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We have a county hospital system here. Ben Taub is one of the Big 4 hospitals in the Texas Medical Center. The other one is a general hospital in another part of town that focuses on that community.
My suggestion is to add a dedicated mental hospital to the county system to assume the responsibility from the Mental Health Unit of the county jail. Harris County can be innovative in mental health care delivery, just like the City of Houston was proactive in reducing homelessness.
Well, talking about it in city-data is great. Take it to the city and county and see how it’ll work. Good luck. Harris county is different from Travis, the topic of this conversation.
Well, talking about it in city-data is great. Take it to the city and county and see how it’ll work. Good luck. Harris county is different from Travis, the topic of this conversation.
Just sharing ideas. The rest of Texas has the same problem, albeit on a smaller scale due to population and geographic size differences.
The lack of mental health care delivery is actually a state-wide and nation-wide problem. It's often said that President Reagan emptied the mental hospitals and unleashed violence and chronic homelessness nationwide. Sadly the only time mental health gets brought up these days is when the NRA brings up the issue as deflection after another mass shooting spree.
You touch on a lot of key points. Which again I respect but disagree with you. Where I come from, most but not all Police Departments require at least a 4 year degree. As far as Police not knowing the penal code, is it really fair to paint everyone with a broad brush?
If a highly unionized profession in charge of life-or-death situations were as consistently let off the hook like police, yes, yes I do think it would be fair to paint with a broad brush. No occupation is as squeaky clean and blameless as the law finds police to be.
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Do you want me to post videos of rideshare driver's who have assaulted their passengers? Teacher's having sex with students? Doctor's who go through years of training who coincidentally also take an oath also have a license to kill, but they have malpractice insurance.
As non-sequitur as this is, rideshare drivers get the book thrown at them, as do teachers. Doctors regularly strip the licenses of quack doctors, and malpractice insurance is one of the biggest expenses doctors have. None of these professions have union leaders that throw temper tantrums as if no member has ever done any wrong in addition to DAs that have their backs.
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Do you have any idea what the dynamics of a domestic dispute entail? Have you ever responded to one? I once changed my oil by watching a YouTube video, did it make me a mechanic, no.
Can you seriously, with a straight face, tell me a cop would handle those dynamics better than a social worker with backup? Anecdotes shouldn't count for anything, but yeah, I have plenty of personal experience with cops and their handling of domestic disputes.
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You cannot compare policing in the UK to the USA. England, they don't even carry firearms.
So police in less volatile situations have better training elsewhere...
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Police should be in charge of any crime scene, just like a Surgeon should be in charge while performing surgery.
If police want to be as highly regarded as surgeons, then they need the training, licensure, insurance, and deunionization of surgeons.
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How many motor vehicle stops have you conducted?
Believe it or not, road construction administration puts you in that situation more than most would imagine, but again, anecdotes are useless. You didn't address that there are multiple professions that issue infractions without needing arms or resorting to violence. Traffic is a civil realm. I guarantee that the vast majority of drivers are breaking some sort of traffic rule at any given time, and all it's become is a cash cow and blanket use of probable cause for police. Traffic stops don't need to be volatile situations.
Just sharing ideas. The rest of Texas has the same problem, albeit on a smaller scale due to population and geographic size differences.
The lack of mental health care delivery is actually a state-wide and nation-wide problem. It's often said that President Reagan emptied the mental hospitals and unleashed violence and chronic homelessness nationwide. Sadly the only time mental health gets brought up these days is when the NRA brings up the issue as deflection after another mass shooting spree.
Just ideas with no understanding of the system.
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Originally Posted by Westerner92
Can you seriously, with a straight face, tell me a cop would handle those dynamics better than a social worker with backup? Anecdotes shouldn't count for anything, but yeah, I have plenty of personal experience with cops and their handling of domestic disputes.
Tragically, I have heard of a social working being shot. In the state I came from, a social worker from the Division of Youth & Family Services was shot and killed. So not in Texas.
I will definitely read it to educate myself further. Please don't feel I am singling you out. Someone made a comment about what Police should and should not do, like motor vehicle stops.
I am man enough to admit that I really don't know what defund the police really means. I was under the impression it was due to the political clime and the fact that the people simply just don't want cops around.
It is mainly focused on the many jobs that dont require the skills and personality required for tactical training.
Most crimes are not caught in the act, we dont need "police" to follow up. traffic control, traffic tickets, etc etc dont need armed police
Even random patrolling could be done with unarmed people who call the armed police. A lot of armed police time is wasted on patrol. Armed police could be more like firefighters. They stay at the station until they are called.
Hi there CarnivalGal, while mitigation is a great theory, crime is not linear. In my personal experience early intervention works for substance abusers, alcoholics, and sometimes the homeless. There are those that are just plain criminals. I recently watched a documentary on the Austin Bomber which transpired in 2018. I had no idea while planning to move here that even occurred. It supports my opinion that Police are a necessity, for a myriad of reasons. In this case, the suspects m/o was that he just wanted to kill people. Had someone in his family or friends had seen any warning signs, those people would not have lost their lives. Kudos to Law Enforcement for identifying him in 18 days.
I don't think anyone is saying that police shouldn't respond to crime when it happens, but we need to make a better effort to prevent crime in the first place. The biggest predictor of crime is poverty. Give people opportunities to get out of poverty - job training, childcare, etc. Redirect some funds into those things.
Also, much of what police do has nothing to do with potentially dangerous situations. They don't need to be the ones to respond to a fender bender, they don't need to be the ones to take a report when Ethel's mailbox is knocked over again. There should be other folks who handle those things. I would think that police would welcome not having to respond to those things.
Hello Austin97. You don't understand the basic core concepts of Policing in the United States. Many crimes are caught in the act, you just don't hear about it because A) You are not a cop and B) You only believe what the mainstream media tells you.
I suggest you do a ride along. But as I have stated you have your opinion and I respect the opinion of others.
Can you name any of the 5 major personality tests administered to Police Candidates without googling them?
1) I go by statistics. The statistics say the vast majority of police calls have nothing to do with violence. I never said "many crimes arent caught in the act". What I said was that police dont randomly run into people committing crimes.
2) anecdotally I have never had a good interaction with a traffic cop. Im always 100% respectful, saying yes sir/no sir. I keep my hands on the wheel and ask for permission to make any move. And yet 100% of cops have been *******s. My personal opinion is that their attitude escalates situations. And my anecdotes are as good as yours.
3) you are making hasty generalizations about me, knowing nothing about me. Im actually a conservative. But I look at data and only data for decision making. I dont know for a fact that defund will work, but based on the data, I believe it could work. It is a hypothesis worth trying and austin is going to be on the forefront of the experiment. A large segment of the population believes that the police need reform.
Frankly I dont care either way. The status quo is fine for me and defund is fine.
I agree with you about poverty. The second day I moved in to my place I had packages stolen off my porch. People aren't working. I get the parallels. To say what Police do have nothing to do involves dangerous situations is not true in my opinion. Police are being targeted and wantingly shot and targeted.
How do you know if it's just a fender bender? What if the car is stolen. Is the person behind the wheel drunk? You see what I am getting at here. All of these hypotheticals and cancel culture scenarios for the Police can be debunked easily.
People can't have their cake and eat it too. Either let them do their job, or they won't respond anymore, just like in Minneapolis. I would say the majority of people are happy to see a Police Officer drive down their street in Suburbia, there is a thing called Community Policing.
I am very ignorant about APD because I just moved here, so there might be some history I am not aware of, but I am not ignorant about policing in general. Have a wonderful evening.
Edit: I see your point to a degree, NYPD hires non-sworn traffic agents to issue parking tickets, so I see where your line of thinking is, and I respect that.
In bad weather and other situations, police will actually NOT respond to fender benders just because there are so many of them it makes it impossible. If you've ever experience an ice storm in Austin, you'll know what I'm talking about. They will tell you to exchange information and then file a report later. If the possibility of a car being stolen or someone being impaired isn't a concern at those times, then I can't really think they are a concern on any other day.
And the fire department almost always responds to clear the road, etc. They are all trained paramedics. They can identify when someone is impaired. If that's the case, they can call for police. But I dare say in most situations, that's not going to be necessary. Automatically dispatching police doesn't need to be the default.
There have been numerous studies that show more police, and more police funding, does not mean less crime. What has been shown to reduce crime is affordable housing, education, and living wages. We need to help people to help themselves. We need to make an investment in services like those. They will pay off in the long run.
I think most cops are decent people. But I think the current sentiment is fueled by that fact that the ones that aren't are rarely punished. There are a lot of officers who abuse their power. I've witnessed it myself. On more than one occasion. And I'm a suburban white woman from an upper middle class area. There is nothing really stopping them because they know there will be no consequences. They can turn off their body cam and it's like, "My bad," and there's no punishment for that. There are a lot of cops who snap much too easily. The culture of cops protecting other cops needs to change. I don't claim to know more than someone who has served, but I do have two close family members who were LEOs, one a now retired state trooper (not Texas) and another a former chief of police for a small town (also not Texas). Both will completely agree with this statement. The latter resigned and got out of law enforcement all together because of it.
1) I go by statistics. The statistics say the vast majority of police calls have nothing to do with violence. I never said "many crimes arent caught in the act". What I said was that police dont randomly run into people committing crimes.
2) anecdotally I have never had a good interaction with a traffic cop. Im always 100% respectful, saying yes sir/no sir. I keep my hands on the wheel and ask for permission to make any move. And yet 100% of cops have been *******s. My personal opinion is that their attitude escalates situations. And my anecdotes are as good as yours.
3) you are making hasty generalizations about me, knowing nothing about me. Im actually a conservative. But I look at data and only data for decision making. I dont know for a fact that defund will work, but based on the data, I believe it could work. It is a hypothesis worth trying and austin is going to be on the forefront of the experiment. A large segment of the population believes that the police need reform.
Frankly I dont care either way. The status quo is fine for me and defund is fine.
I agree with a lot of this. And whether people like to admit it or not, people of color are treated differently. Good example - a group of black kids were walking along the street, not bothering anyone, not doing anything wrong. Police drive by and from their car yell over the speaker, "Get the f*** on the sidewalk!" Really? Is that necessary? How about, "Please move on to the sidewalk,"?
Ok, so let me guess this straight, if Doctor's were unionized it's ok to kill a patient once in a while? Having malpractice insurance gives them carte blanche, that's some fantastic logic right there. Governor's are charged with life or death situations as are judges, juries & other jobs. Never said all Police are squeaky clean, there are bad ones however the good in my opinion outweigh the bad.
Lol wut? Are you sure you even tried to comprehend what I wrote before coming up with a bad faith argument? Let’s try again: Professions with qualified immunity shouldn’t be unionized and should come with heavy, heavy insurance, which does indeed temper the worst instincts of practitioners of said profession. Basically all jobs with qualified immunity besides policing get this.
The justice system (not you necessarily) finds police to be incapable of wrong, and it’s sickening. It endorses the cultural rot that’s part of the meathead culture common among police.
Get rid of unions, make policing a real profession with real qualifications (the licensure system they have is a joke because of the unions). That’ll clean up most of their attitude problem and most of the justice system’s problem of being scared to prosecute murders occurring on video. It’ll stop the system that shuffles problem officers around departments like Catholic priest kid diddlers.
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In MOST cases, traffic stops turn volatile because the actions of the drivers. We also need people reform. It's a fairly simple concept.
That’s what all the calls for more community support networks are about. But also, do you really hold the average citizen to the same standards that you do police? Why are there other kinds of officers who are capable of issuing citations without being so scared and twitchy?
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