To Defund or Not to Defund?

[Robinz]

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  

[RobertT]

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.

[4D]

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

[pauld]

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

[pauld]

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".

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.

[RobertT]

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.

[pauld]

They receive Training on how to be mentally prepared to take a life

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.

the Police Union appears to be the biggest issue, going well beyond what most Unions would do. 

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.

[horlock07]

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.

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

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.

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

[Flashheart]

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

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

Extortion is another matter, however.

[pauld]

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

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?

[theakston2k]

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.

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.

[pauld]

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.

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.

[tans]

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

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.

[thedarkprince]

Do you think all frontline officers in the UK should be armed out of interest?

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).

[horlock07]

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.

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.