Defuding The Police & The Aftermath

So... Austin City Council decided to cut funding to the police dept by 1/3 to re appropriate money for a new family violence shelter, homeless housing, expand substance use care, establish gun violence intervention programs, hire mental health first responders,

https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/austin-police-budget-cuts-austin-city-council-defund/269-9041efe4-5055-4eb0-aa21-dada5b8f4aec

units that saw budget cuts:

911 Call Center - $17.7 million
Forensic Sciences - $12.7 million
Support Services - $14.1 million
Community Partnerships - $2.5 million
Victims Services - $3.1 million
Internal Affairs - $4.5 million
Special Investigations - $1.8 million
Special Events - $4.4 million
Mounted Patrol - $2.1 million
Traffic Enforcement - $18.4 million
Austin Regional Intelligence Center - $2 million
Park Police - $5.8 million
Lake Patrol - $1.4 million
Organized Crime/K-9 - $1.2 million
Nuisance Abatement - $312,000
Canceling 3 Cadet Classes - $2.2 million this year
Officer Overtime - $2.8 million
License Plate Readers - $133,000

wonder if crime will rise or fall~ what do the budget cuts look like in other cities?

434 million dollar budget to begin with.



Will crime (immediately) go up, yes. "People" will go out of their way just to try to prove the point that it was a bad idea.

It's called "growing pains" It'll go up, time will pass, it will settle.

Given the aftermath of defunding police policies have been made on other major cities, crime has risen significantly.

So much that the communities that are supposed to "protect from the police" are actually calling for the police to come back and/or in stronger force.

But this is Texas, so it's hard to say if Austin will have an equal or smaller impact on crime, since, you know, we aren't afraid to protect ourselves. Unlike Portland/Seattle/LA/NYC/Chicago are.

How many bodies will it take for you to say enough is enough?

The dumbest thing ever imo, crime will most certainly go up. Countless people are leaving the cities now, especially left leaning cities, because of high crime. All these tree huggers trying to defund things that actually work and enact policies like housing homeless in hotels across from schools. The trickle effect is already starting to show, housing/rental market prices crashing, business going under due to nobody shopping or they were looted and couldn't recover. While a majority of it had to do with the virus aftermath, these policies weakening law enforcement as a knee-jerk response to cancel culture directly after the virus was the final blow.

I really wish NYC was as open with gun laws if they plan to defund the only protection we have. You can't even own or buy a knife above a certain height requirement to defend yourself.

We could stand to drop a few million. "it is what it is"

Couple more than usual suffer, but the end result is a positive.

If you don't like it "you can leave" go somewhere they aren't doing the thing that you don't like.

A few million? You're insane

Meh, how bad could losing a few million be?

...

Wait a minute....

I think he is just taking a dig at Trump's indifference towards the covid death toll.

"it is what it is" should be a dead give away

Unlike you guys, I don't hang on Trump's every word. Then again, it really doesn't matter what he says when one is conditioned to believe everything he says is wrong anyway. If he had expressed real emotion about the number there would be countless articles talking about "crocodile tears", "fake sympathy", "pandering", and how it was "too little, too late".

I guess the better question is:

Would anyone who wishes death upon millions for "the cause" care if it was a member of his family who was part of the million sacrificed for his utopia?

Or would then they care?

I mean, it's easy to be indifferent to people dying for your cause if you don't know them, but once you do, people's tune tends to change.

You REALLY think conservatives would risk their freedom/possibly life in order to prove a political statement?

You VASTLY overestimate the average conservative's commitment to political ideological causes. The completely insane "will do anything" folks firmly sit on the progressive/leftist side. Conservatives will gripe, get out and vote, attend some rallies in the hundreds and maybe do a podcast, but you don't see them burning down Planned Parenthood's in large, angry mobs. That's all the flavor of leftists.

If there is a rise in criminal activity, such as there has been in New York, it's from legit criminals taking advantage of a period of accepted lawlessness. There are no, "conservative crime plant operatives" going on.

Put away the victim card. You're reading words that aren't there.

Your own words, not ours.

I mean, sure, we could get rid of 90% of humanity, and the end result for the survivors would be better.

But you are throwing away 90% still.

It's like saying that what Hitler did was for the good of society....

Aside from the mass murder... there were some good technological achievements

Don't say that, now you're a nazi for life.

Are you calling me a nazi?

I'm telling you not to say it so they won't call you a nazi in every thread for the rest of your life.

I couldn't care less, you're right, but I can say it they already call me nazi in every thread

Every thread?

What is this delusion. You are trying to compare the "average conservative" to extremists on the left while pretending there are no extremists on the right? Hmm, and KN supported it, how amusing. There are plenty of extremists on the right that are out there killing people and doing all those things you think is unique to the left. Remember Heather Heyer? She was murdered by an extremist on the right at a "Unite the Right" rally full of said extremists. That was 3 years ago yes, but we have already gone into the crimes of the right as recently as this summer in I think Riot 4? Maybe Riot 3. There are numerous, documented "conservative crime plant operations" going on.

Same goes to you.

Do you think extremism is a trait only for the right?

I've never once said that, nor even implied it. Nice deflection attempt tho.

Neither has Savael, Prong, nor myself said that, nor implied, for your response.

You were the one who deflected Prong's argument.

I'm just replying directly to your assertion. If you don't like it, don't make the blanked statements you always like to make.

Or is that a conspiracy the three of us have against you?

the worst thing is, defunding the police in the ways being demanded should be VERY WELCOMED by law enforcement.

You mean they suddenly only have to do their prescribed job, not those better handled by trained groups in those specialties? Man I'd be thrilled.

But the large-scale call for this is happening due to the chaos that is our country these days, and its the absolute worst time to actually make such a thing work. Budgets are by necessity getting scrapped across the board due to decreased local revenues by lower sales tax returns as local communities' economies have struggled.

If you truly want to defund the police down to a proper level where they only handle the duties they're supposed to, you first have to raise the funding for those entities that will replace them in those "unnecessary" or "inappropriate" duties. You can't defund who was handling it(handling being used loosely) without first having in place a way to deal with that vacuum.

That means if you truly want this to work, the time to do it is when things are GOOD- but no one clamours for it when things are good, its easy to ignore the abuse of power if you're refrigerator is full, the kids are at school, and you're going to a concert tonight.

Forcing this movement when local governments can't even maintain previous levels of funding is a recipe for it to fail, and then push the movement back decades until another catastrophe brings it into focus again. Because the people against defunding police forces will have all the ammo in fact from a failed attempt to do so.

Yup. It's one of those things where individual cities and states should experiment in controlled, well-planned initiatives. Instead, we're getting the changes in the midst of emotional and politically-charged chaos where the changes are practically doomed to fail.

Fun.

Change is rarely pretty or easy. I guess the best we can hope for (because the momentum isn't going away yet) is that the other side of this purging is better than where we started...eventually.