Defund the Police meets the crime wave • Hacker News Board

Re: Defund the Police meets the crime wave

#121

Post by harry8 » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 11:07 PM UTC

tshaddox wrote: post #76

eckmLJE wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actual instances of police funding being reduced are so rare that the author reaches for incidents of low police-citizen interaction following controversial police-on-citizen violence as evidence of what a straw-man version of "defund the police" advocates for. "Defund the police" has to be the most poorly conceived political slogan of all time. It sounds more like a pejorative its opponents came up with.

I can understand some criticisms of the slogan, but why are you criticizing the slogan in this case when the police were literally not defunded?

Not op. When the call for reform is "defund" and that seems like the wrong thing to do, then people don't support sensible reform. One would imagine that many if not most police officers support some kinds of sensible reform but probably hesitate to support "defunding" their wages and have their and their colleagues jobs cut, which is what "defund" really sounds like. It's a total us and them mentality which is not the way policing is supposed to be. In fact it's one of the things many people want reformed. Policing should be for us and us in our community with our consent as a population.

Re: Defund the Police meets the crime wave

#122

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 11:07 PM UTC

tshaddox wrote: post #76

eckmLJE wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actual instances of police funding being reduced are so rare that the author reaches for incidents of low police-citizen interaction following controversial police-on-citizen violence as evidence of what a straw-man version of "defund the police" advocates for. "Defund the police" has to be the most poorly conceived political slogan of all time. It sounds more like a pejorative its opponents came up with.

I can understand some criticisms of the slogan, but why are you criticizing the slogan in this case when the police were literally not defunded?

[deleted]

Re: Defund the Police meets the crime wave

#123

Post by rbanffy » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 11:07 PM UTC

endymi0n wrote: post #82

rbanffy wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there would have been lots of great claims: "Train police", "Restructure Police", "Rebuild Police"... but what's a single good argument do Defund Police other than going back to anarchy? I believe it's a reaction to police forces now having military gear when it should be totally unnecessary. In many places police officers don't even need guns. Maybe spending less money in militaria and more in training would be a…

"Unfortunately, as a reaction to our budget cuts, the department has decided today to drop all unneccessary training, public relations, proactive policing and vehicle maintenance. We hope there won't be more cuts in the future so we can afford maintaining the urban tanks and full battle gear our officers so direly need in these dangerous times." Duh. Who could possibly have foreseen that defunding would not change th…

> defunding would not change their attitude?

It's almost like a job where you get to work in military cosplay and just intimidate and sometimes kill people you don't like without facing any consequences would attract people suitable for being a police officer. When you offer sociopath-candy, you attract sociopaths.

Re: Defund the Police meets the crime wave

#124

Post by heavyset_go » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 11:07 PM UTC

vondur wrote: post #83

scrollbar wrote: post #18

I read most of the article, in which the author implies that defunding the police increases crime, and blames the people in charge of Oakland with this crime. Yet I recalled hearing that police budgets in Oakland were steady to up this year, despite the protests. A quick search seems to confirm this: https://www.ktvu.com/news/oakland-didnt-cut-any-money-from-t... >Despite claims to the contrary, the Oakland City Coun…

The main item in certain states is not prosecuting crime. We recently had a smash and grab robbery that made news here in SoCal. The suspects were quickly apprehended, but it turns out they were released on bail almost immediately afterwards. Due to the non-prosecution of criminal acts, these people will probably never do any jail time. People are definitely cognizant of this at this point, and it's eroding peoples t…

> The suspects were quickly apprehended, but it turns out they were released on bail almost immediately afterwards.

Bail is given when someone hasn't had a court determine their guilt yet. Getting rid of bail means that innocent people will sit in jail until their trials.

Re: Defund the Police meets the crime wave

#125

Post by thegrimmest » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 11:07 PM UTC

terminatornet wrote: post #67

> I have seen the unraveling over the past year in my own neighborhood. In October, about three blocks from my house, a neighbor was shot and killed in a home invasion. About a mile south in the same month, a 15-year-old girl was shot to death in an act of road rage. And just a few weeks ago, a little more than a half-mile west of me, another teenager was fatally shot. What exactly would police have done in any of th…

> What exactly would police have done in any of these situations to prevent them from happening?

They would have arrested and imprisoned the perpetrators, who are more than likely to have long criminal histories, after their first offence. People don't often go from zero to armed home invasion.

> Progressives in the US want...

I'm not sure any of this will work if there's insufficient order as to prevent smash-and-grab robberies and shootings from being a daily occurence. I don't suppose these people are stealing to eat or pay for healthcare. Dollars are best spent incarcerating violent people a la Japan, rather than paying them and hoping they behave themselves. Living in a peaceful society is a right afforded only to those who remain nonviolent.

Re: Defund the Police meets the crime wave

#126

Post by tr_user » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 11:07 PM UTC

rafale wrote: post #104

All of this debate is based on the bs idea that poverty breeds crime. When in fact it's a bad culture that does. I have seen places in 3rd world countries much poorer than most poor minorities in the US , and they just lived, helping each other out the best they can. But when the culture praises gangsters, being a "bad bitch" or whatever cancerous crap they brag about these days, then you get the issue of crime. Unpo…

> I have seen places in 3rd world countries much poorer than most poor minorities

Poor whites don't commit more crimes?

Re: Defund the Police meets the crime wave

#127

Post by monkeybutton » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 11:07 PM UTC

mostertoaster wrote: post #74

scrollbar wrote: post #18

I read most of the article, in which the author implies that defunding the police increases crime, and blames the people in charge of Oakland with this crime. Yet I recalled hearing that police budgets in Oakland were steady to up this year, despite the protests. A quick search seems to confirm this: https://www.ktvu.com/news/oakland-didnt-cut-any-money-from-t... >Despite claims to the contrary, the Oakland City Coun…

I think it is that the movement itself has caused crime to increase. My friend is a police officer and is moving out of my progressive state to a more conservative one. He told me this is happening in nearly every department. His reasoning was that they use to feel like they were on the side of the community, but in many places it is now the community is opposed to the police. Also they don’t risk certain things beca…

If police actually held their peers accountable, people wouldn't be rioting and this downward spiral would stop.

Re: Defund the Police meets the crime wave

#128

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 11:07 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Defund the Police meets the crime wave

#129

Post by rbanffy » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 11:08 PM UTC

pixelgeek wrote: post #87

rbanffy wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there would have been lots of great claims: "Train police", "Restructure Police", "Rebuild Police"... but what's a single good argument do Defund Police other than going back to anarchy? I believe it's a reaction to police forces now having military gear when it should be totally unnecessary. In many places police officers don't even need guns. Maybe spending less money in militaria and more in training would be a…

It isn't a recent issue. Progressives in the US were warning about this trend in the 1980s

The FBI also reported a lot of police forces have been infiltrated by white supremacists. One wonders where the violence comes from...

Re: Defund the Police meets the crime wave

#130

Post by bellyfullofbac » Thu, Dec 09, 2021, 11:08 PM UTC

drewwwwww wrote: post #29

i think it's worth pointing out giving the still semi-inflammatory nature of the headline, no serious advocate of defunding the police has ever suggested that simply doing that is the goal. the idea is to shift funding from cops walking around with guns killing people to things that actually prevent crime from happening, and as the piece points out, even in the few places that have actually reduced funding to police,…

... with a sadly very stupid title. One that gets an instant angry reaction from "the other side" instead of a discussion. Even Obama says that much: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-defund-the-police-slogan/ . You even have to write this comment to explain "Actually, the idea behind those 3 words are..."

If I were in charge of naming the idea, I'd suggest something like "Get Rid of Thug Cops!". Focus on how cops are supposed to be part of society instead of prison guards. Focus on the fact that e.g. Western European police get multiple years of education.

Even the UK has a problem, since the lying thieving government has been squeezing budgets for the last decade, the police have been underfunded there and it's harder to do the "be a part of society" part of policing.

But it's incredible how a protest slogan has been morphed by "the other side" into "this is actually happening, and look at all the results", when, as many have said, no actual defunding is happening.