How is defund short for reform?

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Oh okay. But normally social workers are not on call to respond on emergency are they?

That’s what they’re proposing to replace police sometimes.

So an unarmed social worker goes in to placate people who are possibly armed and dangerous, and mentally unstable?

What's wrong with people?!

They’re thinking for less volatile situations.

But, truthfully, they haven’t reduced any police forces.

Well another thing is, the police are required to respond to calls, is that right? They can't turn down calls if they sound like they are overreactions from the caller, can they?

No. They can’t.

I can't picture a situation where I'd be watching someone else have a mental health crisis, and think "Quick! It's an Emergency! Call a Social Worker!"

No offence to Social Workers but they don't have the training for the types of situations where people call police.

I'm picturing my boyfriend being sent out to calm an altercation downtown in the middle of the night.

It's just not right.

Of course there are crisis intervention lines, and psychiatric dispatch groups who will attend specific problems. But in my mind most of those situations don't involve dangerous situations like the police would.

I have great respect for mental health practitioners but they deserve more safety and protection than some ya-hoos are suggesting in the media lately.

If your child is having a mental health crisis but isn't threatening to harm others would you rather uniformed police show up with guns drawn or a mental health professional?

If the person isn't threatening violence sending people with guns who's primary job is to detain criminals might not be the correct response because it won't deescalate the situation.

I agree, if it's my child and I know they aren't a danger.

I'm not saying there shouldn't be mental health teams on call. There already are. I'm referring to the situations where people feel a need to call police for public safety. Strangers and random people acting erratically, especially in the USA where it's legal / possible for the person to be armed, people threatening others, fighting in the streets, or about to hurt themselves through suicide. Those are dangerous situations. I've heard a lot of people say that police should be totally defunded and replaced by psychologists and community caregivers who would be unarmed, facing these situations. Some people say that the social workers should replace cops in any matter which seems to have a mental health component. I disagree. Either send both together, or have police pick up the suspect and social work take over the case.

I witnessed an ugly event yesterday with cops who had their knees on a person outside my local hospital. I don't know what the person did but he wasn't cuffed and they eventually carried him (horizontally) into the hospital. I can only guess it was mental health related somehow.

I've been in situations myself where the cops behaved terribly and with too much force, but I'm still glad that they attended to help me.





Here's what I wrote earlier. I was saying the same thing: Yes, keep crisis lines, keep psych dispatch. But in the dangerous situations, anyone called to the scene needs to be trained in weapons management, tactical defence, and arrest. Just in case of course. I don't want them to be careless or heavy-handed, but in dangerous situations they are better equipped than social workers and community volunteers.

Well I don't how this defund the police started from situations like kids being killed that were harmless. Did this happen quite a few times, or similar things which is what started it?

I'm just suggesting that in many areas the problem isn't social workers being send into situations they can't handle, it's cops being sent to deal with things they're not trained for which consistently leads to escalations, violence and grieving loved ones.

Policing has gone too far in that direction for too long and freeing them from dealing with situations they're not trained to deal with will allow people who are properly trained to be sent. It's not as though police can't be dispatched alongside people more suitably trained if it sounds like the need to escalate in that direction is needed, just that too often the wrong person for the job is sent and it leads to things ending worse than they needed to.

The other option is to train cops to also be social workers, but that seems like a less reasonable alternative because it might be asking too much.

What would social workers do exactly? It was mentioned as an example, a child having a mental health crisis. Wouldn't that require a psychologist or something rather than a social worker?

Last edited by ironpony on 28 May 2021, 12:28 am, edited 2 times in total.

If it's a crisis that requires a doctor I don't imagine the doctor is going to be taken there. The social worker is the first respondent, just like you're seen by a paramedic before you're seen by a doctor.

I think the problem begins with the general public. They see a person in crisis (generally a stranger), and it scares them. Rather than thinking it through, they call police. If the public had more education about what to look for as dangerous signs, they would be better fit knowing how to respond. Instead of ringing the police or an emergency number, there should be public education about reaching crisis centres or even the mental health unit of their police station. Cops are only responding to the information they're given on dispatch: "Person doing xyz acting crazy in public, may be armed", and they respond accordingly with regular officers. It's hard for bystanders to know what is a legit mental health crisis, what is just a "mental health disorder" not needing any intervention, and what is a true emergency.

I agree police training needs an overhaul, and reform is largely necessary in many areas of the job. I guess I'm responding to the voices we heard a year ago saying that all cops should be fired and replaced by soft sciences. It seems people are starting to realise we do need cops in many situations, and we'd be at risk without them. For example, a person or a group is sexually assaulting someone else. The offenders are clearly unbalanced and they need psychiatric care as well as sentencing, but you can't just send social workers in to a crime scene. I hope no one is still advocating that "all" cops be replaced by social scientists. That's only part of the solution - having more psychologists and counsellors, and training cops to use more discretion when it comes to mental health.

What if also, the police taking the 911 calls were trained to assess whether the call is an overreacton or not, and sends out a social worker instead of officers instead? Could people taking the calls be trained to look for overreactions and do that?

I'd agree, public perception is one of the issues. As long as people with mental health issues are viewed primarily as potential threats and not as people suffering from medical conditions we will continue to be viewed unfairly.

There's also the way media handles causes like defund the police, because they'll often talk to someone who's towards the radical end and assume that person speaks for the whole spectrum when really 'defund the police' is just intended as a slogan that doesn't offend and drive off the 'abolish the police' crowd but ultimately allows the 'reform policing' crowd to swamp those opinions to the point that they're not likely to control the conversations anymore.

In a lot of cases the crowd that's closer to 'abolish the police' did most of the early organizational work and helps with maintaining credibility in some communities, so it's not like they can actually be displaced so they need to be accommodated and allowed to have influence even if they likely won't get their way in the long run.