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Defund the Police meets the crime wave

bariweiss.substack.com

241–250 of 365 posts

Re: Defund the Police meets the crime wave

#241
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If cops aren't willing to do their jobs, and instead let their feelings get in the way, they are negligent in their service and incompetent... to say the least. It is not the jobs of people being policed to watch their own tone so they avoid offending cops. It is the job of cops to serve and protect , full stop. It is well-known that police departments align closely with the cultural segments that (among other things…

Are you saying cops don’t serve and protect? Do you know any who rushed into active mass shooting scenes, which is clearly a dangerous place to be? If you did, then you might think differently. Have cops used undue force? Yes. Are there some that are on a power trip and need to be fired? Yes. That doesn’t change what the police officers I know are like, nor the risks they are taking with every patrol. I think the mai…

dude the cops on power trips don't need to be fired, they need to be prosecuted.

It is insane we give people both deadly weapons and wide judgement for when to use them and then the worst that occurs in most cases of misuse is firing.

Re: Defund the Police meets the crime wave

#242

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…

His main point is that defunding the police without an alternative that has been proven to reduce crime does the opposite. It increases crime over time. What he outlines is true. I hear a lot about cutting the police but little to nothing about what will replace it as a proven way to reduce crime.

Also, all budgets need to increase just to keep up with inflation. So just because a budget is increased or it stays the same does not imply that it has not been cut. An increase of $39 mil. can only be properly evaluated if we know the size of the original budget and inflation.

Re: Defund the Police meets the crime wave

#243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It doesn't seem like rioters wait patiently to see if someone will be held accountable, before rioting.

Sure, people are angry and primed to riot at a moments notice. All it takes is a short video uploaded to the Internet to set one off now. They have lost patience because they have lost trust. How did this happen? It wasn't overnight.

Re: Defund the Police meets the crime wave

#244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Police don't prevent crime. Hell, they barely even respond to crime. Awarding a well-marked group with some measure of public accountability the right to use violent countermeasures for the protection of life and property in a geographic area facilitates commercial trade and societal advancement. However, the “garbage-in, garbage-out” phenomenon applies to policing, which makes it less of a silver bullet. A certain…

I mean, accountability is severely lacking nearly across the board because the incentives are so messed up. (E.g. internal reviews are just the police governing themselves, and external reviews would be a prosecutor prosecuting the police, but that’s a professional relationship the prosecutor doesn’t want to mess up.) But I think you’re also saying that police can’t change a local community, if it’s already filled wi…

> But I think you’re also saying that police can’t change a local community, if it’s already filled with crime. If that’s the case and they don’t have a big impact… what’s the point?

The point is to preempt a power vacuum threatening social order, e.g. imagine if Japan didn’t have a police force.

> Plus, I’d say the “hysteria” is more about police turning gold into lead, so to speak, harming or killing people unnecessarily.

I don’t disagree, nor did I claim to. However, I’d be curious to know whether you’d prefer all police be replaced by robots and drones which perfectly upheld the law. For many, that’s an even scarier thought than imperfect, human policing.

Re: Defund the Police meets the crime wave

#245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you ignore history this seems like it might be something to look into, that’s until you realize that crime has fallen greatly in the last two to three decades and quite a few of these cities, New York and Los Angeles included had Republican mayors at the start of that time period. NYC crime is way down since Guiliani was mayor. Los Angeles crime is down since Richard Riordan was mayor. So maybe the takeaway is tha…

I think some context is in order. Giuliani's heavy handedness in dealing with criminals forced the crime to come down in a way. Meaning, police were forced to deal even with the pettiest of crimes. Giuliani banned all sorts of "unsavory" businesses from Times Square. That reduced crime in the area and helped a ton because it showed that a horrible area can be rehabilitated. One year, the subways were gross, smelly, h…

You’re right it needs context, but my point was that it needs to be analyzed far beyond what party controls the mayor’s office.

Also crime was already falling when each of them took office so I’m not sure I’d attribute the falling crime solely to their tactics or leadership.

Re: Defund the Police meets the crime wave

#246
post #44

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…

Crime is going up in cities all over the country, including those in red states that never had a sniff of "Defund the Police". I'm unconvinced that it's a direct contributor.

Is per-capita crime going up as well?

Re: Defund the Police meets the crime wave

#247
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My life and well being of my family worth more than the worthless lowlives who going around robbing, shooting and hurting people.

My point being that, if they suspect you have weapons, their lives are worth more to them than yours and your family's and they'll not think twice before making that choice before you make yours. If they enter your house when your family is in, they are prepared for it. You are not. Remember, it's a violent criminal we are talking about. Were it not a violent criminal, they'd stalk your house and wait for it to be em…

"if they suspect you have weapons..." - they (bad guys) will move out into cities or jurisdictions where citizens are unable to protect themselves.

Armed citizens are not worth fooling with.

Re: Defund the Police meets the crime wave

#248
post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jazz never glorified crime. Big difference here. You are making a false equivalence.

I’m not. It doesn’t matter what jazz is or isn’t. The point is misdirection. I’m not going to argue that Rap isn’t often talking about crime and violence, but rap is a wide genre and quite a lot of it is not violent. The origins of Rap are quite different than what we have today, you might be interested to learn the history of rap and how/why it changed. You might also learn about rap and not cherrypick what fits you…

[deleted]

Re: Defund the Police meets the crime wave

#249
post #27

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…

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.

It wasn't just "defund the police", it was "abolish the police".

If your argument is that the police haven't been defunded or abolished, maybe your issue is with the mainstream media that were publishing arguments in favor of abolishing the police?

Have you considered holding them to account for that?

Re: Defund the Police meets the crime wave

#250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know the criminal who just entered your house uninvited is only there to take your flatscreen? Think quickly, your and your family’s life depends on your decision.

If they expect people to be armed, it's much simpler to just kill them before they can mount a reaction. From the point of view of a criminal who already committed crimes sufficient for life imprisonment, that's a very easy choice.

Regardless of what criminal think - armed citizen has much higher chance to survive the attack.

If criminals expect people to be armed - they'll move on to easier targets.

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