In Australia (at least my state)… Both, because normal people are fined for fucking EVERYTHING
Yes, some of the social workers I know personally deal with and mediate all types of conflict at their places of work (women’s/homeless shelters and juvy programs). Then again I’m not talking about social workers stuck in an office all day filing paperwork.
Everyone gets on edge with cops. That’s not a new concept. And someone experiencing a psych episode, or who is high/drunk, or just having a terrible emotional day will also likely have a strong negative reaction to cops pulling up with sirens and weapons and yelling commands and threatening physical force (the threat is always there, they’re armed cops trained in violence).
It’s not necessarily a bad thing that cops put people on edge and intimidate either. It just means that cops are not ideal candidates to handle many situations that they currently get called to.
Conflict is a broad term. How many are trained to deal with an armed person who is on the verge of stabbing someone? This is what everyone ignores. Not only will you not find a social worker who will willingly confront an armed person, you won’t get an agency that would even allow it for, among other reasons, liability.
The issue isn’t that cops are called to deal with dangerous suspects, regardless of their mental or emotional capacity, but that those situations are allowed to occur in the first place. How often is it family members calling the police because even they are scared for their own safety? Were they enablers who let things get to that point?
Well, one of them (woman in her 50s) has been cut/slashed twice working at a homeless shelter, kids have punched the other guy working with juvy kids. That’s just what I know of. So they do already put themselves in harm’s way voluntarily.
But, it would be up to the social workers at the scene whether they felt safe enough to engage and approach the subject, or if they felt it was dangerous enough it should be passed off to the “real” police, in which case their plainclothes police security shadow (who arrived with them) would take over and police backup would likely be called. The idea is to have more tools in the tool belt instead of asking the hammer (cops) to do everything… otherwise everything gets treated like a nail.
As you and i well know, family can set people off, so it should come as no surprise that family, many times, can’t calm a subject down.
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What you’re describing ignores the basic problem.
Why is someone calling for help in the first place, what sort of help is needed, and what constitutes success for those coming to help?
It seems as though the “Defund cops, fund social workers” people measure success by the number of people not shot by cops and precious little else. Of course nobody gets shot by unarmed social workers, but what are they even there to accomplish after the situation has gotten bad enough to call for help in the first place?
Talk the person down is the common answer, which would be great, but cops do that already. If we assume these social workers can somehow bring better outcomes into the world when things are already bad enough to call for help, how many improved outcomes do you think we would see?
What sort of calls for help would you feel good about dispatching them to unarmed?
50 mm police interactions a year, 1.5% violence or Threat of violence
Considering LEOs are the front line responders of violent situations - this is an answer searching for a question imo.
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I think this is more along the lines of what Californiagrown is getting at. Embedding mental health specialists in 911 call centres, so that in the first place the correct response can be planned when calls come in.
I didn’t see any mention in that article about defunding the police. It would appear to be the opposite. They’re getting more funding to add supporting specialty staff.
That’s a pretty big difference.
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And I knew someone who was stabbed to death volunteering at a shelter. It’s one thing to deal with sudden, unexpected violence and another to willingly enter a violent situation.
If you asked that woman if she would have entered into those situations knowing she would get slashed, maybe she says hell no. We put ourselves in harm’s way every time we leave the house. But, if we knew that today is the day we get into a fatal car accident or get hit by a meteor, maybe we take the day off.
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The problem is 911 is for emergencies so there isn’t exactly going to be time to plan anything in most cases. When it’s a public safety issue, the police will always be the first responders. It’s just how things work.
I think its closer to 60 m… You’re very very veryyyyyy unlikely to be harmed by a cop. Less so if you’re not a combative dummy
These are the kinds of animals people want unarmed social workers to deal with.
Do these smooth brains EVER think things through ? Seriously… Everything they touch turns to mush
In America that is. Some countries have serious, systemic police corruption going on that more people ought to be looking into as opposed to shitting on the American police force.
Kinda reminds me of gender politics and all the complaints I hear about the “patriarchal” and “systemically sexist” nature of Australia (granted systemic sexism WAS a massive issue here decades ago). Why not focus all that effort on the relatively non-existent issue here into campaigning for change within countries that legitimately harbour systemic discriminatory ideology?
Plenty of African/Middle Eastern states practice female genital mutilation, cops in SE Asia will sometimes plant evidence on or intimidate foreigners or residents into giving them exorbitant bribes… or face jail time
What about corrupt dictatorships/regimes that use law enforcement as pawns to incapacitate political rivals?
But NO! “ThE UsA iS tHe MoSt, RaCiSt, SeXiSt, mIsOYnIsTiC place EVER! We need Stalin to come back and sort this mess out!” #theynevermentionthefamine
Mentioning Stalin is an exaggeration, but when I hear people advocate for socialism or marxism as a societal alternative it always pops up in my mind.
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So, because other countries have bigger problems, we shouldn’t focus on the comparatively small problems in our own countries?
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The thing is, we don’t focus on our big problems.
I get this response quite a bit.
My rebuttal is
By all means, focus on the comparatively smaller problems we have. BUT, but a greater emphasis on the massive injustices occuring elsewhere as opposed to nitpicking at any minor perceived inconvenience occuring within our secular, democratic societies.
Reinforced gender stereotypes, whilst irritating can hold some merit at times (i.e men are generally physically stronger than women at baseline, women are generally more risk-averse than their male counterparts). Complaining about and advocating for us to fund all our energy into combatting these dogmatic, albeit partially true beliefs is a waste of time when we could be allocating a larger portion of energy towards combatting true gender inequality like… Women not being able to DRIVE, or vote in certain countries.
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Agree with this x10. It’s a silly way of thinking although I think I get what @unreal24278 is kinda trying to say.
I think you’re on the right track but here’s the rub.
You demonize the police, you will get end up getting up shitty applicants in the future, which has already been said many times in this thread. THAT’S why these countries have such levels of systemic corruption even today.
I dunno what’s going on in the US, but in the past in my region when there was a lack of jobs and mass poverty, old timers would say that if you wanted a stable, comfortably paying job without enough paper qualifications, you either became a gangster or join the police.
The fucking cops were WORSE than the gangsters. My great grandfather would spit on the ground every time he saw a cop because he sold vegetables without a permit on the street and they would go over and kick some of his stuff once a week just to make him pay them “protection money” so they’d leave him alone.
This isn’t even mentioning the amount of ways they got extra income by working with, and even controlling gang activities.
If you’re interested in seeing what it was like in lots of Asian countries during that era, go watch a HK movie called Lee Rock. It’s my favorite movie of all time. Every single person who lived through that era depicted in the movie were mind blown by it’s accuracy and how similar it was in other countries.
In the 70s up to the 90s, when living conditions were better and people were mostly educated, they still refused to join the police because of the social stigma. It’s why we still had fucked up cops who would fuck around with you when I was growing up. Race wasn’t even a factor half the time. Where I live now, I’ve been told there were so few applicants in the mid 70s they had to import foreigners to fill over half the entry level slots.
The bastards would just find any shitty reason to do anything. If you had long hair parted in the center, that would imply that you’re a gang member and they’d rough you up. That’s how absurd things were then.
EDIT:
I don’t know if you remember, but I wrote in your drug thread about how I gave 2 fuckers a nice bribe to let us play with fireworks(illegal there) during Chinese New Year a couple of years back when I went back to my old home in my former country to visit relatives and they not only stayed and laid on their fucking cars to watch the fireworks, they fucking agreed to pose for selfies with me which I then emailed to every fucking government department lol. I’m guessing no one bothered to follow up since I didn’t get any replies other than the standard “we will look into the matter” nonsense. I’m not surprised.
THESE are the kind of idiots you can potentially get if you’re left with the bottom of the barrel when the profession has been stigmatized to such a degree.
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Illigal in some states here too. People get around it by buying fireworks interstate and travelling back with them
I lit them off one or twice when I lived in the US. They seemed quite dangerous
Haven’t messed around with firecrackers or fireworks since I lived over there… But years ago when I was even dumber than I am now I once lit deodorant cans on fire with the local delinquents (they blew up)
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Oh, yeah they are. I’m not against the ban. Too many stupid people caused severe injuries to both themselves and others when using them.
Just wanted to have some fun at that time and let the younger ones in the group I was with see them IRL (from a safe distance) since I learned how to use them when I was a kid when they weren’t illegal yet.