I’ve no doubt that the prejudices of individual officers affects their policing and in some cases may be racist or anti-minority. I think the way around this is more accountability for police officers: they must have bodycams when doing their jobs which are publicly available (we live in a Democracy do we not?) and officers can be removed due random reviews. There is no internal process, it is done by an independent commision. In incidents like this or when in a dodgy area I wouldn’t feel very comfortable with a low police presence. I’m not sure what the alternative to police would be, something like the second amendment in the US?
princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
Are you Indigenous Australian? A person of colour? LGBTQ? Homeless? A drug addict?
Because from my experiences, these groups tend to feel most comfortable when there’s a lower police presence. And I think their experiences should be considered as just as important as yours.
You’ve got to be joking, right? Personally, I’d rather not start seeing local school shootings on the evening news. It’s hard enough hearing about the ones in the States. Let alone how much more trigger-happy their cops are due to fearing that any person they interact with may have a concealed gun on them.
I’d go the opposite direction. Take guns off regular uniformed police. That’s how it is in London. De-escalate the threat of violence and bad people are likely to do the same. Wouldn’t you pick a bigger knife if you knew the people showing up in response would have guns?
I think the solutions needed are social ones. Victoria built, and is building, sobering up centres. They are staffed by nurses and social workers, and have drug and alcohol counselling available as well as being able to do referrals to other services. Increasing these sorts of services and improving social safety nets and public housing all have negative effects on the crime rate.
unionagainstdhmo@aussie.zone 5 months ago
I mostly agree with what you have said. I’m not denying that the problem is societal:
What I meant by that statement was what do we do to prevent crimes (especially of the violent kind) when societal change fails to prevent it? My solution would be a much, much smaller police force that can run more efficiently with much higher standards of training and accountabilty
princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 months ago
me:
you:
me:
you:
I literally already said that but alright mate 🫡
unionagainstdhmo@aussie.zone 5 months ago
Sure grab some quotes, don’t engage with the whole comment. I can change my mind on things. I don’t know why this needs to be about trying to hurt me rather than have a reasonable debate