care. I know if my autistic son ever had a problem out in public I would like someone trained in autism to help him instead of some guy wearing a bullet proof vest and carrying a gun. That is a scary visual that would add to whatever is freaking him out.

 

[pmv]

I don't think that is an odd twist, I think that is the goal of the defund the police movement. To take the money that is spent on Punishment and spend it on prevention and care. From Wikipedia

You know, how the conservatives always talk about the way to stop mass shootings is to increase mental health care. And then not spend any extra money on mental health care. I know if my autistic son ever had a problem out in public I would like someone trained in autism to help him instead of some guy wearing a bullet proof vest and carrying a gun. That is a scary visual that would add to whatever is freaking him out.

It's a twist because the catch is they aren't spending more on "prevention and care", they are just spending less on all of it, and hoping people will turn to the private sector, as they realise the public sector is barely there any more. Both private health care companies and private security firms are seeing big surges in business.

Record rise in people using private healthcare amid NHS frustration

Data prompts speculation NHS inability to cut waiting lists could make private healthcare ‘new normal’

www.theguardian.com

How private police forces are being hired to patrol High Streets

Police chiefs have long admitted they do not have the resources to investigate high-volume crimes like shoplifting, which has caused business to hire private security.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Also, while there have been a few horrible high-profile cases of the opposite (usually involving black guys in mental health crisis) like this one

Dalian Atkinson: Police apologise for killing black ex-footballer

The West Mercia Police chief formally accepts a breach of human rights over Dalian Atkinson's death.

www.bbc.co.uk

In fairness I have to say I've personally witnessed (on more than one occasion) cops do a pretty good job at handling people in mental health crises. Compared with the US it seems that taking guns out of the equation leads to much better results all round. i.e. maybe it's the presence of guns, both the police having them and their fear that everybody else has them, that makes the situation go bad, rather than being something intrinsic to the nature of police.