Defund the police

[CJD]

One of two things needs to happen.

1. They can either leave the policies, standards, expectations and behaviors of the police the same and significantly defund the police such that they can no longer splurge on military gear and protester suppression gear that is not required to do the job 99% of the time.
or
2. They can significantly increase the funding for the police to allow for significantly higher wages for police but, in exchange, they need to significantly increase the amount of training, education, standards, expectations and punishments for misconduct that the police undertake.


And here's my reasoning:

If you look at policing on the whole, it's not a very desirable job, especially in the current political climate. The pay is mediocre at best (and in a lot of cases, below average), it's relatively dangerous, you have to deal with a lot of really shitty people (drunks, addicts, criminals etc) and, more recently, you're treated like you're corrupt even if you aren't (at least actively corrupt. They are all to blame for the blue wall of silence.)

Basically, the only perk of being a police officer is that you get to have authority over people. Which, to be honest, isn't supposed to be a perk, it's supposed to be a responsibility. And "with great power, comes great responsibility" definitely should apply here. But what ends up happening is that the low benefits outside of this added authority makes the job more attractive to people who should not be given authority.

This has led to a pretty tricky situation nationwide. Essentially, the low desirability of the job has made it hard to hold a standard for police. Over the last decade, recruitment is WAY down and the attrition rate for police officers is higher than both nursing and teaching, two groups that constantly get attention for how few of them there are. And that's not to mention the fact that, in addition to the mental requirements for being a police officer (training, stress, responsibility in the form of authority), there are physical requirements as well, as you must be fit to be a police officer (at least in theory).

All of this leads to one of the main causes of what's going on today: Shitty cops are not being fired.
Look no further than Derek Chauvin. That guy had at least 18 separate complaints filed against him, according to internal affairs. This guy was, as a co-worker described “the guy not everybody liked or wanted to work with.” but yet was tasked with training two rookies...

Quote:Even on the police force, Mr. Chauvin was an outsider. He often partnered with a rookie he was training, exacting in his expectations. That was fine with veteran colleagues, who did not necessarily want to ride alongside him.

“Occasionally, he would seem a little cocky,” said Lucy Gerold, a retired police commander who knew Mr. Chauvin. He was, she said, “the guy not everybody liked or wanted to work with.”

The lack of staffing and applications to the police force allows people like Chauvin to remain a police officer even with all these blights on their records.

Logic would stand that, if you aren't replaced or fired for misconduct, then you would not be concerned with whether or not you are performing your job properly.

So, in order to increase the attractiveness of the position, I would recommend increasing salaries, increasing required training (a degree in some form of law or law enforcement should be absolutely required) and, as a result, increase the ability to actually remove police officers who are not fit for the job, as there would be people standing in line for the opportunity to be a police officer.

It should be a prestigious role in our society, but misconduct and lack of accountability has turned it into a place where too many of the people least equipped to do the job stick with it over the long term.



However, if they're not willing to do any of that, then just defund them so they're less deadly to civilians.