Thetownend.com

I know this will go off topic pretty quickly with people unable to resists a bit of name calling and not willing to debate without getting offended, but I will give it a go as we'll end-up with about four threads in total soon!

I have to say I was pretty ignorant of the concept when I first read about this subject late last week, but it has started to get me thinking.  We accept the need for a Police Force almost without question, more so than even having an NHS in the UK.  The system we have in place today is still quite new, but some form of law and order has been in place for centuries.  Has it simply become an over blown catch all for BAD things in society though?

Consider some of the reasons the Police would get involved in today - homeless people, mental health related incidents, victim support and so on.  It does seem like there could and should be better ways of breaking down the Monolith that now exists with more targeted approaches.  So not removing the funding, simply re-distributing it and spending it in more specialised and strategic ways.  I imagine, due to human nature, some form of Law and Order role has to exist (my own personal assumption as someone who doesn't subscribe to the Anarchist approach), but surely it must be smaller than it has become, while we grow areas such as Social Care, Mental Health funding, Drug Abuse, Domestic Abuse and so on.

Something basic like legalising Marijuana - removes the need to Police it.  Targeted work, with proper funding, on breaking drug dependency has known impact on other petty crimes.

On top of that, why on earth would we expect the Police Force to recruit super humans able to deal with all these types of situations?  The aim of every Police Officer should be to find ways of making themselves redundant - Utopia is not needing them in the first place.  We won't get there, but a smaller more focused and well trained Police Force could supplement a wider range of activities all managed under the same Umbrella.

Anyway - my views are pretty fluid on this subject as I take some time to research - can we debate the options without getting stuck shouting about Anarchy or Police States?

We need Robocop  :)

From the little I have read and looked into so far, as well as the article posted on the politics thread, I do think a different approach is required. I mirror your thoughts that the modern police officer has a multitude of roles they are expected to be. Each one, they are also expected to perform at a very high standard, continually under a watchful/monitored eye from all areas of society. It simply is far too much to expect of them.

I only know about 5 people personally who are in the constabulary today, in various roles; three of them as PCs. I know that they find their job increasingly harder to do (just in general) and they have admitted that they aren't qualified to do all that is asked/expected of them. That is only a very small model so it would be interesting to see what others thoughts/conversations with officers they know or indeed those who are officers themselves.

We also know that in the UK our public services have faced continued cuts, whilst still being asked to perform their multitude of expected duties to the same level. One thing I have noticed and I can't speak for all but even amongst these continued cuts, the P&CC (Police & Crime Commisioner) costing on my council tax bill has increased year on year  :hmmm: Now that money may go somewhere else but my thinking is that it must end up used by the "police" somewhere along the lines. It's slightly away from topic I know but it's an observation I find strange considering the police have faced cuts. Is it purely to substitute the cuts from central government and so is topped up via the local authority?

I definitely believe that much more needs to be spent in areas regarding mental health and trained specialists in de-escalation. This shouldn't be another "skill" that the police have to fully understand.

There is no harm in having knowledge and training but I have witnessed first hand scenarios where the police have been completely out of their depth regarding such situations. They did not know how to talk to the individual whereby they were not further agitated/distressed. In all instances the officer became an agitator. I personally had to step between an officer and the individual to then explain on behalf of the person with mental health issues, that they indeed are registered as a mental health outpatient. The response from that particular officer was a disappointing one. It seemed they hadn't received any de-escalation training. The three core values of "Listen, Hear, Understand" were vacant.

Again, this actually isn't a dig when we look at it from the outside, it highlights the very issues where an officer is expected to assess that (and many more) scenario, take action professionally and understand everything that is going on in that very moment. I don't think the modern officer is equipped with the resources or capacity to do so at the highest level and just getting out a baton is no longer the kind of treatment that is acceptable today when concerning scenarios regarding mental health. Whereas if there were highly trained specialists (similar to say a crisis team) that could be sent to that situation then the police could concentrate on other, some may say, more important issues (for them).

I'm not qualified enough to come up with a solution (I hear the TEFers scoff) and the comments above are only from my own limited experiences. But they are real experiences nonetheless and they do highlight misgivings as far as I'm concerned. I don't know how we go about or where we start implementing changes to our constabulary for the better all round. The mental health element is only one of many factors where changes could/should happen but I'd be interested to hear others experiences, either as members of public or officers (esp. existing ones). Maybe even in our little TEF bubble here, we can correlate the experiences and differences to understand better where those changes might need to be targeted and actioned?

I certainly agree with Rob that we should be able to discuss and debate this without it becoming heavily cyclical or destructive.

Bear in mind, I've written this at 2.15am so if there are some inconsistencies (me? no way, shock) then I'm putting my hands up and owning those while it's fresh in the mind. Plus i can't be jacked to edit it.

As for Robocop. I prefer Robocod (yep Amiga, James Pond days, Aquatic Games wasn't bad too) ;)

I feel asleep after the first 2 words

It's an interesting idea, it reminds me of how funding was used in UK doctor's surgeries to treat addicts. Doctors didn't have the skills or knowledge to really help people, and in many cases were manipulated into giving out large prescriptions for valium or letting people take methadone home who shouldn't have been allowed. They employed drug workers to help with prescriptions, harm reduction etc.

Unfortunately, most people wouldn't read beyond the name, and it's a terrible name. In some ways now is the best time to pursue discourse on this, but in other ways this is the worst time. It needs taking back to the drawing board until after November, and not to become a further issue for the left to tear itself apart over.

It's definitely an interesting idea, but there is a huge flaw. Like primary care settings in the NHS, the police are the last line of defence in public safety. Hence, when mental health services are slashed, people with issues end up either in a cell or in A&E.

So yes, we could defund the police, but we really ought to be re-funding the other essential services first.

:D

Me too

Increase funding. HTH.

you can set the specialists departments under why benner you like, police, welfare, whatever. it doesn't really matter

But it's more money needed to do so

(https://i.imgur.com/yTGRgfR.gif)

On a similar vein this appeared on Twitter which makes a point that many have overlooked...

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EZ3lgJvU4AEa0FY?format=jpg&name=900x900)

As for the general thrust of this thread, as Trump seems to be depending more on unidentified militias in DC and possibly other locations, he is voluntarily eroding the US military/police monopoly on armed force - all students of Weimar understand where that leads.

I thought you misspelt defend and hoped it would be a thread about past defenders!

Problem is if you give people an inch they will take a mile, people aren’t suddenly going to be become model citizens.

That's exactly what defunding in the US is about. Taking money from police forces and putting it into education, mental health, social care where it should have been spent in the first place.

Good point. The lockdown here has proven that.

The suggestion of defunding in the US is not to simply abolish the police but to remove funding that has been put into the police force to perform tasks they're not really best equipped to do. Like maintaining order in schools or dealing with the mentally ill. The "defunding" proposal is to put that funding back where it should have been in the first place, schools, mental health, social care etc and let the police get on with the core policing job that they're good at. So it's not a question of "giving people an inch", it's more about not treating everything as public order problem.

Gosh, this is a big topic.

Bit like what comes first.. Chicken or the egg ?.

Once this problem is there you need to address it otherwise it becomes a major issue.

Shit, I beginning to sound like Donald as in Trump  :badmood:

I'll add some observational thoughts from over here.

The Police are used at the entrance of nearly every school in the mornings, to presumably offer some sort of visual protection, but they spend their time managing traffic flow and it requires two cars for each school.

Traffic incidents - it is rare, outside of the Interstate, to find less than 2 cars attend - again, I presume this is some form of protection for the officers, just in-case, and explains why 4 officers were present for Floyd's "arrest".

I'm certainly not advocating cutting spending, simply re-destributing.  I also don't know which side of the fence I sit, but it has made me think.  The Police, even in the UK, is not what it was.  You'll often hear debate on the Right side of politics about a desire to get the Bobby on the Beat again, get them away from paper work etc.  That may well be a way of better defining more focused roles - a visual role for them to have but limited to prevention and dealing with crimes once they have happened.  Become a face of the community they serve (a bit which I think is well forgotten these days, the Police serve the community).

Also, in the USA, I have learned that many forces down this way were born out of a need to round up the escaped slaves!  It may be a while back, but we are not that many generations away from that - it's not unlikely that some attitudes still prevail.

Am I right in thinking the UK police numbers dropped around 20k in the last decade but are now recruiting?

Yes, the police didn't escape "Austerity", it's one of the reasons the police were openly hostile to Teresa May, as they faced the most savage cuts during her tenure as Home Secretary

Isn't this (and the increasing militarisation of the police in the US) in part because of their ludicrous gun situation? So that officers are trained to go into pretty much every situation assuming the person they're talking to is armed and will attempt to kill them and so try to go in with overwhelming force. Must be difficult to conduct UK style policing by consent when you're pointing a gun at someone and have got them on the ground before you even speak to them.

They receive Training on how to be mentally prepared to take a life - the Police Union appears to be the biggest issue, going well beyond what most Unions would do.  Many officers have Qualified Immunity, which means they can tried for criminal offences but it is near impossible to sue them.  Even with that in place, the top 10 authorities have settled over $1bn worth of civil cases in the last 5 years.

Jesus. Vital for the military but how that can that be appropriate for a force that is supposed to *serve* the community? The militarisation of the US police does seem to be a massive issue.

Yes, I've seen some astonishing shit from some of these guys over the past few days. The head of the Police Benevolent Association in Minneapolis (who has been continually re-elected as head of the union) seems to be pretty much openly racist; his counterpart in New York talked about "winning the war on New York". No wonder they can seem like an occupying force to the communities some of them seem to have forgotten they're supposed to serve.

I must confess seeing armed coppers always freaks the shit out of me.


https://www.indy100.com/article/florida-police-apology-brutality-george-floyd-protests-bert-gamin-9555821

Thai coppers are armed, but they tend not to go around shooting people.

Extortion is another matter, however.

It's not even just the guns. There's been a programme since the end of the 1st Iraq War to recoup some of the costs by selling ex-military vehicles like armoured cars and such to the police. There are several forces that own actual tanks. What the hell kind of police force needs a damn tank?

And you are assuming that will make a difference and people wouldn’t just take advantage of perceived less robust law enforcement which would almost certainly be the case in the short term. You can’t curb human nature as much as people may try...

Some of the suggestions have included that you do away with the police altogether and instead the community just get an offender to apologise to victims and that’s the punishment.

When NYPD went on a "work to rule" in late 2014 early 2015 to show people how much they would be missed (in response to protests over one of the many other instances where a black man was killed by police) crime fell. So, no, it wouldn't "almost certainly be the case".

https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-proactive-policing-crime-20170925-story.html

Funding the police to deal with mental health instead of having proper social care is, well, mental.

Do you think all frontline officers in the UK should be armed out of interest? I do, or at least arm all with a taser.

Only PSNI and the CNC routinely arm all frontline officers.

Nope, the armed response teams are specialists and are trained extensively. There's no way we'd be so thorough with every single police officer. Plus you're bound to get hobbyists join who just want to play with guns (just like in the US).

Taser maybe, gun not. I've had two brothers in law who were armed coppers (one still serving but no longer a BiL and the other retired) both were ex military and the amount of training the did was phenomenal and could not be done with all coppers unless you were going to get the head count up hugely.

That was my initial reaction - my faith in humanity is pretty low if I am being honest.

On giving it more thought and doing some research though, I can be persuaded.  There are a couple of places that have taken some sort of version of this approach in the USA, Compton in Cali and another Camden in Jersey.  They have had some pretty positive results.  They disbanded the existing department and created new roles, including Police Officers.  That forced everyone to re-apply but with a new focus and an ability to get the right fit.

I actually think a more focused Police Force would be better at it's primary focus of protecting the community from crime.  But not if you don't have a very strategic plan to account for everything else that has fallen to them in the past 100 years to pick-up.

Oh, and I think it would be the perfect time to review the Justice system as well.  There are plenty of examples over here of chucking people in prison for very minor offences, but in both Countries other examples of violent style crime that seems to get relatively low sentencing.  You also have massive under reporting and convictions in sexual assault crimes.

As I understand it, this is precisely what the "Defunding" moves are aiming for.

We have a similar problem over here where members of government have repeatedly started stepping into areas they really shouldn't be straying (Malthouse, Patel and the AG springing to mind immediately) It is not for politicians to dictate that individuals “face criminal prosecution”. A decision to prosecute is taken independently by the CPS or police.

Interesting exchange in the Commons earlier https://twitter.com/davidallengreen/status/1270341055746117632?s=20

Here is Camden:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/09/us/disband-police-camden-new-jersey-trnd/index.html

A starting point rather than a Utopian vision of what could be I'd say.

I know some will say that much of what they have done could be achieved through changing policy, but the problem they, and other forces face, is the current culture, structure, approach and staff are years in the making.  Sometimes it's easier to just blow something up and start again.

The studies relating to that are caveated stating they “cannot entirely rule out the effects of under-reporting” so not sure it is entirely reliable.

Interesting to read that there are nearly 18,000 "police agencies" in the USA.
Must be a big variation in the quality of training and overall standards of policing.

The authors of the study were confident that it was

"The researchers ran the analysis under a couple other models, and the results still held. They examined whether crime underreporting could have biased the findings, and the results still held.

“While we cannot entirely rule out the effects of under-reporting,” the authors wrote, “our results show that crime complaints decreased, rather than increased, during a slowdown in proactive policing, contrary to deterrence theory.”"

You may also wish to read Rob T's post

I'd love for this to be the sort of discussion where all "sides" could engage in whatever the best solutions would look like.  As I mentioned, the nominally law and order Right wing viewpoint of having more Bobbies on the Beat would dovetail in with a revised overall strategy for keeping communities safe.  Even in my youth, which wasn't close to Reg's, I remember the Community Police building in Cottingham Close (Freshbrook) and being able to pop in as a kid to talk to them, getting them to chase some kid who had tried to pinch my bike or being a little wary of doing anything low level in-case they were out and about.

I'd also think, for those on the Right, if you put in place all the funding for the non-Police elements, if and when people do need catching, you are probably starting to look at people who really might well need a heavy hand in the Justice system.  I've always looked at Jails oddly - why send anyone for a few months, what's the point?  However, someone commits a crime against the person serious enough to warrant a bit of punishment, make it worth our while to fund them being locked away for a bit.

Domestic Abuse - sure, you need the Police to commit the intervention and put someone in custody, but what good are they when it's mental?

I was surprised at the maturity level dipping in responses to this thread. It's quite clear the thread has been set up to have open discussion and not pointless replies like "fell asleep" or "didn't read".

Several go on about bringing conversation down to levels of "that FB Group", yet some of you have exercised exactly that type of value. It really shows how mature you are if you have to make the statement of "didn't read it lolz". Because that's really cool and productive...if you're about 14. Interesting.

Yes I'm with you RobT, it would be nice to see proper engagement on this thread and hear different solutions or experiences people have had from all sides.

You have been told

Do you talk to yourself in the mirror bambi?

Are you here to share your opinion on the thread that RobT started or just to make cheap remarks at me? If it's the latter, there are much better things to spend your time doing.

I only posted my gif because I liked it. Looks as though I got bonus bites on an unbaited hook.

Happy days.

This got me thinking last night, however as I was reading it on my phone it wasn't that easy to research.

This idea of historically there being loads more police officers is something of a myth, the linked shows that in 1946 (probably a date at which the oldest members of society can realistically remember) there were 52k (all figures England and Wales) this rose to c.114k when Thatcher was in during 1980 (So the rise occurred under governments of both colours). https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/382711/response/935388/attach/html/3/FOI%2042515%20M%20Ashby%20table.xls.html

From 1980 this was fairly static until around 2000 (so was generally lower or at least on par with present during my and I suspect many others on here's childhoods) when it rather jumped, was then stable from 2005-2010 and then has dropped back to broadly 2000 numbers. https://fullfact.org/crime/police-numbers/

So for the lifetime of the majority there has not been some kind of utopia of more bobbies unless one counts, somewhat bizarrely the New Labour period, it also rather challenges the accepted idea that a Tory Government is one of law and order.

It would be interesting to know what they were deployed to do tough.  My hunch is they were doing far less roles so were more visible/community located.  So having less of them is fine.

An example of my views changing - why do two Police Officers (usually) pop round for a cup of tea when you are burgled?   From my experience, they can't do an awful lot of visible prevention after the fact, or protect me at that point by intercepting the scallywag.  The only thing left is catching them, which they don't really need to be having my tea to achieve.  Maybe a specialist in forensics if that is required (depends on the extent I guess) and maybe some sort of security expert to review the house for weak entry points/risks, but not a Police Officer.  Now, if they were in the Community and checking in every so often, letting me know what's going on in the area, keeping a presence, I can see that being much more worthy of my tea stash.