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Comment by systemvoltage | Hacker News Reader

> Any resourced

I thought we all rooted here to defund the police? Should we backtrack that idea?

Edit: I seem to have broken a nerve in some people here. Sorry, for being snarky. I just think that you can't reduce funding for a gov agency but also then expect it to be resourced. Just using sterile logic to make this conclusion.

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LAPD funding went _up_ 12% during and after the George Floyd protests (The highest it's ever been! The highest in the country per capita!). In fact, LASD/public schools got a cut in funding to help fund the LAPD budget. Granted, per the article, LAPD doesn't service freight rail lines, maybe because they'd say they'd be stretched too thin – and to be fair, 800+ of them are on leave for COVID, and falsely blaming it on defunding (which is corroborated by LAPD's own PR department, saying the statements put out should not have been).

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-01-11/covid-19...

https://laist.com/news/politics/mayor-garcetti-signs-11-2-bi...

https://www.lataco.com/lapd-office-closed-defunding-false/

These statements are facts, yours are... what, exactly?

I am talking in general, not specifically about LAPD. There seems to be a rude awakening, where I live: https://www.npr.org/2021/12/11/1063408465/oakland-city-counc...

> The city council voted last summer to redirect money proposed for Oakland's Police Department to social services. But this week, defund the police became refund to the police. The same city council approved two new police academies and voted to hire a professional recruiter to attract officers to its department after a wave of resignations.

If we're not talking about Los Angeles – which is what this entire article is based on – then you're opening up pandora's box.

What about Scandinavian or Western European countries, then? Maybe closer to home, what about NYC – the year the NYPD went on strike, crime went _down_ (not just a drop in arrests, but actual murders, theft, etc). and NYPD realized they'd have to voluntarily restart policing (without the desired increase in labor terms), or NYC City Council might realize they're not as necessary as they originally set out to prove.

https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-proacti...

https://www.vox.com/2015/1/6/7501953/nypd-mayor-arrests-unio...

When you fund a prison-industrial complex, you're creating a system that incentivizes incarceration, not rehabilitation. These systems don't want to solve crime – they want to set out to look for (or, some would say, create) crime. Other countries realized this, and seem to have much less actual crime as a result, while protecting things that actually matter (i.e. their major trade routes/people's lives/the general wellbeing of society). The US seems to have this idea that... if you don't have a home, or you're addicted to drugs, or you need a wellness check, you're more dangerous than a murderer or a thief (given that the former group makes up the vast majority of those incarcerated)

Oakland budget is still higher than its ever been, they just gave them less of a raise than expected last year. The money cut in 2020 was mostly due to the pandemic.

2019-2021 was 635 million allotted, 20mil less than the 665 mil project, due to the pandemic. The 2021-2023 budget is 674 million, with an additional 18 million spent on the community based programs.

The budget is ever increasing, contrary to what a lot of people like to tout.

I’m sure that article is not making the point you think it is. In fact the editor seems to have missed the point with the title as well.

> What has not been reported as much is that the number of authorized sworn officers has remained unchanged. What we voted on last Tuesday is a more aggressive push to fill 60 budgeted vacant police officer positions that we had already approved in June that are not yet filled because our academy system is failing.

The rest of the paragraph explains how certain groups are using this concept of defunding the police to stoke fear in people like you. Incredibly ironic.

Very few people want to actually defund the police. But try being a black friend of mine, who got thrown out of his car without resisting and beaten so bad he had to go to an ICU, purely because he was driving a car that “matched the description” (that didn’t even match the color) of a crime in the area, and perhaps you can begin to understand why the “other side” is frustrated…

And let me guess. You think these train robberies happen because they defunded the police in their area…?

I am well aware of the colloquial term "Defund the police" which is often met by "No, not literally defund it". But the reality is that there is a strong support to reduce resources and move towards soft-policing.

Have you been to the Bay Area? Apartment complexes and condominiums are hardened like castles while their kids play in the safe courtyards and the outside is rotting to the point of unsafe for male padestrians, let alone women and kids. These are the same people voting for these policies. Completely deranged.

The police are already ridiculously well-funded (on average, there are exceptions). Look at their budgets and start asking "where the hell does the money go?"

They don't need more money. They need to be held accountable.

Police are focusing all of their efforts elsewhere. They don't care about property crime like this. Also, as pointed out elsewhere on the thread, policing the tracks is the responsibility of the railroad company, not LAPD.

Do they publish what they do spend time on?

Catching pokemon apparently :)

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-01-10/appeals-...

Do you think the police in the jurisdiction where these train thefts occurred was underfunded? I’d be thrilled to hear your solution…

Dude, I literally live in the Bay Area. And crime here is no where even close to bad as it was where I used to live in Texas. It’s all relative. Especially when politics is involved.

I see absolutely no reason to believe that raising police budgets would somehow magically fix this. It wouldn’t. We have deeper societal issues at hand.

Certain areas in Bay Area (may be south bay) are probably better than others.

Digging around a bit, SF (and generally the rest of the bay area follows) has a substantially higher crime rate than say Austin or the US average: https://www.bestplaces.net/compare-cities/austin_tx/san_fran...

There are probably better sources than what I linked. It is really bad here in my experience and I want to move out.

What kinds of crime are you talking about? Loitering? Murder? Again, it’s all relative. How would increased police funding help with ANY of that…?

There are plenty of reasons to want to move out of the Bay Area. Christ, traffic on the 101 often makes me want to jump off the golden gate bridge - but I don’t see how snarky remarks about “defund the police” help one way or another without dramatically misunderstanding and oversimplifying the real causes of this city’s problems.

For me the main reason to leave is crime and general third-worldlyness. Got my car broken into several times, several parks are occupied by the homeless, Citizen app is going crazy where I live, the whole thing is not what I think of a developed nation.

I can deal with traffic, weather is wonderful.

Crime in SF itself is pretty localized.

The Tenderloin is practically like a South African slum. Sunnydale, Bayview/Hunter's Point and the south side of Potrero are dangerous. You have to watch yourself in the Mission, downtown, SoMa, and a few other neighborhoods.

But in Forest Hill you might as well be in Menlo Park. Pac Heights is generally safe. So is the Presidio. Even Noe Valley, right next to the Mission, is much safer. Crime doesn't like to climb.

> Have you been to the Bay Area? Apartment complexes and condominiums are hardened like castles while their kids play in the safe courtyards and the outside is rotting to the point of unsafe for male padestrians, let alone women and kids.

I don't think this is a fair description of the vast majority of the SF Bay Area. Perhaps it describes well some bits of Hayward and Oakland.

Large amounts of the SF Bay Area have crime rates well below the national median.

It's a fairly accurate description of the apartment towers in downtown SF.

The actual responsible enforcement agency is in Omaha Nebraska, whereas the LAPD has had increased funding through the years.

Perhaps surprisingly, the police force with jurisdiction here appears to be a private one, not a government agency.

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