Hacker News Reader

Comment by shevy-java | Hacker News Reader

> In my area, the "Defund the Police" folks on the city council have directly caused a massive increase in overtime by actively thwarting efforts by the mayor and police chief to help improve work conditions and recruiting for the police force.

Here you try to shift blame. Is it really the fault of the defund-the-police folks that a single cop gets almost 500k paid per year? How were this the case? Something is fundamentally broken if cops are paid so much more than regular people.

View on HN

I don't live where cops get paid $500k a year. And you're acting like the exception here is the rule.

Again, where I live the city has struggled hiring police. The mayor and police chief have repeatedly agreed on plans to help recruiting and retainment. The city council has voted them all down, with the "Defund the Police" crowd having a slight majority on the city council. 100% of the people are of the same party btw, so this isn't a GOP vs Dem thing.

Because of that, they are understaffed, but we still need police to respond to crimes, so they rack up lots of overtime. I am arguing for cops to be paid less, not more!

Do they need to spell it out for you? 'Defund the Police' mentality in politicians means they don't try to improve police staffing -> number of police stays stagnant, even while population is increasing, crime may be increasing w/ the population -> the work doesn't magically disappear, each cop works more hours -> higher pay per-cop, especially with overtime rates Sure, you can dislike the specific numbers here in the bay area (your OP didn't say anything specifically about that btw), but the general principle is very easy to understand

That's not what defund the police means. It means cutting most or all funding from police departments and redirecting it toward crime lowering initiatives like universal childcare. It's 100% not "higher pay per-cop" or even keeping the number of police stagnant. It's letting them go altogether.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com