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And of the 8% that are violent crimes, the majority are already over. So in progress violent crimes are very very rare. The armed police should sit at the station (or at home) doing nothing and respond to calls like firemen. They shouldnt be patrolling. We should balance the number of police to the highest volume of in progress violent crime calls
That is the exact opposite of the community policing approach that is now considered by many to be the best approach.
Plenty of suspects are caught soon after the crime is committed. Usually they are holed up in someone's backyard or hiding behind a car like this guy. Evidence has to be collected and someone has to take statements from witnesses who may not want to stick around forever.
Then there is the deterrent factor where the presence of police might make some alter their behavior in accordance with our laws. If you ever go to the Edgar Allen Poe museum in Baltimore you will see patrols around that area constantly in an effort to put some eyes on the ground. Crime is high in those areas but probably would be even higher without the patrols.
And of the 8% that are violent crimes, the majority are already over. So in progress violent crimes are very very rare. The armed police should sit at the station (or at home) doing nothing and respond to calls like firemen. They shouldnt be patrolling. We should balance the number of police to the highest volume of in progress violent crime calls
With all due respect, the level of ignorance you (and many others) display about police work is astounding. Do you have any idea how many felons are caught by routine patrols pulling someone over for a tail light being out? Or what about the patrol a few years ago that, upon pulling a vehicle over, had a young lady bail out of the car, begging for protection? Seems she had just been abducted - had the police not stopped the car, she would have been seriously injured - perhaps even killed.
The presence of police in our society is the only thing that keeps it civilized. The "bad cops" on the forces are often a direct result of the lowering of standards brought on by the city councils/advisory boards that were trying to "socially engineer" departments. Rather than working to "groom" non-traditional potential police recruits, they instead insisted on lowering standards.....hasn't worked out too well, has it?
I can assure you of one thing....the day is coming when Austin will no longer be safe to walk unescorted, because the criminal element is going to quickly realize that their odds of being caught are dramatically reduced. I have to wonder how long it will be until companies start relocating to other communities that understand and appreciate the stability that a good police force can bring. Y'all have managed to destroy what what once a neat city.
No, not semantics. Facts.
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From the birth of modern civilization in 3rd millennia BC, almost every major ancient civilization used concept of prisons as a mean to detain and remove personal freedoms of incarcerated people.
the reason why it is semantics is because they are talking about modern police forces in the current form. That is different than 3000 years ago even though at some level they are conceptually the same.
Ultimately you guys are disagreeing on the definition of police. Do the enforcers from 3000 still count as "police"?
It’s pretty difficult to prevent insanity on voting day when your city has tens of thousands of ideological college students voting for their first or second time. Yes to everything! Most of them will be long gone by the time these measures require money, and Austin homeowners are left with the check. Or the fallout.
I recently read "Grant", all about the civil war of course, but also how the criminalization of "being black" followed the 13th Amendment.
The 13th Amendment reads:
"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
I added the bold and underlined as it is the pertinent language upon which the Confederate South seized following the civil war. Thus, laws making petty non-crimes into crimes, enforced mainly against blacks (or black sympathizers) in the deep south, created slavery by another name. Jailed blacks were made to work, and the fear of being "arrested" for any fictional offense whatsoever, kept the vast majority "in their place". Thus not "Free" at all. Not by any stretch of the imagination. People who know their history know this, as it's irrefutable documented fact.
The modern era version starting in the late 1960s, following passage of another big Civil Rights law, is the "tough on crime" "3 strikes and you're out" laws, the over-enforcement of one version of cocaine against blacks while another version of cocaine was less strictly punished against whites.
Anyone ignorant of and uninformed about the topic of mass incarceration in the United States, an objectively measurable scourge, together with the redlining housing laws which blatantly restricted federally insured home loans to people of color, thus relegating them to inner city slums and depriving them of the wealth accumulation that home ownership bring, has no intellectual leg to stand on if trying to say that Policing and Prisons have functioned as anything other than the most blatant form of systemic racism ever practiced in the United States.
At least the KKK were honest about it. Nixon, Bill Clinton, and almost every old legacy politician who cloaked themselves in the "tough on crime" lie, are culpable. As are those who would say none of the above is true.
Last edited by austin-steve; 08-14-2020 at 07:50 AM..
Reason: typo
@ATX Wahine You're absolutely right about that. That's part of the problem, and honestly I can't blame them. I was once the young idealistic student myself. However, there must be a way to counter that. They are a large part of the population, however there are still enough other folks voting for the types on our council to keep the scale tipped.
Come on @Austin-Steve, as the old saying goes, correlation does not imply causation. There's no doubt that racial injustices have been done in the past, but we've come a long way. To say that the justice system, particularly in a large liberal cosmopolitan city like Austin, is just a mechanism of/for systemic racism is an overreach.
The law does not see color, it sets a code, which is enforced. If a certain law is unjust, the issue is the law and not the person enforcing the law. If the law captures a certain demographic disproportionately than others, it does not necessarily mean the law is unjust.
The idea that being tough on crime is racist is completely absurd. If the law is not upheld, then why have the law. Remove the law, and continue enforcement of the other laws. We should be tough on crime, otherwise no one will care. We have a law on littering, which is rarely enforced. As the city has grown we have litter everywhere. I've literally watched a car full of guys open the window an dump their bag full of McD's trash onto the road at a red light. We're supposed to have permits for marches and protests. Now, we allow people to endanger themselves and the public by blocking streets and highways at their choosing. Stopped enforcing vagrancy laws, we get a public health and safety issue with camps sprouting on sidewalks and underpasses. Stop prosecuting minor theft, then your amazon packages continue to disappear off the porch. Same with drugs; want to get them off the streets? Legalize it. Again, tweaking laws go much further than stripping our law enforcement from their ability to enforce them.
One more thing, the tone we take against those we've selected to enforce the laws sets the tone of our response to our every day activities. Reduction in traffic enforcement funding, means I'm probably going to speed more frequently due to less concerns about being caught in speed traps. Lowered response times, means one is more likely to take lethal action against trespassers and anyone caught stealing on property. If one can't depend on the law, then one has no choice but to assume the worst, and that you're on your own. So if I was a betting man, I'd say you will see an increase in vigilantism and shootings.
Come on @Austin-Steve, as the old saying goes, correlation does not imply causation. There's no doubt that racial injustices have been done in the past, but we've come a long way. To say that the justice system, particularly in a large liberal cosmopolitan city like Austin, is just a mechanism of/for systemic racism is an overreach.
The law does not see color, it sets a code, which is enforced. If a certain law is unjust, the issue is the law and not the person enforcing the law. If the law captures a certain demographic disproportionately than others, it does not necessarily mean the law is unjust.
The idea that being tough on crime is racist is completely absurd. If the law is not upheld, then why have the law. Remove the law, and continue enforcement of the other laws. We should be tough on crime, otherwise no one will care. We have a law on littering, which is rarely enforced. As the city has grown we have litter everywhere. I've literally watched a car full of guys open the window an dump their bag full of McD's trash onto the road at a red light. We're supposed to have permits for marches and protests. Now, we allow people to endanger themselves and the public by blocking streets and highways at their choosing. Stopped enforcing vagrancy laws, we get a public health and safety issue with camps sprouting on sidewalks and underpasses. Stop prosecuting minor theft, then your amazon packages continue to disappear off the porch. Same with drugs; want to get them off the streets? Legalize it. Again, tweaking laws go much further than stripping our law enforcement from their ability to enforce them.
One more thing, the tone we take against those we've selected to enforce the laws sets the tone of our response to our every day activities. Reduction in traffic enforcement funding, means I'm probably going to speed more frequently due to less concerns about being caught in speed traps. Lowered response times, means one is more likely to take lethal action against trespassers and anyone caught stealing on property. If one can't depend on the law, then one has no choice but to assume the worst, and that you're on your own. So if I was a betting man, I'd say you will see an increase in vigilantism and shootings.
This sounds like something I would have said 10 or 20 years ago. I've learned a lot since then. I'm not saying you are "wrong" to "feel" as you do. But you are in fact choosing to believe a version of things that fit how you'd like to world to operate.
Imagine you had to participate in a debate and, in earnest, argue the opposite of what you believe. Thus you begin to research and look for evidence to use in your attempt to persuade others. What I'm saying is that the evidence is vast, deep and compelling. If you choose not to look for fear of what you may see, that's you're right.
Last edited by austin-steve; 08-14-2020 at 09:29 AM..
Reason: typos
AUSTIN, Texas — You might expect crime rates to fall with more people staying at home during the COVID-19 pandemic. But that's not the case.
According to data from Austin Police Chief Brian Manley, compared to last year, murders are up 64%, aggravated assaults are up 14% and robberies are up 16%.
I don't ever see police cars in my neighborhood. very soon many other austin residents won't see police cars in their neighborhoods either.
Most decent suburban neighborhoods don't see police cars much...even before the de-funding. Seeing cops just cruise around is pretty rare where I live and they're not called out frequently either. When a suspect in another town fled and abandoned their car in our neighborhood, there were cops everywhere and in the sky..which was amazing because no one has ever seen so many cops before.
High community awareness to me is even more important than having a cop cruise around.
It’s pretty difficult to prevent insanity on voting day when your city has tens of thousands of ideological college students voting for their first or second time. Yes to everything! Most of them will be long gone by the time these measures require money, and Austin homeowners are left with the check. Or the fallout.
They have the right to vote as much as you have. If your values are so different than theirs, and they apparently outnumber you, why not just try to see their perspective and focus on the good parts? Or if you don’t want to do that, or think they have no good ideas, perhaps you can move to somewhere that doesn’t have as many young first or second time voters?
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