168
Police should not be involved in mental health incidents, Australian report says
(www.theguardian.com)
Or really any other incidents
this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2023
168 points (98.3% liked)
THE POLICE PROBLEM
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The police problem is that police are policed by the police. Cops are accountable only to other cops, which is no accountability at all.
99.9999% of police brutality, corruption, and misconduct is never investigated, never punished, never makes the news, so it's not on this page.
When cops are caught breaking the law, they're investigated by other cops. Details are kept quiet, the officers' names are withheld from public knowledge, and what info is eventually released is only what police choose to release — often nothing at all.
When police are fired — which is all too rare — they leave with 'law enforcement experience' and can easily find work in another police department nearby. It's called "Wandering Cops."
When police testify under oath, they lie so frequently that cops themselves have a joking term for it: "testilying." Yet it's almost unheard of for police to be punished or prosecuted for perjury.
Cops can and do get away with lawlessness, because cops protect other cops. If they don't, they aren't cops for long.
The legal doctrine of "qualified immunity" renders police officers invulnerable to lawsuits for almost anything they do. In practice, getting past 'qualified immunity' is so unlikely, it makes headlines when it happens.
All this is a path to a police state.
In a free society, police must always be under serious and skeptical public oversight, with non-cops and non-cronies in charge, issuing genuine punishment when warranted.
Police who break the law must be prosecuted like anyone else, promptly fired if guilty, and barred from ever working in law-enforcement again.
That's the solution.
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INFO
• A demonstrator's guide to understanding riot munitions
• Cops aren't supposed to be smart
• Killings by law enforcement in Canada
• Killings by law enforcement in the United Kingdom
• Killings by law enforcement in the United States
• Know your rights: Filming the police
• Three words. 70 cases. The tragic history of 'I can’t breathe' (as of 2020)
• Police aren't primarily about helping you or solving crimes.
• Police lie under oath, a lot
• Police spin: An object lesson in Copspeak
• Police unions and arbitrators keep abusive cops on the street
• Shielded from Justice: Police Brutality and Accountability in the United States
• When the police knock on your door
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MODERATORS
Here is my solution. If you want to be a police officer, you need to learn and pass multiple subjects, including and not limted to medicine training, laws, psychology and any other topic that impact the day to day operations. This will help massively in improving the quality of police officers and the overall impact on society by filtering out the problmatic one.
They actually are trained in psychology and emergency health, in Australia. There was a task force built in 08, and it's since been rolled out, so every officer has mhit (mental health intervention training). Not that I don't agree that police shouldn't be involved, even if trained, because regardless, it's too terrifying for someone having a mental health breakdown.
I'd rather have specialization. Different crisis response teams for different crises. A college degree is prooobably a good requimrent for all police.
If aiming public protection need to be qualified in psychology, social or medical carrying, why still use cops ? Qualification is a thing, but it is not anything. People are structured by their workplace. Even someone with a Phd in Psychology joining the police wouldn't be a "good cops". He will still have guns, the right to use violence, colonial procedure, and most importantly : we would have chosen to join the cops with the mission to enforce "peace keeping" by force, even if it's imply starvation, homelessness our unemployment.