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Defund the Police meets the crime wave

bariweiss.substack.com

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Re: Defund the Police meets the crime wave

#321

Post by syysilma »

mostertoaster wrote: post #166
uoaei wrote: 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…

for every story of heroics there are 10^n times as many of bad experiences ranging from petty issues to brutality. police do not only not serve and protect, they frequently actively harm the communities they patrol

anecdotal counter-evidence will not be taken as a valid argument, either - just because you know cops that haven't either harmed you or claim to not have harmed anyone unjustly doesn't make policing as a whole less morally reprehensible

Re: Defund the Police meets the crime wave

#323

Post by raydev »

the_cat_kittles wrote: post #15

this article has no content. just show some contextualized statistics of how police funding correlates with crime. in seattle, it really hasnt from what ive seen. but if you have compelling numbers, go ahead

> this article has no content

This is typical of Weiss. She's made a second career out of "radical left" scaremongering since getting fired from the NYT.

Re: Defund the Police meets the crime wave

#324

Post by ogou »

The phrase "defund the police" appeared a month or so after the first protests. There was an existing niche movement to abolish police and prisons that was small but organized in Portland and Oakland and online. At first there was no message or cohesive platform, just anger. The abolition movement had plenty of slogans and content for young folks frantically searching "social justice" on their phones.

Also, police departments were flush with military surplus from excess war supplies and Homeland Security grants. So they showed up to the protests with tanks, full body armor, and automatic weapons. There was shock at those images that fed an older liberal response to "demilitarize the police". That was used to soften "abolish" to "defund". Coupled with some civic movements to shift budgets to mental health response instead of armed force, "defund the police" became a thing.

Very few cities ever actually defunded their police. Minneapolis itself voted it down.

Re: Defund the Police meets the crime wave

#325

Post by johndubchak »

eckmLJE wrote: post #27
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…

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.

People are conflating "Defund the Police" with a reduction of Policing enforcement and staffing. Whereas, I believe the original intent of DTP was the stop the militarization of the Police by not allowing them to acquire APC and other war-surplus items. The movement feared, rightly so IMO, that having such things would allow Police Departments to train and begin to act in a manner more consistent with field battle and a less like Community-based Policing enforcement.

Re: Defund the Police meets the crime wave

#326

Post by kragen »

giantg2 wrote: post #287
kragen wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article didn't say anything about whether the person was on foot or in a vehicle. I assumed they were in a vehicle because that's the way people would spray bullets into random houses in the neighborhoods I grew up in, precisely because it's enormously less risky, for precisely the reasons described above.

It could just be a poorly written article, but I was going off of this. "Apparently, in the Bay Area right now, you can walk up a residential street firing your gun into houses, and you still won’t be able to compete for attention with all of the other sensational crimes."

I did see that, but the author doesn't claim to have been there, or claim that his "nanny" saw the perpetrator, or indeed claim that he was able to find any information about the crime from any other source. So I think he's just guessing about how this sort of thing happens.

And, maybe I'm unreasonably reasoning from stereotypes here, but I think maybe a guy named "Leighton Woodhouse," who describes himself as a "progressive" and hires a "nanny" to raise his toddler, possibly may know too little about drive-by shootings to know what he doesn't know.

Re: Defund the Police meets the crime wave

#327

Post by mostertoaster »

whimsicalism wrote: post #192
mostertoaster wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I think this is definitely part of the answer. Though I think there is some guilt on the other side when they’ve treated police departments as if they’re all the same. When every use of force against even the most vile of criminals, in legitimate life or death situations, is somehow proof of their racist tendencies if the perp was a PoC.

> every use of force against even the most vile of criminals, in legitimate life or death situations, is somehow proof of their racist tendencies if the perp was a PoC. Example?

Examples? Isn’t it enough that I feel like it is true?

Think about it; if others read my statement and feel it is true they will think it is true. Cops who read it will think it is true as well.

The facts might be it is not true, but if you believe the story being told... well it doesn’t matter does it.

Which story is being believed, that the cops are evil racists, or that they are good guys with some bad apples?

What story is being believed, that blacks are victims who need white mans help? Or that they are glorious victors over even oppression, so much so that the most loved president of the last 20 years is a black man?

The facts don’t matter, because we only use them to promote the story we already agree with it?

Re: Defund the Police meets the crime wave

#328

Post by mostertoaster »

whimsicalism wrote: post #192
mostertoaster wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I think this is definitely part of the answer. Though I think there is some guilt on the other side when they’ve treated police departments as if they’re all the same. When every use of force against even the most vile of criminals, in legitimate life or death situations, is somehow proof of their racist tendencies if the perp was a PoC.

> every use of force against even the most vile of criminals, in legitimate life or death situations, is somehow proof of their racist tendencies if the perp was a PoC. Example?

Don’t believe me?

Is covid such a deadly virus we should have lockdowns and mandates that 40% of the population disagree with?

Yes?

What is the story you have believed in this situation, and what are the facts?

We had the same amount of drunk driving deaths here in my county the last month as we did covid. Yet bars are open, school children still wear masks.

Re: Defund the Police meets the crime wave

#329

Post by JamesBarney »

netizen-936824 wrote: post #205
JamesBarney wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it thin? There are several studies showing how policing reduces crime through a couple of measures. Intuitively it would make sense that locking up criminals would reduce crime (making them unable to commit more crime), that increasing the chance of a criminal getting locked up would reduce crime (via incentives), and just seeing more police officers around would reduce crime. I would be really surprised if fo…

People have been religious for thousands of years, it's easy for humans to believe things without evidence when it makes them feel better

And you think we need a criminal justice system is one of those things?

Re: Defund the Police meets the crime wave

#330

Post by JamesBarney »

Nostromos wrote: post #263
settrans wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any evidence that, on net, state welfare programs deter crime in any significant way?

It's been studied extensively and the research overwhelmingly shows that more generous welfare policies are associated with lower levels of crime. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00472... https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1999-13463-002 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3509381 https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/655778

I don't know if I'd call 3 regressions and a political piece extensive and overwhelming support.
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