[bairrd]

I always am asked when I say we should reduce policing budgets, "have you ever needed police?" In my experience, they've always been either so late that myself and neighbours have had to get involved in breaking up a rape / other violent situations, or just completely useless when I've needed them for paperwork related stuff, i.e. credit card fraud. I think the police are asked to handle too many edge case situations, e.g. managing mentally ill populations, but are also grossly overpaid compared to other civil institutions, that if budgets were appropriately distributed, would lead to less of the issues police are required to intervene in. Also, among police put-maneuvering pregnant women, beating elderly bystanders just standing in Buffalo, or the myriad other documented instances of unnecessary police violence, there is a serious "bad apples spoil the bunch" issue in US policing due to the culture of other "innocent" officers backing their bad apples instead of weeding them out.

In any business, a department/team that isn't serving clients is usually re-evaluated, and budgets/resources re-allocated if they don't meet some performance plan. I don't see why bringing some business-world reasoning to policing in the US is so controversial, but I suspect that's more a framing thing of "defund the police" enflaming peoples emotions, as they get mad before reasoning.

[lostcolony]

Yeah. The only time I've "needed" police was because my insurance required a police report. It's not like the police did anything except file "yep, burglary at (address)".

The number of times I've seen police in situations they were clearly unequipped for is insane though. It's a not-infrequent occurrence near where I live to see them standing around and talking to a homeless person. Regardless of the motivation (are they trying to help or hassle the person), they don't have the training or incentives to be the right people for that.

[dfxm12]

I always am asked when I say we should reduce policing budgets, "have you ever needed police?" In my experience, they've always been either so late that myself and neighbours have had to get involved in breaking up a rape / other violent situations, or just completely useless when I've needed them for paperwork related stuff, i.e. credit card fraud

Right. I don't like how the article conflates a rise of crime with cops retiring/resigning. Cops generally don't prevent crime, but respond after the fact to sort things out.

There's also no reason a cop, as understood today, needs to show up for some paperwork stuff, like credit card fraud. Any type of civilian government representative should be trusted by the credit card company to file that away.

[WealthVsSurvive]

There's a concentrated corporate media propaganda effort in effect right now to conflate the rise in crime with the outright rejection of US police powers by the general populace.