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Comment by Bhilai | Hacker News Reader

In the town I live in, the police has decided to not to respond to nonemergency calls. They put the blame on their budget being cut and #defundthepolice movement. As it turns out some smart reporters looked up numbers and the budget was reduced in 2020 but it was increased back significantly in 2021.

Anecdotally, I see a constable car hiding near a stop sign close to my home almost everyday and ticketing people who do a rolling stop. How they prioritize pulling people over actually responding to incidents is beyond me.

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> How they prioritize pulling people over actually responding to incidents is beyond me.

To be honest, we all know it's because traffic fines are risk-free income, while chasing actual criminals is an expense. The invisible hand of the Free Market(tm) optimizes for income instead of effectiveness, because police departments don't have competition.

Technically if the police department doesn't have competition isn't that the opposite of Free Market?

The competition turns inward when you have a monopoly. Instead of different companies vying for market dominance you have middle managers trying to post the biggest numbers to get that coveted promotion.

Actually, that happens in a Free Market too, but companies have more incentive to tamp down on inefficient behavior if it makes them less competitive. In a monopoly the inefficiency is much harder to prevent.

The word "free" just implies a minimal amount of regulation. Monopolies can and do form in free markets. There's even such a term as "natural monopolies," which are things like utility providers, where it would make little sense to have multiple companies servicing the same market. For example, it would not make a lot of sense municipal water systems servicing the same area, due to infrastructure difficulties.

The term you're looking for is "competitive market." In a perfectly competitive market, monopolies don't form, but, there is also no long term economic profit to be had. That is, the sum of "accounting profit" (what you'd typically think of as the "bottom line" of a company's P&L statement) minus opportunity costs tends to 0 in the long term.

Perfect competition is a highly idealized model that can't happen in practice, but is instructive to analyze in theory. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_competition

> reporters looked up numbers and the budget was reduced in 2020 but it was increased back significantly in 2021

Exactly, with negligible exceptions every police force in the country has always had their budget increase.

Sounds like Austin.

City council approved an increase in taxes, and used part of it to raise the APD budget [1]. This didn't translate into a more effective force, and the perception among citizens is that police has given up on misdemeanors or infractions.

Incidentally, one of my neighbours is an officer, and his major complaints are the lack of new recruits, which is odd since that is ultimately the department responsibility, and the inability to charge people with possession of weed, since the city has effectively decriminalise it.

[1] https://www.kut.org/austin/2021-08-12/austin-passes-4-5-bill...

Denver, too. DPD budget is higher than ever before, and they can't be bothered to respond to calls like:

- non-lethal car accidents - disturbances of the peace - illegal drug selling/use in public spaces - car thefts - break-ins

Let alone deal with predatory towing, which has really taken off in town, too. With crime skyrocketing and housing costs higher than they've ever been, I really don't understand why anyone would want to live here any more.

I posit that many people are not bothered by what you described because it "feels like home" to them.

Why is your neighbor complaining about not being able to charge people with possession of weed? If anything, you'd think that would make their job easier. I don't know about you, but I certainly appreciate anything that makes my job easier, all else remaining equal.

He seems to think that his inability to charge people with misdemeanors may lead to other crimes, quite a leap if you ask me.

I think it may just be a talking point in the police force.

That sounds an awful lot like the "broken windows" theory, which has multiple issues, including very mixed evidence regarding its effectiveness in preventing bigger crimes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory

Cops can't always prove a suspect has committed the crime they actually care about, and in such cases will look for other crimes the suspect has committed that might be easier to prove. The most famous example is that Al Capone was convicted of tax evasion.

Marijuana possession is both very common and easy to prove, so it works well for that purpose. If a cop happens to come across it on a "good" person, they can always look the other way.

(not endorsing this approach, just speculating as to how police may view the situation)

Yes, it's the whole "criminalize everything but protect the in-group and use the laws as a cudgel against the outgroup" approach to governing, sometimes called "rule by law".

According to body cam footage, marijuana is also very easy for police to plant on civilians.

Of course this also misses the entire point of #defundthepolice.

Back in the 80s social services were heavily cut under the Reagan administration, on the assumption that the police could serve that purpose instead. But the police are trained to deal with potentially violent criminals and applying those techniques to the homeless or mentally ill only makes the problem worse and leads to tragedy.

So the idea is you claw back the extra money the police departments need to handle cases like that (poorly) and greatly increase the funding for social workers and state mental health institutions.

In reality the second part is a huge amount of work to set up and few if any governments have really tried to take it seriously. Most have not even freed up the money from police departments, and a few that have ended up giving it right back when they realized how much extra work it was going to make for them.

The underlying theory is that if you fix the social safety nets then you won't need much of a police force, and in fact the social support programs are much cheaper than police and jails in the long run. But they are also "socialism" so we can't have that in this country.

> how they prioritize pulling people over actually responding to incidents is beyond me

Revenue.

It’s interesting that the cities who wanted to fire all cops and then ran them out of town with pitchforks are suddenly upset cops aren’t policing as much as they used to.

De-policing was the goal and that goal has been partly achieved. Now we all get to live with it until trust is restored.

I'd be interested if can you supply a good body of evidence to support the claim that significant, widespread de-policing has occurred in the US and it's effects. Mostly I've just seen opinion pieces that cherry pick numbers.

Seattle, as an example, lost 1 out of 5 cops between 2020 and 2021. Crime, including violent crimes like murder, are all up. Closed cases are down. There are new lists of crimes that are “deprioritized” every few months. This last month it was a laundry list of crimes related to traffic safety, like expired tabs or missing license plates.

A local businessperson that posted memes in 2020 about defunding the police just had his business ransacked again a few weeks ago. He then took to social media to complain about how Seattle is no longer safe and he may leave the city. It’s like people have completely lost grip with reality.

An anecdote about Seattle is not evidence of significant, widespread de-policing across the US.

At any rate, de-prioritizing expired tabs and missing plates seems like a nothingburger.

> The U.S. murder rate rose 30% between 2019 and 2020 – the largest single-year increase in more than a century, according to data published this month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/06/health/us-homicide-rate-incre...

I really hate news articles that talk about an increase in rate yet only show a graph of absolute numbers to reason about it.

Where’s the link to reduced policing? Crime rates are most definitely not as simple an equation as more police = less crime. There’s a myriad of factors at work and taking any simple assumption of a single cause and effect is bound to be wrong.

Such an odd example, though; as in that time they also lost a lot to people that refused to get vaccinated. :(

Do you have a good link that lays out the numbers?

> Crime, including violent crimes like murder, are all up.

Per capita?

I'm looking at the crime stats in Seattle. For a city with a population growth of 2.2%, it doesn't seem that crime has gone up significantly.

If anything, this proves that police does not prevent crimes.

Look at shootings and homicides, which are reported more consistency than low-level crimes (people have given up reporting many of these).

2020 was up 50%. And 2021 is outpacing 2020.

> And 2021 is outpacing 2020.

There were less homicides in 2021 than in 2020. In total, there were less crimes in 2021 than in 2018, with a 2.2% population increase.

Gun violence spiked in 2020, and continued to increase in 2021.

https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/past-tolls

"Homicide" is a fungible term, one that is gamed by city officials and prosecutors that want to show lower violence levels in their city.

Gun violence totals are much harder to game. And those continue to rise in the US.

Where's Seattle in here? Also, it seems that, according to data, 2020 and 2021 have seen significantly less incidents than years 2015 to 2018.

I don't think I get your point, though. This seems to point more towards gun control, than increasing police budgets.

How did it lose the cops? Was it actual de-policing, or did they just quit and go elsewhere on their own?

They quit voluntarily. For some reason, SPD can't figure out how to hire people. Maybe it's due to their culture...

I have a few friends in Seattle and policing is definitely broken, particularly dealing with crime related to the homeless encampments dotted all over. No question about that.

Ahh buisness. The econonmic driver that keeps on driving, looking for tax breaks where-ever they can get them. Big buisness, you made your bed, now sleep in it.

You missed the bit about 50+yrs of racism and class war fare that has created the America you live in today. Not a policy change from last year my friend. You are living in a sickness, just because you now are starting to to turn the tide, does not mean you will not have to deal with ongoing side-effects while the transition happens.

At one point, we need to realise that this IS Capitalism. This IS the SYSTEM. This IS the product. Haves, and have nots. At some point, the have nots will not respect the system that entrenches them in servatude. That is why the Romans weaponised religious practices, fear of death is the only thing that overrides all...

It's not actual de-policing, as in "firing cops". It's a sea change in what cops are willing to do while on duty. They have watched the televised trials of cops who have--for whatever reason, just or unjust--been prosecuted for crimes committed while performing the jobs.

In 2022, every cop looks at a call through the lens of "will I go to prison if I respond to this?". So now, we have criminals committing all sorts of crimes on the street (violent and not) and a police force that is unwilling to pursue these criminals for fear of the bad guy pulling a knife, or a gun, or having a heart attack while being arrested. The cop gets a felony charge, gets doxxed by the media and Twitter, and gets a spectacle trial, sometimes with the President of the United States weighing in, and usually ends up completely f'ed, even if found not guilty. It's much easier for them to just drive on by and let the crime happen and tell dispatch that they couldn't find the guy.

> In 2022, every cop looks at a call through the lens of "will I go to prison if I respond to this?"

Good.

Why wouldn't we want police accountability? Even more, an officer is a public servant and must be held to a higher standard than petty criminals. The fact that some people would think otherwise is mind boggling.

That’s not how accountability works. Clearly you’ve never been in this sort of situation where the prescribed action is very close to what will get you sued or killed.

Until people stop with “all cops” and stop painting all criminals as down-on-their-luck saints, we will stay this way.

This is no different than saying “all men are rapists” or “all women are gold diggers”.

Wow, this is a pitiful take.

> Clearly you’ve never been in this sort of situation where the prescribed action is very close to what will get you sued or killed.

Clearly not, but why would that matter? I recognise three things. First, the purpose of police departments should be to protect citizens, not abuse them. Second, officers should be trained to de-escalate, not to shoot first and ask later. And third, the US clearly has issues with the use of force by their police.

> This is no different than saying “all men are rapists” or “all women are gold diggers

Is it customary among men and women to excuse and enable immoral or even criminal behaviours?

It is not. But the same cannot be said about police departments and unions.

>"will I go to prison if I respond to this?"

I mean people should think about that about anything they do. The fact that it's new to police is telling. It's because until now they see themselves as above the law, because they have been.

The only cops I've seen get prosecuted are the egregious crimes. Anything anywhere close to borderline gets a pass, including killing unarmed people.

Look at the cops who beat up that demented 73 year old lady in Colorado. They got a pass from every supervisor in their department and would still be employed if the lady's family didn't file a federal lawsuit and the news caught wind of it. Their supervisors should also face charges for covering it up, including that SOB police chief. If any police department should have everyone fired and rebuilt from the ground up, this is a perfect example. The video of her arrest exists, but don't watch it unless you wanna get really, and I mean really mad.

Yes, good cops exist, but if I was a good cop and I found myself working at a department like this, I would find my morals extremely strained every day. I don't know how long I could work for them and sleep at night.

Oh and fuck that Walmart employee and his/her supervisor for calling the animal cops too. And fuck Walmart the company for calling cops on demented old ladies.

https://www.npr.org/2021/05/19/998433764/former-colorado-off...

Schielke has noted that the department failed to take any action against the officer until media reports publicized Garner's violent arrest. This inaction was despite the fact that several other officers as well as supervisors were aware of what had happened. Only after reports did officials seek to launch an investigation into the incident resulting in Wednesday's charges, she said.

/end rant

Seems like a bunch of people throwing a tamper tantrum to me. "I can't get away with all the shit that I used to get away with, so I'm going to throw a fit".

That's a very crass thing to say when you're not the one out on the street at night, tasked to deal with violent, sometimes psychotic sociopaths, who are often under the influence of methamphetamine [0] fentanyl.

[0] see recent Atlantic article posted here on the "new meth"

Firstly, that's their job. It's not like a surprise for them to be dealing with criminals, mentally disturbed individuals etc. Secondly, that's not justification to use excessive, some times lethal force unnecessarily. Nor is it a reason to not hold cops that abuse their power accountable.

What do you suggest? Let them do whatever they want because they have to deal with violent individuals some times?

> De-policing was the goal and that goal has been partly achieved. Now we all get to live with it until trust is restored.

I call this progress. There are many people who do not think the police are effective at their jobs, or even a net good to society. I say this as a white male who has never had a positive interaction with the police in his life. I hear about the "good" cops but I never meet them, and I've met a lot of terrible cops.

What I want is for the police to be held accountable to the public they are supposedly serving. Until we have that I am happy to see fewer of them because I do not believe they are serving the public, but are instead serving themselves (on the taxpayer's dime, no less).

This is a pretty typical opinion for progressive white men, who don't fear sexual violence the same way women often do, and often don't live in high-crime neighborhoods. When the violence reaches your front door, it'll be harder to be so privileged to think the answer is to get rid of all policing.

I once lived in one of the more dangerous neighborhoods in Chicago, where murder was pretty common (there were at least 3 murders within 5 blocks of where I lived, and probably more I didn't know about). And my girlfriends have all been pretty terrified of the police, often moreso than of other people. I'm not sure whether or not it matters, but they've all been raped, and they feel the police do not help at all.

So I've seen the violence up close and I've listened to the vulnerable women, and I think the police are still part of the problem. One of my exes basically described them as legal thugs, and was terrified the police would rape her as well. You should look up statistics for police beating their wives, they're not exactly known for defending women against violence.

I don't think I actually made my stance clear before - the police are the people I'm scared of. They are the criminals I fear. And they regularly get away with murder, and essentially all of them help cover up crimes. I have no idea how you can defend them unless you are willfully ignorant.

The vast majority of sexual violence is from people they know, mostly in situations where you wouldn’t call the police on the spot.

Victims of street crimes are usually men.

So which is it- is whiteness the problem because white women are also very susceptible to sexual assault, or is maleness the problem because men are the primary victims?

You don’t have a monopoly on victimization.

No, the goal was funding alternate approaches to reduce the need for policing. If police are getting paid more to do less, everyone loses.

Their budgets are still bigger than ever. De-policing hasn't been achieved because most of the goal was to better utilize those resources. Police refusing to do the basics of their job and increasing their budget isn't a point in favor of their positions.

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