Public Safety Story

 For several days, there's been this ballot referendum from Minneapolis that has been on my mind.  It's pushed up by the city council, and will be voted up later in the year by residents of the city.

The general wording?  The police department would basically go away.

What you'd have is a safety department.

Composition?  'Licensed' police officers, mental health responders, substance abuse specialists, violence 'interrupters' and violence prevention professionals.

I've sat and reviewed the idea, and the composition.

Generally, I see five problems:

1.  Manpower-wise, you'd probably have to double the number of folks that you have presently as police, to make this effectively work.  Tax revenue-wise....it will take an incredibly large group, and cost value.....to put this into action.

2.  If I were a violence 'interrupter'....brought to a scene and the guy is drugged-up to the max....the odds are that this will get violent in a matter of minutes, and I'm not armed or trained to the degree required....so I expect the violence 'interrupter' crowd to meet a violent situation in ten-percent of cases.

3.  If you took the Floyd-case....who would have been called?  Well....the standard police in this new era because this was all about a stupid counterfeit $20 that Floyd didn't want to discuss.  

4.  Man-hours on each event?  Where the cops might figure 90 minutes for a messed-up situation....under this situation, you might be talking about three to four hours.  

Hostile drugged-up husband?  Wife calls 9-1-1.  Mental health guy responds, and meets up with a very violent husband.  This will be a very case to spiral out of control quickly.

5.  Finally, where is the authority figure?  Normally, authority rests with the police.  If some 'violence interrupter' guy shows up and flashes a badge.....you will ask the guy....are you the police?  He'll say no, and you will disrespect the guy by walking away.  That will be standard public attitude.

I see this referendum passing, and in a matter of two years....the cost of public safety in Minneapolis will soar to double what the cost is today.  I'll also predict that a quarter of the residents will view the change in a negative way.....plan an exodus from the city, and the experiment will be deemed a failure after four years.  The failure will mostly revolve more violent acts than before and the cost factor being too much for residents to handle.  

So to a final note, which I found odd....the change that is proposed....has a little sentence in it....which says that the police that would exist after the transformation....would be more or less run/managed by the city council themselves...NOT the police chief.  

You would hire someone who would just 'pretend' to be the chief, but in reality...some city council member could walk into the central control room....via a situation and just demand that officers 'stand-down'.....there would be no standard way of handling a mess....you'd just invent a new management view each day and leave people guessing how the chips may fall.

In some ways....it's a bit amusing and looks like a transformation into Mogadishu....one clan family over another, just depending the day of the week. 

Biden's Suggestion

 One of the comments from President Biden during the town hall of this past week....concerns the comment 'we don't have near enough people handling the mentally-ill and the drug addicted folks in America'.

I've sat there for a fair amount of time pondering the statement.

NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) says just in general....one out of five Americans have some form of mental illness.  That's 51.5-million Americans.  At the more serious level....they figure it's five-percent of the nation or 13-million.  

NSDUH says that around (2017 survey) 19.7-million Americans had a drug addiction of some type.  

You add the numbers up....it's around 33-million folks that would be in this concept of President Biden's idea.....where people would be handling the group.  

The chief problem here?  Under his idea....these people deserve help....whether they want it or not. If you went up to the 33-million and said here's your big chance in life....I'd be skeptical that you even got 10-percent of the group being agreeable for one massive rehab deal.  

In the case of the paranoid schizophrenic folks....you might be better off just housing them in a quiet facility....away from the general public. Once you explained that idea to the general public....probably sixty-percent of them would freak out and say 'no way'. 

So the suggestion that President Biden made?   A noble act?  More or less....yeah.  We all have crazy uncles, nutty neighbors who mow the lawn in a precise fashion, co-workers who disappear on a four-day period once a year while using heroin or LSD, friends who go nuts when traveling on planes, associates who do weed four times a day to handle their anxiety/stress levels, and cousins who have lived under bridges in Los Angeles for the past seven years.  

It's just that it'd take a massive army to cover the issue, and if the problem-person doesn't want the enforced recovery....then what?