More hospitals create police forces | Hacker News Reader

More hospitals create police forces

npr.org

53 pointslxm46 comments

The increased violence at the hospital I worked at for a bit was because by law anyone who police find to be overdosing need to be brought to nearest emergency room. This meant alot of the people there weren't mentally sound and definitely didn't want to be there. There were often a half-dozen cops in the ER trying to get someone being aggressive to calm down. It was quite an experience working there hearing "code gray in the emergency department" about twice a day.

Im OK with forcing overdosing victims and others in dire need of medical care into hospitals.

Even if it's at the expense of the safety of other patients?

Of course, there is nothing so invaluable in modern society than the life of a junkie.

I don't think you can know that until they start causing safety problems, right? If you develop a heuristic like overdose = harms other patients, then you are executing people who did nothing wrong except make one little mistake with some chemicals. You then get second order effects to further discriminate, "this guy is white and he's unconscious in a rich neighborhood" versus "this guy is black and he's unconscious in a poor neighborhood", and eventually it all starts to feel a little evil.

As a human race, we're supposed to be helping each other a little bit. It's how we're wired.

Based on your profile, you do not work in healthcare, so who’s the “we” you’re referring to? The overworked and underpaid health care workers that will actually have to “help each other a little bit”?

Taxpayers have to fund this. I pay a lot of taxes.

That's why they're bolstering private police forces.

"You can't fool me! It's bandaids all the way down"

They probably should be taken to a facility that’s better equipped for them.

Is a hospital not the right place to treat somebody overdosing? Or are you referring to long term care?

Maybe a special OD section where this is common

The main branch of the public library seems to be a popular choice.

I presume you mean mental health facilities? Many of them are in hospitals, but they aren’t as widely spread as they once were.

Sad, considering past behaviour by police working at behest of hospital admins:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/02/28/knoxville-p...

After denying a 60 year women care, hospital staff called police to have her arrested for trespassing. The officers mocked her pleas for help and she died in their custody.

Well done America!

It is frustrating to see a trend of public tax-funded police doing less (especially in cities), while organizations that can afford to are hiring the same officers 'off-duty' or creating their own forces

Doesn't seem optimal or sustainable

Also doesn't seem transparent, or consistent, or accountable. Just seems like a bad idea. Companies should have security teams, not police.

As long as we have elected sheriffs this will continue. They basically get to set the policy without accountability.

On the other hand, I get why. There has been a history of bad apples, and now everything is scrutinized. Can't pull someone over anymore without it being plastered all over the news where everybody picks every frame apart.

Police should be okay being watched. They should be held to a higher standard than citizens, because they have the legal authority to use force lawfully.

In the ideal world police wouldn't even be needed.

In the real world, the actual outcome is they'll only do anything if they're 100% certain it can't blowback on them.

We all saw the police go "mask off" in response to the George Floyd protests in 2020, showing us how they're more interested in violence against people challenging their power than they are in our actual safety. Why are they being allowed to keep growing and taking root in more of our institutions?

The system is flawed, push more people to the edge, then you'll get more violence, and need more police. Lather, rinse, repeat.

"If you send out armed police looking for a riot, they'll find one."

I have sympathy for the poor doctors and nurses. Perhaps what's needed are security guards that can act like bouncers, to keep problem people in check until the real police can get there.

Edit: I don't live in the USA, so I'm used to police solving problems, not aggravating them.

> I'm used to police solving problems, not aggravating them.

A quick reminder that ACAB does not stand for American cops are bastards. The USA has its own distinct problems, yes, and is worse than many other countries, but policing as an institution has serious problems probably everywhere. (Yes, even in countries where police are routinely unarmed.)

Yep. The way to break the cycle is to address whatever is pushing people to the edge, but that would [lower property values / give people things they don't deserve / invalidate the hard work I did to get where I am / etc].

And none of those things are the responsibility of, nor in the power of hospitals.

If you would just vote correctly corrupt D DAs wouldn’t need to enact The Purge!

Pretty clearly due to mental health issues and lack of treatment, but the article tries to conflate it with "increased violence against healthcare workers during covid 19"

Well, mental health for many did take a nose dive during the pandemic and it hasn’t really recovered for many.

I think a lot of people were increasingly on edge before the pandemic, and the isolation really didn't help them with their mental health.

It was still necessary from a disease control standpoint, and the USA didn't have the balls to crack down hard enough to do more than smear the waves out so our hospital systems didn't completely collapse. (E.G. New Zealand did a reasonable job of isolating properly, while China held the crack down too hard instead of crush the numbers, then loosen a little until things started to go back up and squeeze again.)

> I think a lot of people were increasingly on edge before the pandemic, and the isolation really didn't help them with their mental health.

This is my take as well. I personally viewed it as a challenge and a stress test for my own mental health, and tried my best to make life easier for myself and others. I suppose I was lucky, as my life didn’t change and I didn’t stop working. As an introvert, it felt like a holiday of sorts, with less car noise and more clean air days to enjoy. I’m not going to lie, I felt like the guy in the Twilight Zone episode "Time Enough at Last", and made great inroads with my reading list. I think the people who faired worse were extroverts who weren’t all that comfortable with being alone, isolated, or limited by where they could go and do, and were faced with existential issues that they had never really confronted before.

Same, and my personal pandemic bubble included my nearby mom and dad; so I got to spend a year or so with my dad before dementia claimed him. The pandemic isolation did seem to kick that into high gear as he was also very immune weakened and we couldn't safely take him outside the house to interact with anyone else. Doctors on the front lines couldn't get enough (properly effective) PPE for their high risk jobs, let alone any for the elderly.

Yes I agree, but there's a narrative that people who don't agree with forced vaccination are taking out their anger on healthcare workers. I'm suspicious that's what they're trying to hint at. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I know that was a (completely made up) narrative during covid.

Have they tried to find the root causes? How related are agressions with the medical debt of the aggressors? Could a system that doesn't bankrupt its patients help this issue? Would it help to reduce this attacks if mental healthcare was fully free and accessible too?

They are a security force, not technically police.

That's not how it works in the US. An entity can set up its own police department if it meets the administrative criteria, including arguably private entities - some churches have their own cops. Essentially if you commit to investing the resources and procure the agreement of local stakeholders you can buy arrest/enforcement rights for your institution/private concern. Naturally I'm oversimplifying but you can learn more in this helpful Department of Justice publication:

https://cops.usdoj.gov/ric/Publications/cops-p109-pub.pdf

UCSF (and its numerous outlier campuses) has its own police force, for example.

Most colleges and universities have their own police forces, even my local community college.

Also rail lines. Both being well monied institutions of great importance and given special legal carve outs since their inception long ago in North America. Feels like a historical legal anachronism is being abused when they have such exceptional power compared to other enterprises in today's day and age.

Public transit systems often have their own police force because they cross many jurisdictions. In my area, the public transit system includes boats, busses, subways, trolleys, and heavy rail...normal cops aren't trained in how to operate in/on those systems, which can easily be lethal in a lot of ways.

The system crosses at least half a dozen counties, two states, and has a diameter of over 70 miles.

Stop making everything into some corporate-fascism nonsense.

This text is in the bill in Georgia that they referenced:

> provide for P.O.S.T. certified peace officers employed by hospitals to serve as hospital peace 7 officers; to provide for law enforcement authority of hospital peace officers on hospital 8 campuses;

AFAIK that is gummint for Police Officer. Who else has law enforcement authority?

https://www.legis.ga.gov/legislation/64341

> And hospitals can now establish law enforcement offices like those on university campuses. The officers must be certified by the Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training Council and maintain law enforcement records that can be made public.

They’re certified Peace Officers who have the power to make arrests and enforce warrants… entering people into the criminal justice system. Typically a security officer would detain someone one then call “real police” to make a judgement call.

If there’s an important distinction between what this article describes and police I’m missing it.

What's the difference?

> lawmakers in 29 states have approved or are working on either similar laws or ones that allow for the creation of hospital police forces. Members of those forces can carry firearms and make arrests. In addition, they have higher training requirements than noncertified officers such as security guards,

Do you consider railroad police or postal police and other such federal, state and municipal police (or private company police forces like railroad police that can make arrests etc) not "police"?

After you’ve committed a crime, if they can legally deprive you of your freedom and exert the state’s monopoly on violence against you, they are police.

That rule would make every adult in the 50 states and DC (*exceptions may apply in North Carolina only) police.

The state has a monopoly on violence but it does not restrict the use of its monopoly to police; it graciously allows anyone to advance the state's interests. A better definition of police probably requires mentioning immunization from the consequences of exercising that violence.

No, they are technically police. You don't need much to create a police force in the US; it's not federally controlled, the rules are whatever the state or locality legislates.

Apparently many are deputized. According to the article, many can make arrests.

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