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Police have been quitting in droves in the last year

nytimes.com

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Re: Police have been quitting in droves in the last year

#151

Post by ethagnawl »

uhtred wrote: post #47
_fat_santa wrote: post #3

Policing has to be one of the hardest jobs in our modern society, I honestly couldn't event imagine the stress. Imagine picking up a JIRA ticket at work and not knowing if that ticket is going to a run of the mill bug fix or something that can kill you. That's just out of the realm of possibility for an SWE but for a cop it can be any one of the calls they take on a daily basis. I've always had respect for cops becau…

In civilized countries where guns aren't ubiquitous most police call outs won't be for something that can kill them. It's bizarre to me that it's just normal in America to expect someone to have a gun. Also, let's not pretend a lot of them aren't doing it for the power trip.

> Also, let's not pretend a lot of them aren't doing it for the power trip.

... and the ability (in many/most? places) to retire after 20 years with ~50% pay. SO many of these people give zero fucks about the communities they're policing because they don't actually live in them and, generally, aren't incentivized to do so. They take these jobs because it's the best of a limited number of options. They then adopt a siege/deployment mentality and bulldoze their way through 20 years of service in order to retire early and open a bar, fuck off to Florida, hang out on their boat, etc.

Re: Police have been quitting in droves in the last year

#152

Post by recursivedoubts »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #119
recursivedoubts wrote: post #12

Democracy is said to be the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. However, I note that, from a democratic perspective, it appears that the broader public does not actually want a reduced police force, and this appears to be true across racial lines[1]. So, let us perhaps say, instead: democracy is the theory that the extremely-online elites and activists know what the…

It is true that even among minorities support for the existence of an active police force remains high. However, the principles of policing by consent still hold: a community deserves to be policed by police it recognizes as members of that community, not outsiders, and which have the community's best interests at heart. There is still a lot of work to be done in the US regarding these things.

That appears to be a general argument for self-determination or segregation, according to tastes.

Re: Police have been quitting in droves in the last year

#153

Post by JohnWhigham »

Honestly, I don't have a lot of sympathy. Many PDs have done this to themselves with bullshit like asset seizures, buying military-grade equipment for no reason, dragging their feet on officer investigations and complaints ("paid administrative leave"...what a joke) just to name a few.

Over the past ~60 years as municipal budgets for infrastructure, parks, social services and the like have shrunk, you know what part hasn't but actually got larger? Police budgets. And look where it's got us today.

Re: Police have been quitting in droves in the last year

#154

Post by JackPoach »

mtrower wrote: post #111
JackPoach wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably, but so should teachers, nurses, etc. Can you name one occupation outside politics/lawyers where you think people should be paid less?

Telemarketers. =)

When I was a student they used to get minimum wage. You can't go lower than that. Absolutely terrible way to make a living. 'Lucky' for us, it's now mostly pre-recorded robocalls.

Re: Police have been quitting in droves in the last year

#155

Post by d0100 »

ijustlovemath wrote: post #29
kspacewalk2 wrote: post #10

Sounds like 'defund the police' is stupid, self-defeating sloganeering that makes no sense given what its apparent settled-upon meaning (only settled upon many months after becoming popular).

The meaning of "diverting funding to other resources" has been a consensus in the community for a very long time. It's only recently that "defund" has been conflated with "abolish," which has always been a very very small niche of the police reform community.

> has been a consensus in the community

If the community wants more support from outside themselves, pick a better slogan

Re: Police have been quitting in droves in the last year

#156

Post by Decabytes »

My father is a Police Officer and he and any other officers with military service are using their service time to retire early. None of them enjoy being cops any more.

I don't think anyone, even the cops are saying that there aren't issue with today's current policing. And I think that is the biggest problem with the whole defund police movement. When you have one side shouting "All cops our bad" "F the police" etc, why would you expect the other side to listen, even if there were valid complaints/criticism. Of course the cops are going to bristle, dig their heels in and be stubborn. It's just human nature.

I think the movement would be more effective if this was treated like how the people tried to convince coalminers to get green jobs. Retraining for other jobs, financial support etc. I can guarantee you that plenty of cops would love to be park rangers, park wardens, student mentors, etc, especially in todays climate.

Re: Police have been quitting in droves in the last year

#157

Post by devrand »

y0ssar1an wrote: post #96

Coincidentally, the murder rate is way up. > A 25 percent increase in murder in 2020 would mean the United States surpassed 20,000 murders in a year for the first time since 1995. (The final official numbers for 2020 will not be released until late September.) https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/16/upshot/murder-rate-usa.ht... Thanks, BLM.

Conveniently ignoring that there was a global pandemic going on for most of the year with record high unemployment. Crime went up basically as soon as the pandemic started.

Re: Police have been quitting in droves in the last year

#158

Post by colinmhayes »

throwkeep wrote: post #138
ijustlovemath wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The meaning of "diverting funding to other resources" has been a consensus in the community for a very long time. It's only recently that "defund" has been conflated with "abolish," which has always been a very very small niche of the police reform community.

Sitting member of Congress: "No more policing, incarceration, and militarization. It can't be reformed." https://mobile.twitter.com/RashidaTlaib/status/1381745303997... Sitting member of Congress: "We can’t reform this." https://mobile.twitter.com/AyannaPressley/status/13817027443... Activist with 475k followers whose name is currently: "DEFUND & ABOLISH POLICE" https://mobile.twitter.com/BreeNewsome Ben & Jerrys: "T…

Fringe congressmen and an op-ed written by a fringe organizer aren't really evidence of what the common consensus is.

Re: Police have been quitting in droves in the last year

#159

Post by smileysteve »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #10

Sounds like 'defund the police' is stupid, self-defeating sloganeering that makes no sense given what its apparent settled-upon meaning (only settled upon many months after becoming popular).

This comment ignores all previous events to 2020.

Ferguson was deeply studied; an average of 3 warrants per citizen. International attention has been coming to America's police tactic for at least 30 years.

Re: Police have been quitting in droves in the last year

#160

Post by viraptor »

blacktriangle wrote: post #74
plank_time wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The paranoid mentality that any call could kill you is the exact reason why so many unarmed black people are shot. If you can’t carry out a day’s work without the unreasonable fear that you will be shot, and any action makes you “fear for your life” so that why you emptied your clip into a car, then you shouldn’t be a cop. Cops needs to have cooler heads and this should be measured and verified before allowing them t…

Except "so many unarmed black people are shot" is a lie. A larger per-capita percentages of unarmed whites are shot than blacks.

Absolute death by police in 2020: white 457, black 241. https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-de...

Population: white 197M, black 40M. https://statisticalatlas.com/United-States/Race-and-Ethnicit...

Per-capita: close to 3 times as many black people shot. I couldn't find clear statistics for unarmed victims. Please post if they're much different.

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