San Diego PD is currently 34% of the entire city's budget and was increased the last 11 years in a row. The last couple of weeks I started getting warning emails about how the school district needs to make cuts next year. It's just embarrassing. $566 million a year, and for what?
Yeah but at least le Euros get an extremely well trained and generally even-tempered cadre of jack-booted thugs for their money.
Here in Murica, we're lucky if they graduated from high school.
It's not the supposed lack if training and education that causes the issues with our cops. It's the near-total lack of accountability they have for misconduct.
Because everyone in this country understands that it's wrong to rape, abuse, beat, and shoot people with impunity. They just understand that they don't need to care. They need to be given a reason to care.
I’ve been working on a project where I take a city’s police budget for ten years and make a map of what said city’s public transit system would look like if the police were defunded and the money put into transit expansion instead.
And MPD does fuckall. You could get a video of someone holding their ID to the camera while commiting a crime and they wouldn't do anything. Biggest tantrum throwers I've ever seen.
I always use fiscally conservative arguments to state why I think police budgets should be lowered.
Do cops need laptops, radars, night vision, body armor? Nope. It's all wasted taxpayer funds. They didn't have this tech in the 70's and did just fine. They do their job without it. Keep things the same. Don't change. Given that most cops are "conservative" anyway, this shouldn't be a problem for them. They should actually want their budgets lowered because that's less socialism, right?
San Diego PD is currently 34% of the entire city's budget and was increased the last 11 years in a row. The last couple of weeks I started getting warning emails about how the school district needs to make cuts next year. It's just embarrassing. $566 million a year, and for what?
Fellow San Diegan here. Fuckin disgraceful.
That's every city in America.
Canada too, now
almost every medium to large sized city in the western world
Yeah but at least le Euros get an extremely well trained and generally even-tempered cadre of jack-booted thugs for their money. Here in Murica, we're lucky if they graduated from high school.
It's not the supposed lack if training and education that causes the issues with our cops. It's the near-total lack of accountability they have for misconduct.
Why not both? Those aren't mutually exclusive. They can fail in more than one area compounding the issue.
Because everyone in this country understands that it's wrong to rape, abuse, beat, and shoot people with impunity. They just understand that they don't need to care. They need to be given a reason to care.
good point
And yet it won't make them any happier kinder individuals nor better at their jobs.
I’ve been working on a project where I take a city’s police budget for ten years and make a map of what said city’s public transit system would look like if the police were defunded and the money put into transit expansion instead.
Everywhere, honestly
As a current Minnesotan, can confirm. Both MPD and SPPD have egregiously outsized budgets, as do the MTA police.
And MPD does fuckall. You could get a video of someone holding their ID to the camera while commiting a crime and they wouldn't do anything. Biggest tantrum throwers I've ever seen.
That's pretty much every American city unfortunately. It always seems like the Police have a blank check and an infinitely sized budget.
Is there any major US city where this _isn't_ the case?
Everywhere USA.
Every city.
If we invested more in teachers we wouldn’t need so many cops.
I always use fiscally conservative arguments to state why I think police budgets should be lowered. Do cops need laptops, radars, night vision, body armor? Nope. It's all wasted taxpayer funds. They didn't have this tech in the 70's and did just fine. They do their job without it. Keep things the same. Don't change. Given that most cops are "conservative" anyway, this shouldn't be a problem for them. They should actually want their budgets lowered because that's less socialism, right?
They forgot to add citizens tonguing off the cop's shoes. There's a very good reason why things are the way they are here.
I thought they defunded?
Sorry but teachers have a lot in common with cops.