7 ms·

Maybe they could take some money from the police budget. I recall some protests to that effect.

anchpop 6y ago
Doesn't Chicago have a large violent crime problem? I wonder how saying "there's going to be less policing" would play with voters
- twojacobtwo 6y ago
  From my reading on the topic, the general idea seems to be to cut police responsibilities and budget. One of the biggest problems is that police are used to respond to all kinds of issues for which they are not trained (e.g. non-violent mental health incidences). By cutting responsibilities of the police, their budget could be more efficiently allocated for responding to situations for which they have been trained.
  - nemo44x 6y ago
    How do you know if a specific “mental health incident” is not going to be violent? What if someone is walking in the street, naked, and screaming things? Are they violent? Are they mentally ill? Are they on drugs? I get the intention here but I don’t think I’ve really seen anyone ask why we police this way. Is there a lesson we are forgetting? It’s like the tale of the new property owners that come across a fence that appears random. They’d be wise to verify why the fence was put there before removing it.
    - throwaway894345 6y ago
      A lot of countries have mental health response teams that work with the police to balance the safety of the individual in crisis with public safety. Seems like it’s worth looking into.
      - SpelingBeeChamp 6y ago
        Many if not most large cities already have this or something like it. Also, I think your implicit assumption is incorrect (that the police typically don’t have the individual‘s safety in mind, or that they only have the general public’s safety in mind).
        throwaway894345 6y ago
        My implicit assumption is that rank and file police officers regularly lack the years of psychological training required to appropriately respond to these kinds of incidents.
    - guptaneil 6y ago
      > why are we policing this way? Because we created police forces to round up slaves and then just kept adding more responsibilities to them. In fact, before we had ambulances, police officers would just throw the injured/sick in the back of their paddy wagon and drive them to a doctor. Frustrated with the staggeringly high death rate for people in his community, a black doctor eventually created the idea of an ambulance and specialized paramedics who handle that situation instead of police. It was so effective, white neighborhoods started calling him too and we eventually adopted the idea everywhere. The idea of defunding the police means to do more of that. Trained specialists for different types of calls who are dispatched based on need. Much like how police will often show up with an ambulance to make sure it’s safe but then leave pretty quickly once they confirm it is, the same could be done with other non-violent calls like the one you described. This isn’t rocket science, and it’s well steeped in research. We just need to be able to get over our biases.
- qppo 6y ago
  Chicago isn't particularly more violent than other places, that's a meme propagated by the President because he hasn't paid attention to real news in decades. The police department however has had numerous scandals.
  - throw_away 6y ago
    And also a convenient dig on the origin point of his predecessor's political career
  - _zachs 6y ago
    That's just completely not true: https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/the-most-dangerous-cities-in-america/13/ https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/the-most-dangerous-cities-i...
    - selectodude 6y ago
      It’s #31 on that list.
      - throwaway894345 6y ago
        How many cities are in the US? 31st place still has to be in the top 10% nationally.
    - devilduck 6y ago
      People who don't live in Chicago love to push that narrative. It's hilariously wrong.
  - blix 6y ago
    While Chicago certainly does get mentioned more often than Houston for political reasons, it still has a pretty significant violent crime problem. And because Chicago is so deeply segregated, racially and economically, the areas hardest hit greatly exceed the city-wide average. It is worth noting that, earlier this year, when property crime briefly became popular in certain rich areas, the response of the city government was to deepen segregation by raising the bridges over the Chicago river, which serves as a boundary between the poor south/west and the rich north. Chicago's inequality problem is more serious than its crime problem.
- Zigurd 6y ago
  Does the PD actually solve crimes? Further, are the crimes with decent solution rates the ones that matter for quality of life in Chicago? "Less" policing can mean better services that replace poorly executed police functions.
  - Stupulous 6y ago
    Looks like they solve about 30% of homicides. I don't think you're second question is answerable as phrased, but I think having fewer killers on the street probably matters for quality of life in Chicago, or, at the very least, quantity of life. What is the alternative to detectives that solves more crimes?
    - Consultant32452 6y ago
      Mandatory gun ownership for all Chicagoans, stand your ground laws, and castle doctrine. There's legal precedent for requiring citizens to purchase goods in services in the way Obamacare was required. We create a new tax, and if you can prove you own a gun you get a tax credit. The first year will be a bit rocky, but after that the worst offenders will be removed from the planet.
      - Stupulous 6y ago
        None of this requires defunding the police, but I imagine you're far to the right of the person I'm replying to, so possibly irrelevant. I haven't seen evidence that this is an effective strategy, though there's not really compelling evidence in either direction. At the very least, I can argue that this should be tested thoroughly before implementation in Chicago. On a personal level, I really do not want to be made responsible for killing anyone, though I expect your response is that enough people would be willing to kill a person that there would be a kind of herd immunity. I also do not believe in the death penalty, even for murder. Accordingly, I disagree with this plan wholeheartedly, exactly to the degree that it is effective.
        Consultant32452 6y ago
- alanlovestea 6y ago
  don't under estimate human stupidity and the ability to end its own civil society.
tptacek 6y ago
First, the premise of those "defund" protests is that work be taken from the police department and moved to more capable organizations, such as mental health crisis response teams. I like broadband as much as the next person but AT&T and Comcast have never seemed like especially strong crisis response teams. Second, though you might think otherwise from Very Online commentary, cutting funding for the police has in fact not much support from Chicago communities. The Online Discourse seems to have a real problem getting its head around the idea that communities of color in Chicago are both very justifiably upset at CPD for abusing them, and very justifiably upset at CPD for ignoring them. At any rate, Chicago will not be taking money from the Chicago Police Department to fund community broadband.
- noer 6y ago
  This article [1] notes that 9 in 10 respondents to a city survey wanted additional budget for city services to come from the police budget [1]: https://www.citybureau.org/newswire/2020/10/16/chicagos-budget-crisis-explained https://www.citybureau.org/newswire/2020/10/16/chicagos-budg...
  - tptacek 6y ago
    Look at the map of where responses to that survey came from in the city; it's like a 2015 Uber service map, a map of where people of color don't live.
    - skrtskrt 6y ago
      All the leading black youth activist orgs in Chicago promote defunding/abolishing police. It's worth noting the age difference - that defunding police is popular among younger people of color, and unpopular among older people of color, still by and large subscribing to the tough-on-crime approach.
      - tptacek 6y ago
        Yes, they do. They also don't speak for the neighborhoods themselves, the same way white defund activists don't speak for... well, anyone but defund activists, I guess. It's a distinctively unpopular idea, a demographic crossover flop of a scale I can't think of anything else to match. A lot of the ideas underneath defund have legs! In most places, the police should stop doing traffic enforcement (replace with unarmed compliance patrols, the way we handle parking tickets) and obviously, police shouldn't be doing mental health wellness checks anywhere. No-knock warrants should be outlawed in almost all circumstances. There are lots of other structural reform ideas Defund hasn't really touched; for instance, police should be licensed by their respective states, so that misconduct can result in a revocation that preempts union contracts. Civilian oversight bodies should be given more authority. It's just that advocates for these ideas centered the least popular and least important aspect of the policy. I'd despair except the idea behind a national police reform policy push was, I think, ill-conceived from the jump. In Oak Park, where I live, a switch of just 2-3 trustees in our 2021 elections would give us a majority that could rewrite the police general orders, and whatever ordinances govern our police union contract. That's like 10,000 votes, not 70,000,000. What's more, if you watch town board meetings --- which is easier to do in the C19 era because they're all online --- you'll notice that one of the most powerful bits of evidence in support of any policy idea is "what do the neighboring townships do". It likely won't take many trustee board flips to get a decent snowball rolling.
robswc 6y ago
You would have to find substantial cuts. I don't think its a strawman because unfortunately its the majority of arguments I see... but people will bring up the APCs or "military equipment" some departments have as an example of things that can be cut... while perhaps true a one off APC or extra equipment isn't going to be anywhere close to how much it would cost for many city projects.
- boomboomsubban 6y ago
  A key difference is that ensuring everyone has affordable broadband can be seen as an investment in infrastructure, that likely will end up netting the city far more in taxes than it costs.

Doesn't Chicago have a large violent crime problem? I wonder how saying "there's going to be less policing" would play with voters

twojacobtwo 6y ago
From my reading on the topic, the general idea seems to be to cut police responsibilities and budget. One of the biggest problems is that police are used to respond to all kinds of issues for which they are not trained (e.g. non-violent mental health incidences). By cutting responsibilities of the police, their budget could be more efficiently allocated for responding to situations for which they have been trained.
- nemo44x 6y ago
  How do you know if a specific “mental health incident” is not going to be violent? What if someone is walking in the street, naked, and screaming things? Are they violent? Are they mentally ill? Are they on drugs? I get the intention here but I don’t think I’ve really seen anyone ask why we police this way. Is there a lesson we are forgetting? It’s like the tale of the new property owners that come across a fence that appears random. They’d be wise to verify why the fence was put there before removing it.
  - throwaway894345 6y ago
    A lot of countries have mental health response teams that work with the police to balance the safety of the individual in crisis with public safety. Seems like it’s worth looking into.
    - SpelingBeeChamp 6y ago
      Many if not most large cities already have this or something like it. Also, I think your implicit assumption is incorrect (that the police typically don’t have the individual‘s safety in mind, or that they only have the general public’s safety in mind).
      - throwaway894345 6y ago
        My implicit assumption is that rank and file police officers regularly lack the years of psychological training required to appropriately respond to these kinds of incidents.
  - guptaneil 6y ago
    > why are we policing this way? Because we created police forces to round up slaves and then just kept adding more responsibilities to them. In fact, before we had ambulances, police officers would just throw the injured/sick in the back of their paddy wagon and drive them to a doctor. Frustrated with the staggeringly high death rate for people in his community, a black doctor eventually created the idea of an ambulance and specialized paramedics who handle that situation instead of police. It was so effective, white neighborhoods started calling him too and we eventually adopted the idea everywhere. The idea of defunding the police means to do more of that. Trained specialists for different types of calls who are dispatched based on need. Much like how police will often show up with an ambulance to make sure it’s safe but then leave pretty quickly once they confirm it is, the same could be done with other non-violent calls like the one you described. This isn’t rocket science, and it’s well steeped in research. We just need to be able to get over our biases.
qppo 6y ago
Chicago isn't particularly more violent than other places, that's a meme propagated by the President because he hasn't paid attention to real news in decades. The police department however has had numerous scandals.
- throw_away 6y ago
  And also a convenient dig on the origin point of his predecessor's political career
- _zachs 6y ago
  That's just completely not true: https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/the-most-dangerous-cities-in-america/13/ https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/the-most-dangerous-cities-i...
  - selectodude 6y ago
    It’s #31 on that list.
    - throwaway894345 6y ago
      How many cities are in the US? 31st place still has to be in the top 10% nationally.
  - devilduck 6y ago
    People who don't live in Chicago love to push that narrative. It's hilariously wrong.
- blix 6y ago
  While Chicago certainly does get mentioned more often than Houston for political reasons, it still has a pretty significant violent crime problem. And because Chicago is so deeply segregated, racially and economically, the areas hardest hit greatly exceed the city-wide average. It is worth noting that, earlier this year, when property crime briefly became popular in certain rich areas, the response of the city government was to deepen segregation by raising the bridges over the Chicago river, which serves as a boundary between the poor south/west and the rich north. Chicago's inequality problem is more serious than its crime problem.
Zigurd 6y ago
Does the PD actually solve crimes? Further, are the crimes with decent solution rates the ones that matter for quality of life in Chicago? "Less" policing can mean better services that replace poorly executed police functions.
- Stupulous 6y ago
  Looks like they solve about 30% of homicides. I don't think you're second question is answerable as phrased, but I think having fewer killers on the street probably matters for quality of life in Chicago, or, at the very least, quantity of life. What is the alternative to detectives that solves more crimes?
  - Consultant32452 6y ago
    Mandatory gun ownership for all Chicagoans, stand your ground laws, and castle doctrine. There's legal precedent for requiring citizens to purchase goods in services in the way Obamacare was required. We create a new tax, and if you can prove you own a gun you get a tax credit. The first year will be a bit rocky, but after that the worst offenders will be removed from the planet.
    - Stupulous 6y ago
      None of this requires defunding the police, but I imagine you're far to the right of the person I'm replying to, so possibly irrelevant. I haven't seen evidence that this is an effective strategy, though there's not really compelling evidence in either direction. At the very least, I can argue that this should be tested thoroughly before implementation in Chicago. On a personal level, I really do not want to be made responsible for killing anyone, though I expect your response is that enough people would be willing to kill a person that there would be a kind of herd immunity. I also do not believe in the death penalty, even for murder. Accordingly, I disagree with this plan wholeheartedly, exactly to the degree that it is effective.
      - Consultant32452 6y ago
alanlovestea 6y ago
don't under estimate human stupidity and the ability to end its own civil society.

tptacek 6y ago

First, the premise of those "defund" protests is that work be taken from the police department and moved to more capable organizations, such as mental health crisis response teams. I like broadband as much as the next person but AT&T and Comcast have never seemed like especially strong crisis response teams. Second, though you might think otherwise from Very Online commentary, cutting funding for the police has in fact not much support from Chicago communities. The Online Discourse seems to have a real problem getting its head around the idea that communities of color in Chicago are both very justifiably upset at CPD for abusing them, and very justifiably upset at CPD for ignoring them. At any rate, Chicago will not be taking money from the Chicago Police Department to fund community broadband.

noer 6y ago
This article [1] notes that 9 in 10 respondents to a city survey wanted additional budget for city services to come from the police budget [1]: https://www.citybureau.org/newswire/2020/10/16/chicagos-budget-crisis-explained https://www.citybureau.org/newswire/2020/10/16/chicagos-budg...
- tptacek 6y ago
  Look at the map of where responses to that survey came from in the city; it's like a 2015 Uber service map, a map of where people of color don't live.
  - skrtskrt 6y ago
    All the leading black youth activist orgs in Chicago promote defunding/abolishing police. It's worth noting the age difference - that defunding police is popular among younger people of color, and unpopular among older people of color, still by and large subscribing to the tough-on-crime approach.
    - tptacek 6y ago
      Yes, they do. They also don't speak for the neighborhoods themselves, the same way white defund activists don't speak for... well, anyone but defund activists, I guess. It's a distinctively unpopular idea, a demographic crossover flop of a scale I can't think of anything else to match. A lot of the ideas underneath defund have legs! In most places, the police should stop doing traffic enforcement (replace with unarmed compliance patrols, the way we handle parking tickets) and obviously, police shouldn't be doing mental health wellness checks anywhere. No-knock warrants should be outlawed in almost all circumstances. There are lots of other structural reform ideas Defund hasn't really touched; for instance, police should be licensed by their respective states, so that misconduct can result in a revocation that preempts union contracts. Civilian oversight bodies should be given more authority. It's just that advocates for these ideas centered the least popular and least important aspect of the policy. I'd despair except the idea behind a national police reform policy push was, I think, ill-conceived from the jump. In Oak Park, where I live, a switch of just 2-3 trustees in our 2021 elections would give us a majority that could rewrite the police general orders, and whatever ordinances govern our police union contract. That's like 10,000 votes, not 70,000,000. What's more, if you watch town board meetings --- which is easier to do in the C19 era because they're all online --- you'll notice that one of the most powerful bits of evidence in support of any policy idea is "what do the neighboring townships do". It likely won't take many trustee board flips to get a decent snowball rolling.

robswc 6y ago

You would have to find substantial cuts. I don't think its a strawman because unfortunately its the majority of arguments I see... but people will bring up the APCs or "military equipment" some departments have as an example of things that can be cut... while perhaps true a one off APC or extra equipment isn't going to be anywhere close to how much it would cost for many city projects.

boomboomsubban 6y ago
A key difference is that ensuring everyone has affordable broadband can be seen as an investment in infrastructure, that likely will end up netting the city far more in taxes than it costs.