octopus_ink , 4 hours ago (edited 4 hours ago)

Hey I just wanted to say thanks for the lengthy and detailed response, and I don’t mean to seem I’m reducing it just to your final paragraph, but articles like these (which I see with reasonable regularity) lead me to believe that the real world applications of the defund movement do tend to be supported by those who are actually doing the work or are adjacent to it.

themarshallproject.org/…/police-mental-health-alt…

As someone else has already pointed out, in this specific circumstance it seems likely to me they would have sent police anyhow, which is why I think the other important step is to start letting the folks who hire and retain these clearly problematic officers feel some of the heat - whether financially or through civil suit (thanks QI), or other means.

What I do not support is giving more funding to any department without some ironclad limitations on how they can use it and actual consequences for failing to use it in that way. I have lost all faith that any such increase in funds will be used appropriately though, or that any related agreement will actually be enforceable enough to have the desired effect.

As I mentioned elsewhere, we had decades of uncritical support of police from most of the population until cameras started showing up everywhere to let us see what we were supporting. It turns out those decades of mostly uncritical support do not seem to have resulted in the sorts of police we want, so I’m skeptical that any such conditions will be obeyed or enforced.