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To start, I’ve noticed that many people feel that crime is a symptom of either poverty or personal trauma. In essence, people commit crime either because they are trying to get something they need to survive or they are dealing with personal trauma in their lives.
People who articulate the root cause of crime in that way are not analytical.
Crime should be thought of in the context of a string of conditional probabilities, frequently articulated in something like the following:
The probability of a crime being reported GIVEN a crime has occurred
The probability of Law Enforcement Officers (LEOs) investigating a crime GIVEN that a crime is reported
The probability of identifying a suspect GIVEN that a crime is investigated
The probability of procuring an indictment or arrest warrant GIVEN a suspect is identified
The probability of an arrest GIVEN the existence of an indictment or arrest warrant
The probability of prosecution GIVEN an arrest
The probability of conviction GIVEN prosecution (either through a plea deal or through judgment rendering)
The probability of being sentenced to prison time GIVEN a conviction
The probability of serving prison time GIVEN being sentenced to prison
Let's say we're talking about a 2 year prison term if convicted & sentenced. What is the opportunity cost of 2 years of work for the would-be criminal? That two years would be risk-adjusted downward based on the conditional probabilities.
That risk-adjusted cost is then compared to the potential benefit of carrying out that crime if not caught: Is it, say, $1 Million? Or $1,000? Or $10?
While a conditional probability model cannot and does not predict individual behaviour, such a model does a pretty good job of describing "the marginal propensity to commit criminal acts" when you consider a large enough group of people.
It sounds like you haven't read the earlier posts, explaining what "defund the police" really means, not what it appears on the surface to mean. "Defund" =/= "abolish".
They need to SAY WHAT THEY MEAN. I KNOW what the word "defund" means so the word needs to change to describe what is being asked. If they have to describe or translate a motto they've done it wrong.
Stop doing crimes and we would not need the Police. Until then we need the Police.
There are some violent, crazy People in this world.
The Police are not perfect, 99% of them do a fantastic job.
By just blurting out "99% of police are good", you're missing the context. If you're driving and another motorist collides with you and ends up causes major harm/death to your loved ones. Then you realize the person who collided with you is getting off scot free. Why? Because this person is "privileged" or otherwise well connected. He won't be penalized under the law. At this point, someone can just tell you to "just let it go" since "99%+ of motorists are good drivers". The people who died to police brutality get absolutely no comfort when you just tell them "99% of police are good" when the cops who did wrong just get away with it.
Well, technically, they would be better equipped to handle such a situation, cops are mainly going to be just looking for actions they can detain or arrest someone for...that is not necessarily going to solve the deeper problems causing the domestic issue they were called to.
Many domestic situations turn deadly, how many social workers will die before we realize you will need a cop to accompany a social worker.
Many domestic situations turn deadly, how many social workers will die before we realize you will need a cop to accompany a social worker.
The idea of more social workers and social support is not to send a defenseless person into a dangerous situation. It's to provide more social support for domestic abuse, drug addiction, mental health, homelessness, etc. so that the police don't have to be called in the first place. It's also to train responding officers in psychology and sociology so that their first response does not have to be aggressive.
The idea of more social workers and social support is not to send a defenseless person into a dangerous situation. It's to provide more social support for domestic abuse, drug addiction, mental health, homelessness, etc. so that the police don't have to be called in the first place. It's also to train responding officers in psychology and sociology so that their first response does not have to be aggressive.
Police do receive such training. Police today are as much social workers as anything else, contrary to popular misconception.
But the notion that we can solve most domestic dispute situations by holding hands and chanting "kumbayah" is naive. Some big, drunk guy beating up his girlfriend isn't going to respond to the sweet talking hippie. What about hostage-standoff situations? These louts only fear authority backed by real firepower.
Come to think of it, go ahead! Send in the hippy, and watch them get the stuffing beaten out of them by a drunk wife abuser a few times. Maybe even shot to death. Then you will come back around to the idea of a well armed, well trained law enforcement team to take in such people.
Many domestic situations turn deadly, how many social workers will die before we realize you will need a cop to accompany a social worker.
A social worker or Psychologist would stand a better chance of resolving the problem BEFORE it escalated to being deadly though.
Its not hard to see why domestic calls end up being deadly, anytime police are involved, someone is likely going to jail that night...so of course, that alone is going to contribute to the escalation.
Stop committing crimes and the police will defund themselves by not being needed.
No, it doesnt work that way, Law enforcement RELIES on a certain percentage of people willing to break certain laws, many depts rely on part of their funding based on this, especially when it comes to drug crime.
IF you took all drug crimes off the table, law enforcement would not be able to justify the need for all that extra budget money...basically if they got rid of drug laws, they would have to come up with new laws, that ENOUGH people would be willing to break consistently.
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