Steerpike

Interesting. In the numerous discussions about BLM and the police, the issue of removing police from 'inappropriate' tasks has come up. This would be a prime example - use the money to provide a better service with a better outcome, and lower cost. I'm sure the police would be overjoyed to see someone else take these calls.

This issue really should get as much attention as possible as it epitomizes many of the problems with the 'use of police' today.

retzie

Yes, I think this is exactly the kind of program that would be a sensible "diversion" of police funds. It costs less than the police, is more effective, and frees up the police to tackle actual violent situations. It seems like an overwhelming win-win-win, so I don't know why everyone is throwing up their hands and saying nothing can be done.

Unfortunately, the word "defunding" totally fails to capture any of this. I'm sure whoever wrote the hashtag in the first place didn't know it would blow up the way it did, but it was a terrible choice that really has done a disservice to what could be achieved with more strategic allocation of funds.

Steerpike

Exactly. 'Defund the Police' could go down in history as the slogan that gave Trump 4 more years.

scrubbedexpat091

I am sure police unions are in a way one reason why city's haven't done what Eugene has, police have less calls = less police officers = less union members, the police unions and supporters have no incentive to want change.

CAHOOTS in Eugene in 2019, responded to approx 20% of total calls, so I would imagine they need less police officers overall because police have less calls, but the programs isn't new to Eugene, so its not a novel idea to them, its just the way things are.

Looks like CAHOOTS has spread a bit to also cover calls in parts of a neighboring city.

I took a intro to criminal justice class in 1999 for fun, and I doubt much as changed, so much time in that class was spent on how crime and the criminal justice system is good for the economy because it creates jobs. It was also like a Business 101 class in a way.

Pulaski

The problem with "defund the police" implies that the police are overfunded in the US and that a smaller police force would be desirable, however the statistics do not necessarily support that assertion.

From what I have been able to find on-line, in the US there are apparently 238 police officers/100,000 of population, comparable with the 211 in the UK, 188 in Canada, and 218 in Australia, however other western countries often have considerably more police (per 100k of population) than the US such as 295 in the Netherlands, 333 in Belgium, 381 in Germany, 429 in France, 456 in Italy, and 533 in Spain.

In short I don't think that the police budget is going to work as a source for funding of other programs as the US police force is already thinly spread compared to many countries. I am not saying that other programs are not worthy of being funded, just that trying to divert money from the police won't only sound bad to the law abiding electorate, it is probably not achievable in practice without gutting the police force.

lansbury

The problem with defund is that is assumes extra funds were given when dealing with mental health problems when they landed in the police lap. That wasn't the case it was just extra work taken on because there was no one else to do it, and no training was given either. I remember social workers coming into Kilburn and complaining about the way we dealt with mental heath cases, and getting very defensive when we suggested that could provide 24 hour cover and deal with the violent ones as well. If I was the Chief of a department in the US right now I would be instigating a policy that calls to people suffering a mental heath crises was a medical issue and to be dealt with as such. No police response at all. I doubt there is a police officer who would disagree with that.

Defund means less money and in most cases that means officers being laid off. Most cities are like ours, we have 2 officers on patrol with a supervisor. They only have a K9 Unit because for the last 12 years I have gone out and raised the money to 100% fund it. Less officers means less than 24 hour cover. It is a pity those that know f*** all about policing think less calls makes that OK. Just answering calls is fire brigade policing, not having time to be out there preventing stuff before it happens. If they want proper mental health cover, it will take extra fresh funds not robbing one to pay for another.

Former Lancastrian

Well said that man I was going to start typing out similar but you have now saved me the trouble. Loved it when the bean counters said we are over budget so we said to the Chief OK so I guess no OT then and if that is the case I guess we stop responding to calls then as not enough officers on the street.

Pulaski

To which I would add, if you're not in a city then you have police coverage provided by sheriff's deputies. I don't know how many deputies are on patrol here at any one time, but it isn't many, and they cover several hundred square miles! It is difficult to imagine what cutting the budget for law enforcement would look like unless emergency coverage was scapped entirely and they set up community vigilante patrols.

zzrmark

When I read that paragraph in the article my tiny brain did a huge wtf. Mother has called police, told them that he's unarmed and a youngster and when he gets shot she says why didn't they tase/rubber bullet him. In what civilised country would a mother, or any sane person, say that? Since when has tasing or shooting an innocent kid with rubber bullets been any kind of way to deal with them running away, did the dispatch office not mention that this wasn't a shout to a Chicago gang shootout? Un****ingbelievable.

I read an interesting article earlier this week that was about the struggle faced by smaller cities in maintaining a police force. Insurers are either taking a proactive approach, or they aren't, to receiving massive settlement awards against victims of police wrongdoing. Where the companies are getting involved it has resulted in substandard officers being removed, where the force hasn't responded to the insurers requests to clean up their act they've found (or rather their city has) themselves uninsured and on the hook for stumping up - resulting in less well off cities closing down their departments and relying on county and state sheriffs/police who, as you said, don't tend to know the ins and outs of small communities because of the size of the patch covered.
Cities who have insurers that don't get involved conversely were suffering from recurrent issues, often from the same few officers.

I can't remember where I read the piece but if I were to hazard a guess it would be either the Beeb, CNN or the Atlantic as I've spent more time perusing their sites this week than others.

EDIT: I hate going back through my search history, four days ago and about a hundred articles back was this from NBC...
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...ments-n1233495

Pulaski

I was thinking the same thing, and at the risk of being accused of blaming the victim (or at least his mother), what mother would call the police if her child was unarmed but having some sort of "episode"? Unfortunately I suspect that faced with a "difficult" individual the ambulance/ emergency medical staff would have called the police, and it is also quite possible that the 911 dispatcher sent the police even if they weren't requested.

zzrmark

If you really want to go down the rabbit hole on this one you need to find articles on the police killing of Owen Barton on January 2020 - father of the boy's mother...
Makes one wonder why she'd ever be inclined to dial 911...

scrubbedexpat091

You call 9-11 and report a mental health issue, in most of US and Canada the dispatchers will dispatch police and not medical workers, only time paramedics are generally dispatched is if there is an overdose, or injury or something along those lines.

Even if you don't ask for police, dispatchers will dispatch them, with some exceptions like Eugene, Oregon which should be the model for every city in the US and Canada.

retzie

Yes, it does. But I don't recall anyone saying this is true of every police department.

In larger urban areas where basic coverage is not an issue, why not at least consider the Eugene model? Diverting mental health calls away from the police reduces their workload, true. But from the sounds of it, they are calls that (a) they don't want to be on, and (b) have poor outcomes. Does it really make good sense to keep on down this path just to keep their hours up?

I have called the police on a family member before. It was to stop them harming themselves when I could not. I wouldn't wish that on anyone

Obviously not in the US, though.

Pulaski

Another day in paradise!

(Image lifted from the top of the home page today a Charlotte TV web site - cropped, but not otherwise edited.)

lansbury

CAHOOTS workers are a mobile crisis intervention team, designed as an alternative to police response for non-violent crises. Police in Eugene are dispatched if the situation is violent, or there is a crime in progress.

Non violent mental crises should always be treated as a medical emergency and dealt with as such. In fact I would also say violent mental crises as well. Let the mental health professionals deal with it, they shouldn't be allowed to abdicate part of their job because they might get hurt.