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Abolish the Police? Survivors of the Chaos in Seattle Aren’t So Sure

nytimes.com

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Re: Abolish the Police? Survivors of the Chaos in Seattle Aren’t So Sure

#3

Post by spaetzleesser »

I really hate that in typical US manner this issue gets pushed to the extreme so in the end a reasonable discussion can’t be had but it’s only a fight with everybody digging in and not listening to each other.

Abolishing the police was always nonsense but there are plenty of areas where police is overused and too aggressive. In my view there shouldn’t be police in schools or hospitals. The drug war causes a lot of unnecessary arrests and aggravation with a lot of neighborhoods. Bad cops often stay in the force without consequences for clearly bad behavior. Cops don’t have enough training so they aren’t prepared for difficult situation . The list goes on and on.

Addressing these issues would be good for cops, citizens and also public budgets. But instead the country chooses to have this stupid fight where the interested parties spend a lot of time distorting other views. Reminds me of the typical healthcare discussions. It’s very sad.

Re: Abolish the Police? Survivors of the Chaos in Seattle Aren’t So Sure

#5

Post by sascha_sl »

collyw wrote: post #2

Was anyone surprised by this? Defund / Abolish the police sound like the stupidest ideas ever.

Defund is not actually a bad idea. The police are tasked with handling the fallout of failing or non-existent social systems and have been scaled respectively - in fact police funding is growing every year, and not insubstantially.

If you work in tech you should know what happens if you transfer too many responsibilities to one bloated team.

These funds would be better invested in actual support systems. Homeless shelters. Drug rehabilitation. Fixing subpar education funding in poor school districts.

Re: Abolish the Police? Survivors of the Chaos in Seattle Aren’t So Sure

#6

Post by dorian-graph »

> “Seattle’s unprecedented decision to abandon and close off an entire city neighborhood, leaving it unchecked by the police, unserved by fire and emergency health services, and inaccessible to the public”

Is this what people advocating for abolish the police are advocating for? Removal of health services? Isn't it literally the opposite, to have more and more varied health (and social) services, that people are advocating for?

"Abolish the police" is a scale where there is an extreme end where they may call for completely removing police from across the USA. From what I've seen, that isn't what the majority who are calling for abolishment are aiming for. Maybe "abolish" was a poor choice of a word.

The more common level I've seen is advocating for replacing parts of policing for more appropriate systems and services.

I'd call this article a straw-man argument, but there are those on the extreme end of the scale, apparently.

Re: Abolish the Police? Survivors of the Chaos in Seattle Aren’t So Sure

#8

Post by PedroBatista »

Human ego seems to be the most powerful thing in the Universe.

Whole communities commit "suicide" just to fuel the delusions of a handful and the self-preservation of another handful. How many injustices have been perpetrated in the name of justice?

No one comes out of this looking good, certainly not the police too.

Re: Abolish the Police? Survivors of the Chaos in Seattle Aren’t So Sure

#10

Post by elil17 »

“Business owners describe a harrowing experience of calling for help and being left all alone.”

No one advocating defunding the police was saying it would be good for business owners. The point of the whole movement is that police protect the rich and powerful at the expense of everyone else.

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