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Police have been quitting in droves in the last year

nytimes.com

261–270 of 356 posts

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

#261
post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is lots of police members don't do their best to help their local communities, and the ones that do stand behind that ones that definitely don't.

I'm glad to hear you conducted a thorough survey with the millions of good police officers out there and found out they support the bad apples. If only everyone had access to this unprecedented data you have collected, we could finally put this matter to rest.

Who needs statistics when you can see the police acting like this in your own day to day life?

That's the reality for a huge amount of people.

Bad cops are extremely rarely seriously punished, and its ever rarer for other cops to finger them for it.

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

#262
post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

At least in England and Wales the pandemic seems to have led to a reduction in crime: > Total police recorded crime decreased by 4% in England and Wales to approximately 5.8 million offences in the 12 months ending June 2020; police reported crime levels were relatively stable from July 2019 to March 2020 and the annual decrease was mainly driven by substantial falls during the April to June 2020 period, particularly…

As far as I know this is fairly unique to the United States, and even then the crime stats are a bit... strange. Overall crime stats are just coming in at the federal level so the picture is very much incomplete, but if we look at particular cities (ex. New York City), we can see a sharp increase in murder and burglary, but a decrease in basically every other type of crime (leading to a net reduction) [1].

This seems to be the trend in cities across the country including Dallas [2], LA [3], and Chicago [4]. Murders are way up, but overall crime is down.

[1]: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/news/p0106a/overall-crime-new...

[2]: https://dallaspolice.net/resources/CrimeReports/NIBRS%20Week...

[3]: http://lapd-assets.lapdonline.org/assets/pdf/cityprof.pdf

[4]: https://abc7chicago.com/chicago-shootings-2020-shooting-crim...

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

#263
post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve had a completely different experience than you. Cops who I’ve known have been pretty normal, compassionate people. They routinely tell me the most important skill in effective law enforcement is your ability to communicate.

Something tells me you don't get detained enough by the police because you "match the description"

I’m talking about a few people I know personally who happen to be cops (some white dudes, some POCs). Obviously this is anecdotal, as is the original comment I replied to.

However, I did experience profiling several times when I was younger and drove a mini-truck in the Bay Area. I have slightly darker skin and am routinely mistaken for hispanic. In the couple of years I owned the mini-truck, I was pulled over several times for things like a tail light out (it wasn’t), or “reports of stolen trucks that fit this description”. While unfair from a profiling perspective, I was compliant and polite, and the cops were professional (outside of the initial profiling). After running my license and registration they always let me on my way without any harassment. Now, I’m not saying my experience is indicative of other’s experience with cops but just that I’ve glimpsed the other side a bit.

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

#265

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.

I'd rather "de-fang the police" than defund them. The problems people complain about aren't budget issues, they are behavior issues: Excessive use-of-force, Escalation instead of de-escalation, Casually committing crimes on the job due to immunity, Racial bias, and the culture of good officers covering for bad ones. These can be reformed while still recognizing the positive role a well behaved and well funded police force plays in communities.

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

#266
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn’t mean a bad slogan like Defund the police isn’t just divisive, ill-advised, and harmful.

There's nothing activists can do that won't be labeled "divisive, ill-advised, and harmful". See how Martin Luther King Jr. was portrayed in the 1960s, for example. https://twitter.com/BerniceKing/status/1300196044693741574

That's the trope, but it's also completely wrong. It was, after all, MLK and not Malcolm X who achieved so much of the progress in the 1960s. And it was the Log Cabin Republicans, not HRC, that won the fight for gay marriage. Advancements for minority groups are better facilitated by building bridges than by burning them.

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

#267
post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something tells me you don't get detained enough by the police because you "match the description"

I’m talking about a few people I know personally who happen to be cops (some white dudes, some POCs). Obviously this is anecdotal, as is the original comment I replied to. However, I did experience profiling several times when I was younger and drove a mini-truck in the Bay Area. I have slightly darker skin and am routinely mistaken for hispanic. In the couple of years I owned the mini-truck, I was pulled over severa…

This... "outside of the initial profiling"

doesn't jibe with this... "let me on my way without any harassment."

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

#268
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Law enforcement can be dangerous but it's only #22 in occupational death rates. Lumberjacks and roofers are far more likely to get killed. https://www.ishn.com/articles/112748-top-25-most-dangerous-j...

And the majority of those are traffic accidents. If you limit it to homicides it drops many more places.

How many roofers or lumberjacks are killed by homicide in the course of doing their job?

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

#269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing activists can do that won't be labeled "divisive, ill-advised, and harmful". See how Martin Luther King Jr. was portrayed in the 1960s, for example. https://twitter.com/BerniceKing/status/1300196044693741574

That's the trope, but it's also completely wrong. It was, after all, MLK and not Malcolm X who achieved so much of the progress in the 1960s. And it was the Log Cabin Republicans, not HRC, that won the fight for gay marriage. Advancements for minority groups are better facilitated by building bridges than by burning them.

MLK was regularly accused of burning bridges at the time, as I've demonstrated in the link.

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

#270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citation?

Not something that can be empirically tested.

Looks like it can be.

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C14&q=Acc...

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C14&q=Acc...

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C14&q=rel...

> There is little information available that shows the relative values of stress across different occupations, which would enable the direct comparison of stress levels. This paper reports the rank order of 26 different occupations on stress and job satisfaction levels.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00472...

> One of the main tenets of GST, the introduction of noxious stimuli (i.e., experiencing violent events) correlates with negative coping strategies.

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