<story><title>Zero arrests in 6 months of health care professionals replacing police officers</title><url>https://denverite.com/2021/02/02/in-the-first-six-months-of-health-care-professionals-replacing-police-officers-no-one-they-encountered-was-arrested/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>imperio59</author><text>Difference is, if your only tool is a hammer, everything is a nail.&lt;p&gt;If you send a mental health professional to all sorts of situations, their solutions will be mental health related (medication, treatment, commitment, etc...).&lt;p&gt;If you send a cop, their solutions will involve the criminal justice system (citation, fines, arrest, jail time, etc...).&lt;p&gt;One of these has a long history of strong checks and balances and improving itself over time (latest major improvement: body cams). The other one of these is primarily fueled by giant corporate lobbies who spend a lot on every single political campaign (read: Big Pharma).&lt;p&gt;Can you guess which one is now being touted as the &amp;quot;new solution for all our societal ills&amp;quot; despite having no track record of actually being able to fix any of these ills?</text></item><item><author>danShumway</author><text>&amp;gt; No one is talking about the very big risk associated with this, that mental health professionals can commit you against your will with no trial&lt;p&gt;Increasing cop presence won&amp;#x27;t fix that problem. In multiple jurisdictions, cops can also refer you to be involuntarily committed.&lt;p&gt;So we&amp;#x27;re not creating an extra judicial system that has no checks and balances, that system already exists and cops are a part of it. We&amp;#x27;re talking about the potential benefits of removing &lt;i&gt;one&lt;/i&gt; harmful part of the equation. If you want to also talk about the negatives of involuntary commitment and make progress in that area, that&amp;#x27;s totally worth examining as well, but it&amp;#x27;s not an argument for flooding the streets with more cops.&lt;p&gt;Getting arrested doesn&amp;#x27;t mean you can&amp;#x27;t be involuntarily committed afterwards.&lt;p&gt;Also note that in some cases, getting arrested and thrown in a holding cell can on its own be just as traumatic of an event as being held for an involuntary mental evaluation -- particularly if someone is genuinely suffering from a mental attack. And arrests don&amp;#x27;t require trials either. A sizable portion of the people in our jails have never been convicted of crimes, they&amp;#x27;re just stuck there because they can&amp;#x27;t pay cash bail.</text></item><item><author>imperio59</author><text>No one is talking about the very big risk associated with this, that mental health professionals can commit you against your will with no trial, which is an erosion of civil liberties (incarceration without trial). Having known several friends who got committed and held against their will in psych wards when there was no good reason to, because their insurance was good, this is an issue.&lt;p&gt;Notice they don&amp;#x27;t give any stats about outcomes, but the primary cited issue is &amp;quot;mental health&amp;quot; which is very vague and a subjective assessment.&lt;p&gt;We should not create an extra judicial system that has no checks and balances. Otherwise we will head towards medical authoritarianism which could easily be abused by those in power (psychiatrists and others) for their own personal gain.&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.buzzfeednews.com&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;rosalindadams&amp;#x2F;intake&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.buzzfeednews.com&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;rosalindadams&amp;#x2F;intake&lt;/a&gt; for an example of what I mean.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bigiain</author><text>&amp;gt; If you send a mental health professional to all sorts of situations, their solutions will be mental health related&lt;p&gt;Can you even say that with a straight face? Do you really think if these guys got sent to a robbery, they&amp;#x27;d be all &amp;quot;the thief obviously needs Xanax!&amp;quot; instead of saying &amp;quot;This ain&amp;#x27;t one of ours, send a cop here please&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Cops have, for whatever reason, ended top being sent not just to criminal justice related incidents, but everything else as well, including mental health related incidents which they&amp;#x27;re manifestly untrained for and incapable of dealing with. But they &amp;quot;deal&amp;quot; in those situations anyway, in ways we&amp;#x27;re all tired of seeing from body cam footage and in the live crosses of news stories about police violence protests.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; One of these has a long history of strong checks and balances and improving itself over time&lt;p&gt;And yet &amp;quot;Some of those who work forces, are the same who burn crosses&amp;quot; is just as heavily quoted and relevant to 2021&amp;#x2F;01&amp;#x2F;06 as it was when it was written over 20 years ago... I do not agree with your claims about the relative track records of the two groups involved here.</text></comment>
<story><title>Zero arrests in 6 months of health care professionals replacing police officers</title><url>https://denverite.com/2021/02/02/in-the-first-six-months-of-health-care-professionals-replacing-police-officers-no-one-they-encountered-was-arrested/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>imperio59</author><text>Difference is, if your only tool is a hammer, everything is a nail.&lt;p&gt;If you send a mental health professional to all sorts of situations, their solutions will be mental health related (medication, treatment, commitment, etc...).&lt;p&gt;If you send a cop, their solutions will involve the criminal justice system (citation, fines, arrest, jail time, etc...).&lt;p&gt;One of these has a long history of strong checks and balances and improving itself over time (latest major improvement: body cams). The other one of these is primarily fueled by giant corporate lobbies who spend a lot on every single political campaign (read: Big Pharma).&lt;p&gt;Can you guess which one is now being touted as the &amp;quot;new solution for all our societal ills&amp;quot; despite having no track record of actually being able to fix any of these ills?</text></item><item><author>danShumway</author><text>&amp;gt; No one is talking about the very big risk associated with this, that mental health professionals can commit you against your will with no trial&lt;p&gt;Increasing cop presence won&amp;#x27;t fix that problem. In multiple jurisdictions, cops can also refer you to be involuntarily committed.&lt;p&gt;So we&amp;#x27;re not creating an extra judicial system that has no checks and balances, that system already exists and cops are a part of it. We&amp;#x27;re talking about the potential benefits of removing &lt;i&gt;one&lt;/i&gt; harmful part of the equation. If you want to also talk about the negatives of involuntary commitment and make progress in that area, that&amp;#x27;s totally worth examining as well, but it&amp;#x27;s not an argument for flooding the streets with more cops.&lt;p&gt;Getting arrested doesn&amp;#x27;t mean you can&amp;#x27;t be involuntarily committed afterwards.&lt;p&gt;Also note that in some cases, getting arrested and thrown in a holding cell can on its own be just as traumatic of an event as being held for an involuntary mental evaluation -- particularly if someone is genuinely suffering from a mental attack. And arrests don&amp;#x27;t require trials either. A sizable portion of the people in our jails have never been convicted of crimes, they&amp;#x27;re just stuck there because they can&amp;#x27;t pay cash bail.</text></item><item><author>imperio59</author><text>No one is talking about the very big risk associated with this, that mental health professionals can commit you against your will with no trial, which is an erosion of civil liberties (incarceration without trial). Having known several friends who got committed and held against their will in psych wards when there was no good reason to, because their insurance was good, this is an issue.&lt;p&gt;Notice they don&amp;#x27;t give any stats about outcomes, but the primary cited issue is &amp;quot;mental health&amp;quot; which is very vague and a subjective assessment.&lt;p&gt;We should not create an extra judicial system that has no checks and balances. Otherwise we will head towards medical authoritarianism which could easily be abused by those in power (psychiatrists and others) for their own personal gain.&lt;p&gt;See &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.buzzfeednews.com&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;rosalindadams&amp;#x2F;intake&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.buzzfeednews.com&amp;#x2F;article&amp;#x2F;rosalindadams&amp;#x2F;intake&lt;/a&gt; for an example of what I mean.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>thelock85</author><text>&amp;gt; Difference is, if your only tool is a hammer, everything is a nail.&lt;p&gt;Seems this program has a hammer and a screw driver for nails and screws.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Can you guess which one is now being touted as the &amp;quot;new solution for all our societal ills&amp;quot; despite having no track record of actually being able to fix any of these ills?&lt;p&gt;Hyperbolic, no? One can certainly find people shouting from the halls on any issue. Doesn’t every startup need time and opportunity to create a track record.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; primarily fueled by giant corporate lobbies who spend a lot on every single political campaign (read: Big Pharma).&lt;p&gt;I wouldn’t be surprised if police unions and big pharma are within the same order of magnitude in political lobbying.</text></comment>