A Deeply Fractured US

[tomahawk6]

The impediment to police misconduct would seem to be police unions.

 

[Weinie]

Hmmm, seems like nobody likes police, but everybody wants the comforts/security that police provide.

 

[Infanteer]

To be fair, from what I'm seeing there are many African Americans who don't feel comfort and security with their police force.

 

[Remius]

i'm not the spokesperson for incompetent police in Canada.

Nor should you be.  But some of us have questions and having people such as yourself engaging with them helps us to better understand the situation on both sides.

 

[Remius]

Hmmm, seems like nobody likes bad police, but everybody wants the comforts/security that police provide.

FTFY

 

[Weinie]

To be fair, from what I'm seeing there are many African Americans who don't feel comfort and security with their police force.

Concede that point. I don't concede that the response should be to de-fund police forces. The cure would be worse than the disease.

 

[dapaterson]

"Defund" is generally used as a provocative term for a less provocative outcome: Not elimination, not removal, but restructure and redirecting funding toward social services. 

But "Budgetary discussions to examine reallocation and better balancing between security and social services" certainly lacks the cachet and fails to draw attention like the phrase "defund".

 

[Weinie]

"Defund" is generally used as a provocative term for a less provocative outcome: Not elimination, not removal, but restructure and redirecting funding toward social services. 

But "Budgetary discussions to examine reallocation and better balancing between security and social services" certainly lacks the cachet and fails to draw attention like the phrase "defund".

Yup, got that. To quote Brihard:

By all means take a lot of this work from us. I’d love to not have to worry about dealing with people in mental health crisis, or drunk homeless guys sleeping in an apartment or bank lobby, or attend domestics or neighbour disputes. I’d love to let the addictions counsellors deal with the guy who sells meth or fentanyl to feed his own habit. It would be an absolute treat to have someone else rounding up the drunk and violent group home runaways on a constant basis (ever seen a 15 year old girl with half a bottle of vodka in her bite a paramedic?) Please, hand these arguably non-police situations over to someone else, and we’ll happily be just a few minutes away when the social worker gets a knife pulled on them or gets sucker punched by the pissed off husband. I’d love to see us devote more resources to intelligence led, problem-oriented policing. I’d love to see us throw more bodies at bigger scale, longer term investigative projects instead of dealing with this stuff. It would be great to put more members out there hunting for impaired drivers.

Just understand that there is a consequence to removing police entirely from some of these equations. Make sure the social workers and addictions counsellors and mental health first responders have good life insurance and good long term disability plans.

I don't support Vitale's theory. It is self-aggrandizing. http://www.alex-vitale.info/

I am certain that mental health services, social housing, inequity programs, and the responses to the host of other societal ills that exist could be somewhat mitigated by an infusion of resources. But without a stable society, enabled by a justice system that is enforced and supported, there is no ability to look at societal advancement or wrongdoings.

 

[dapaterson]

I am certain that mental health services, social housing, inequity programs, and the responses to the host of other societal ills that exist could be somewhat mitigated by an infusion of resources. But without a stable society, enabled by a justice system that is enforced and supported, there is no ability to look at societal advancement or wrongdoings.

Watching a MN PD convoy drive past peaceful protesters and having officers in vehicles randomly spraying riot control agents at them as they drive by, one must ask where the destabilizing elements are vested, whether justice will ever be seen for that misconduct, or how advancement is possible.


It's not an either/or.  But spending on police (particularly on wages) has exploded to the point where a third year constable in any urban force will be in the top 10% of Canadian earners.  Is that sustainable? 

 

[mariomike]

But spending on police (particularly on wages) has exploded to the point where a third year constable in any urban force will be in the top 10% of Canadian earners.  Is that sustainable?

Is Defunding code for contracting out?

See also,

Civilians complaining about Police/Emergency Services' Pay 
https://army.ca/forums/threads/102608.0.html
5 pages.

Escalating Emergency Services Labour Costs and the Ontario Taxpayers’ Ability to Pay
https://www.amo.on.ca/AMO-PDFs/Reports/2011/2011AbilitytoPayPositionPaper2011.aspx

 

[Weinie]

Watching a MN PD convoy drive past peaceful protesters and having officers in vehicles randomly spraying riot control agents at them as they drive by, one must ask where the destabilizing elements are vested, whether justice will ever be seen for that misconduct, or how advancement is possible.


It's not an either/or.  But spending on police (particularly on wages) has exploded to the point where a third year constable in any urban force will be in the top 10% of Canadian earners.  Is that sustainable?

Rabbit hole. Don't get distracted by police wages or how they arrived at their present level.

You need an underlying foundation of societal agreement of what is wrong and right. Historically, and collegially, we in western democracies have determined that a system of beneficial mores, enacted by Parliament (or equiv), dispensed by a justice system, and enforced by a policing or common good mechanism, is a good thing.

 

[mariomike]

The impediment to police misconduct would seem to be police unions.

Emergency services unions protect those who protect us.

 

[Remius]

Rabbit hole. Don't get distracted by police wages or how they arrived at their present level.

You need an underlying foundation of societal agreement of what is wrong and right. Historically, and collegially, we in western democracies have determined that a system of beneficial mores, enacted by Parliament (or equiv), dispensed by a justice system, and enforced by a policing or common good mechanism, is a good thing.

All good points.  And you are correct about pay being a separate issue. An issue that needs addressing and likely contributes to understaffing (costs etc).  Police want more people on the job but municipalities are hard pressed to pay for them.

But back to your point about societal agreement.  What happens as we are seeing in the US when the public trust is irrevocably broken?  How do you fix that without doing away with something and rebuild it?

Our local police is getting close to losing that trust with several incidents of racism, corruption and low morale.  How do they fix that without renewal or change?

Or is everything just ok?

 

[Lumber]

Emergency services unions protect those who protect us.

My impression of unions is that they protect their members with extreme vigor whether the members are in the wrong or not.

I don't think that's correct. If the members are in the wrong, the unions should be there to ensure the members are treated fairly, but what I get the impression of is that unions are embellishing and obfuscating the facts to try and protects their members from what could really be "just" punishment.

I keep using the word "impression" because I don't know that they are actually doing this at large, across all unions (fire, police, nurses), across both Canada and the US (although I'm certain there are cases where this does happen), but the impression that the MSM is giving me is that this is far more widespread than should be.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

I was a union stewart for over 20 years and a vice president for 2..all unions do is make sure management follow the rules and guidelines to mete out discipline and/or dismissal.  It comes down to bad investigation, bad application of disipline(ie straight to dismissal member restarts at zero), or bad wording in the CA.

 

[mariomike]

I was a union stewart

I don't like to disagree with you. But, I believe the word is steward.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Oops....blame everything, like posting before the message is done on fat fingers, little phone.

 

[Weinie]

All good points.  And you are correct about pay being a separate issue. An issue that needs addressing and likely contributes to understaffing (costs etc).  Police want more people on the job but municipalities are hard pressed to pay for them.

But back to your point about societal agreement.  What happens as we are seeing in the US when the public trust is irrevocably broken?  How do you fix that without doing away with something and rebuild it?

Our local police is getting close to losing that trust with several incidents of racism, corruption and low morale.  How do they fix that without renewal or change?

Or is everything just ok?

Is it irrevocably broken? I trust that the majority of Americans, (and Canadians) still believe in, and support, police forces. Have there been egregious violations of their authority, in many cases directed at minorities...undoubtedly.
Your local police is getting close to losing that trust with several incidents of racism, corruption and low morale? How many more magnitude of times has your local police done their job correctly and effectively, preserving public order?

Flawed people and policies result in/lead to systemic flaws, the response should be to excise the flaw, not the system.

 

[Remius]

But that is the issue.

Is the trust broken or not and with who. Do people trust the police or are they afraid of them?

The black community in the US is fearful of any police interaction.  Some truly believe they may not live through a traffic stop.

The city council in Minneapolis is looking to disband their force.  Schools have ended their contracts with the force, parks and recreation as well as their University have severed ties.  All of those organisations no longer Trust the police force of that city.


Here are some of the issues plaguing the Ottawa Police.

https://ottawasun.com/opinion/editorial-sloly-must-move-swiftly-to-clean-up-ottawa-cop-culture

I don't think its anywhere near what we see south of us but the issues need addressing and yes it may need a change to system.  The system may be an enabler of those flaws.

Unfortunately yes, things like that can erase all the work that good police officers do. Look at the CAF.  Because of a few a-holes we saw a massive change in the CAF that led disbanding a regiment and changing policies that affects to this day.  Canadians lost trust in the CAF and it took a war to win it back.

Each force likely has issues and some maybe not.  The ones that do need to address the flaws as you said, but in some cases the system might be the flaw. 

I'm not advocating a wholesale abolition or even defunding the police.  I don't like the word and agree it is a bit inflammatory.  But change is needed and in some cases that might mean doing what Camden did.  It seems like a successful model and actually put more money into law enforcement but did it the right way.

Someone way more knowledgeable and with way more experience in police matters said this:

"No one hates bad cops more than good cops".  He was quoting but stood by that and I believe him. 

He also pointed to this:

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/16/nyregion/sir-robert-peels-nine-principles-of-policing.html

Has the Minneapolis PD lived up to those?

In Canada, I think oversight is the bigger challenge and how to get the public on board with it.  Transparency, communication and giving Canadians confidence in it.  I'm not sure at this point if trust in the oversight process is there.  And that has a trickle down effect. 

 

[mariomike]

Those of us old enough to remember the riots of the late 1960s may recall President Johnson ordered a report in which he asked  three basic questions:

"What happened? Why did it happen? What can be done to prevent it from happening again and again?"


In 1967, Dr. Kenneth Clark had this to say,

I read that report. The report of the 1919 riot in Chicago, and it is as if I were reading the report of the investigating committee on the Harlem riot of 1935, the report of the investigating committee on the Harlem riot of 1943, the report of the McCone Commission on the (1965) Watts riot. I must again in candor say to you members of this commission — it is a kind of Alice in Wonderland — with the same moving picture shown over again, the same analysis, the same recommendations, and the same inaction.