jimnyc
06-13-2020, 12:49 PM
So there is a ton of talk about defunding the police, or some even talk of abolishing the police altogether.
I am NOT going to say it's impossible. I think it's a crazy idea that will fail, but I can't say for sure that alternatives wouldn't work. I think the answer is a combination of a lot of things. Education and changes within, some training changes & a lot of work between the police and the community they represent.
Some of the folks that want this to happen one way or another, are using Camden, NJ as a comparison. They didn't abolish the police from the community as some say. But a ton of changes were made, and for the better in the long run as far as crime rate.
But it was hardly the answer. And Camden is certainly NOT a place that someone wants to show off as a better crime area in any way at all. Better than what it was, but I wouldn't live there now if it were for free in a mansion!
First a snippet on what they did, and then underneath how Camden looks now. And YES, believe it or not, these numbers are much better in some areas!!
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How’d they do it? Step one was busting their police union by disbanding the force in 2013.
At the time, the cop cartel had pumped up average annual costs per officer (including extraordinarily generous fringe benefits) to $182,168. At that monopoly price, poor Camden could afford to employ just 175 cops, and during peak nighttime crime hours only a dozen might be on patrol.
But laying off the union cops and then rehiring many as county employees reduced costs to $99,605 per officer, enabling lots of new hires while keeping total expenditures roughly the same. Within a couple of years, Camden’s force exceeded 400 — a little over 50 cops per 10,000 residents, about triple the national average for similarly sized cities.
So Camden did not “abolish police,” as some of the more radical voices in the current debate claim, but actually employed more police — and more law enforcement. As the now-retired chief who led the transition explained, understaffing had made his city force a “triage unit going from emergency to emergency.” Staffing up enabled more proactive policing (including the use of some surveillance tools that civil libertarians consider problematic).
That made policing in Camden not just more cost-effective but better overall, incorporating training, rules of engagement, and accountability protocols otherwise unaffordable or unacceptable. While its approach has been branded as “community policing,” a great deal of Camden’s crime turnaround came courtesy of what looks like an application of “broken windows theory” (that treating small signs of public disorder can head off larger problems).
Rest - https://news.yahoo.com/camden-didn-t-defund-police-194336545.html
https://i.imgur.com/WqcNYG1.png
https://i.imgur.com/KKw7pfc.png
https://i.imgur.com/oD3edyA.png
Rest - https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/nj/camden/crime
I am NOT going to say it's impossible. I think it's a crazy idea that will fail, but I can't say for sure that alternatives wouldn't work. I think the answer is a combination of a lot of things. Education and changes within, some training changes & a lot of work between the police and the community they represent.
Some of the folks that want this to happen one way or another, are using Camden, NJ as a comparison. They didn't abolish the police from the community as some say. But a ton of changes were made, and for the better in the long run as far as crime rate.
But it was hardly the answer. And Camden is certainly NOT a place that someone wants to show off as a better crime area in any way at all. Better than what it was, but I wouldn't live there now if it were for free in a mansion!
First a snippet on what they did, and then underneath how Camden looks now. And YES, believe it or not, these numbers are much better in some areas!!
--
How’d they do it? Step one was busting their police union by disbanding the force in 2013.
At the time, the cop cartel had pumped up average annual costs per officer (including extraordinarily generous fringe benefits) to $182,168. At that monopoly price, poor Camden could afford to employ just 175 cops, and during peak nighttime crime hours only a dozen might be on patrol.
But laying off the union cops and then rehiring many as county employees reduced costs to $99,605 per officer, enabling lots of new hires while keeping total expenditures roughly the same. Within a couple of years, Camden’s force exceeded 400 — a little over 50 cops per 10,000 residents, about triple the national average for similarly sized cities.
So Camden did not “abolish police,” as some of the more radical voices in the current debate claim, but actually employed more police — and more law enforcement. As the now-retired chief who led the transition explained, understaffing had made his city force a “triage unit going from emergency to emergency.” Staffing up enabled more proactive policing (including the use of some surveillance tools that civil libertarians consider problematic).
That made policing in Camden not just more cost-effective but better overall, incorporating training, rules of engagement, and accountability protocols otherwise unaffordable or unacceptable. While its approach has been branded as “community policing,” a great deal of Camden’s crime turnaround came courtesy of what looks like an application of “broken windows theory” (that treating small signs of public disorder can head off larger problems).
Rest - https://news.yahoo.com/camden-didn-t-defund-police-194336545.html
https://i.imgur.com/WqcNYG1.png
https://i.imgur.com/KKw7pfc.png
https://i.imgur.com/oD3edyA.png
Rest - https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/nj/camden/crime