The City Council is NOT pleased with the PD in general it seems - the PD has been accused of basically running a racket to get budgets. Sounds like it needs a total housecleaning.
The City Council is NOT pleased with the PD in general it seems - the PD has been accused of basically running a racket to get budgets. Sounds like it needs a total housecleaning.
Really a bad idea. Reform is needed but this is crazy.
Bank robberies could be handled by arming security guards. Murders and other serious crimes could be handled at the county level. When I lived in Florida the sheriff not a municipal police department handled crime.
Who handled crime before the white people came to Minnesota? I don't think the Dakota and Ojibwe had police departments. Yes, there are ways to organize things other than the current system. In parts of Africa there is a village chief who acts as judge in crimes and disputes. The challenge will be creating a system that works in a large, mobile society, but I am glad people are starting to think big.
Getting to the roots of crime should be one focus. How can we better nourish and protect our children and give them adequate resources, education, and positive reinforcement so they grow up valued and able to contribute to society? You can trace a lot of crime to addiction which we criminalized with the war on drugs and a lot of addiction is rooted in abuse, neglect, and hopelessness. If you watch shows like Intervention or Iyanla Fix My Life it gives you a different perspective on crime. Imagine for instance the positive impact of a universal healthcare system that offers treatment on demand to addicts. You cannot police your way out of certain problems. Lord knows we have wasted billions if not trillions trying in this country with a war on drugs that has ravaged our major cities and a mass incarceration system that has torn families apart leading to new generations of broken, abandoned children falling into the maw of law enforcement.
ETA many of the unconvicted offenses for which people have been killed could have been handled by the equivalent of a village chief - driving an unregistered car, selling loose cigarettes, using a $20 counterfeit bill, etc.
Village chiefs? Most likely selected from among the Democratic Party organizations that have so long governed these combustible cities? How would that be an improvement over municipal court judges?
I would think from long-term residents, such as leaders of nonprofits in the community, or law students who grew up in the area. There are high schools that have student courts that mete out punishment for infractions and those seem to work well. It's the concept behind jury of your peers, except the current criminal justice system pressures everyone to plead rather than go before their peers.
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