4 ms·

Right, but they're also arresting fewer people. People that likely would otherwise have been arrested. Broadly speaking i'm supportive of this initiative, but i

by darawk 6y ago

Right, but they're also arresting fewer people. People that likely would otherwise have been arrested. Broadly speaking i'm supportive of this initiative, but it's important that its outcomes actually be measured, and just number of arrests is not a good metric. Not arresting people is easy, it's hard to not arrest them without increasing crime. I hope it works though.

danShumway 6y ago
> People that likely would otherwise have been arrested. But that's... that's the point, right? I get what you're saying, but the outcome people wanted was "conflicts that don't need to result in arrests should stop resulting in arrests." The goal was to reduce needless arrests and only have arrests in situations that couldn't be handled in other ways. I mean, we can measure other things like long-term impacts on people's health, prevalence of crime, etc... but one of the questions I was hearing when this idea was first floated was actually, "can these situations be resolved without arrests, or are the police just going to need to be eventually called anyway?" And it does seem like this outcome goes some way towards answering that question. Just as an analogy: if I introduce script changes in a support center with the goal of solving customer problems faster and having fewer calls escalated up the chain to upper management, and at the end of 6 months, way fewer calls are being escalated up the chain to upper management, then that's a statistic I care about. It's not the only stat I care about when figuring out if my changes were successful, I might also look at things like customer satisfaction and call time, but it is on its own a pretty important outcome for me to measure.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  What is the point of arresting someone? If a homeless guy is wandering around with no pants on, do the police really need to be there? Do they need to arrest him? Why? Is jail going to teach him wearing pants is a good idea? Likewise: - Overdoses - Random shouting - Sleeping in a Denny's parking lot This doesn't fix the long term issues behind why these people are running around doing crazy things. But neither does having the police take care of the issue. It works well because fundamentally it's less expensive, more humane, and less likely to turn violent. Let the police handle the situations where they are needed to protect people.
  - koheripbal 6y ago
    Judges will often enroll repeat offenders in drug/alcohol rehab programs. There's probably a more efficient method of that - but the current system sometimes works - county dependent.
    - ogre_codes 6y ago
      What is the value in putting a person through forced rehab when the reasons they are drinking/ on drugs hasn't gone away? Most successful rehab is voluntary. People need to first admit they have a problem. Simply making drug rehab programs more widely available without court intercession is likely to have a much bigger impact. If people are released from rehab right back on the street, the chances rehab will be effective are even less. Unless you at least attempt to fix the underlying issues, you are just pouring tax money out the door.
      - koheripbal 6y ago
        The value is that rehab programs frequently stop people from being addicts so that they can solve their life problems themselves. They work. Also, it's the same program - whether it's mandated by the court or volunteered for.
      - darawk 6y ago
        > What is the value in putting a person through forced rehab when the reasons they are drinking/ on drugs hasn't gone away? As someone who did exactly this and stopped using because of it, they can be quite significant.
- darawk 6y ago
  > I mean, we can measure other things like long-term impacts on people's health, prevalence of crime, etc... but one of the questions I was hearing when this idea was first floated was actually, "can these situations be resolved without arrests, or are the police just going to need to be eventually called anyway?" And it does seem like this outcome goes some way towards answering that quest Yes, but this is exactly the question. Were these situations 'resolved'? We don't know. The article doesn't say. All it says is that nobody was arrested. You can just as easily achieve zero arrests by doing absolutely nothing at all.

by darawk 6y ago

danShumway 6y ago

> People that likely would otherwise have been arrested. But that's... that's the point, right? I get what you're saying, but the outcome people wanted was "conflicts that don't need to result in arrests should stop resulting in arrests." The goal was to reduce needless arrests and only have arrests in situations that couldn't be handled in other ways. I mean, we can measure other things like long-term impacts on people's health, prevalence of crime, etc... but one of the questions I was hearing when this idea was first floated was actually, "can these situations be resolved without arrests, or are the police just going to need to be eventually called anyway?" And it does seem like this outcome goes some way towards answering that question. Just as an analogy: if I introduce script changes in a support center with the goal of solving customer problems faster and having fewer calls escalated up the chain to upper management, and at the end of 6 months, way fewer calls are being escalated up the chain to upper management, then that's a statistic I care about. It's not the only stat I care about when figuring out if my changes were successful, I might also look at things like customer satisfaction and call time, but it is on its own a pretty important outcome for me to measure.

ogre_codes 6y ago
What is the point of arresting someone? If a homeless guy is wandering around with no pants on, do the police really need to be there? Do they need to arrest him? Why? Is jail going to teach him wearing pants is a good idea? Likewise: - Overdoses - Random shouting - Sleeping in a Denny's parking lot This doesn't fix the long term issues behind why these people are running around doing crazy things. But neither does having the police take care of the issue. It works well because fundamentally it's less expensive, more humane, and less likely to turn violent. Let the police handle the situations where they are needed to protect people.
- koheripbal 6y ago
  Judges will often enroll repeat offenders in drug/alcohol rehab programs. There's probably a more efficient method of that - but the current system sometimes works - county dependent.
  - ogre_codes 6y ago
    What is the value in putting a person through forced rehab when the reasons they are drinking/ on drugs hasn't gone away? Most successful rehab is voluntary. People need to first admit they have a problem. Simply making drug rehab programs more widely available without court intercession is likely to have a much bigger impact. If people are released from rehab right back on the street, the chances rehab will be effective are even less. Unless you at least attempt to fix the underlying issues, you are just pouring tax money out the door.
    - koheripbal 6y ago
      The value is that rehab programs frequently stop people from being addicts so that they can solve their life problems themselves. They work. Also, it's the same program - whether it's mandated by the court or volunteered for.
    - darawk 6y ago
      > What is the value in putting a person through forced rehab when the reasons they are drinking/ on drugs hasn't gone away? As someone who did exactly this and stopped using because of it, they can be quite significant.
darawk 6y ago
> I mean, we can measure other things like long-term impacts on people's health, prevalence of crime, etc... but one of the questions I was hearing when this idea was first floated was actually, "can these situations be resolved without arrests, or are the police just going to need to be eventually called anyway?" And it does seem like this outcome goes some way towards answering that quest Yes, but this is exactly the question. Were these situations 'resolved'? We don't know. The article doesn't say. All it says is that nobody was arrested. You can just as easily achieve zero arrests by doing absolutely nothing at all.