Barry O'Connell What would happen if a city or county defunded the police? Would lawlessness increase, would civil disorder, robberies, rape, and murders go through the roof? Actually no, Camden New Jersey in 2012 disbanded their police department. They fired the police officers and they broke the Police Union. Then they created a new law enforcement entity. By rooting out corruption and getting rid of the questionable officers, crime went down by almost 50%. Camden disbanded its Police Department because of massive corruption. Officers fabricating evidence, planting evidence, suborning perjury, and creating a toxic environment much like what we see in Baltimore Maryland today.
Let's keep in mind that nine out of 10 police calls or 911 calls rather are for nonviolent calls. Police officers are trained to be what is effectively a team of paramilitary troops. Their uniforms become increasingly like the military. Their arms become increasingly like the military. Even their tactics mimic the military. We even see police departments with armored cars and assault rifles. So we're sending out what amounts to little more than troops to be social workers, marriage counselors, mental Health Care experts, and a host of other issues that make up 90% of the 911 calls.
If we were to take a police department and whether we disband the old one or just try and fix it we could have a smaller number of officers in the paramilitary type group and then also introduced into the team social workers and mental health workers and marriage counselors and the whole host of other areas that the citizens demand. During my time at the Department of Justice under Janet Reno in Bill Clinton's administration, we were working on something called Community Policing. One of the problems is that when the police don't know the neighborhood and don't know the people they assume that everyone is the enemy. In the minds of these police officers "us" becomes those of them that wear the uniform and are inside the police cars and "them" as usual refers to the bad guys, them is everyone else.
We need to get police officers out of the cars and talk to the citizens. they need to realize that just because someone is not wearing a police uniform does not mean that they are a threat to the officer or inherently a bad person. I suppose as much as anything in the police department's I would like to see some degree of specialization. In other words, the officers that respond to an armed robbery in progress should be and must be completely different than the officer on a mental health call for someone who's having a psychotic episode. I hate sports metaphors. But at the risk of seeming trite, let me put it this way having police officers handle virtually all calls is much like asking a football quarterback to play The line in some quarters.
Barry O'Connell, I don't think of myself as a law enforcement type. But I was a consultant to the Department of Justice under Janet Reno during the Bill Clinton administration. I was also a consultant to GIROA (Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan) dealing with their prison system during 2012 and 2013. Additionally, I lend my services pro bono to various police departments in my area of expertise.
Let's keep in mind that nine out of 10 police calls or 911 calls rather are for nonviolent calls. Police officers are trained to be what is effectively a team of paramilitary troops. Their uniforms become increasingly like the military. Their arms become increasingly like the military. Even their tactics mimic the military. We even see police departments with armored cars and assault rifles. So we're sending out what amounts to little more than troops to be social workers, marriage counselors, mental Health Care experts, and a host of other issues that make up 90% of the 911 calls.
If we were to take a police department and whether we disband the old one or just try and fix it we could have a smaller number of officers in the paramilitary type group and then also introduced into the team social workers and mental health workers and marriage counselors and the whole host of other areas that the citizens demand. During my time at the Department of Justice under Janet Reno in Bill Clinton's administration, we were working on something called Community Policing. One of the problems is that when the police don't know the neighborhood and don't know the people they assume that everyone is the enemy. In the minds of these police officers "us" becomes those of them that wear the uniform and are inside the police cars and "them" as usual refers to the bad guys, them is everyone else.
We need to get police officers out of the cars and talk to the citizens. they need to realize that just because someone is not wearing a police uniform does not mean that they are a threat to the officer or inherently a bad person. I suppose as much as anything in the police department's I would like to see some degree of specialization. In other words, the officers that respond to an armed robbery in progress should be and must be completely different than the officer on a mental health call for someone who's having a psychotic episode. I hate sports metaphors. But at the risk of seeming trite, let me put it this way having police officers handle virtually all calls is much like asking a football quarterback to play The line in some quarters.
Barry O'Connell, I don't think of myself as a law enforcement type. But I was a consultant to the Department of Justice under Janet Reno during the Bill Clinton administration. I was also a consultant to GIROA (Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan) dealing with their prison system during 2012 and 2013. Additionally, I lend my services pro bono to various police departments in my area of expertise.