Law Police departments facing critical shortages so some are lowering standards.

[method115]

I am fine with not arresting addicts, but they often are involved in other crimes to support their habit. My suggestion is that we have enough treatment centers that you can take a guy with a b&e charge and offer him treatment in lieu of jail or prison.

And most people are not like us in that if the drug is available that prevents withdrawals, they will take it. I simply can’t imagine going to a store and buying heroin or meth-can you? I freely admit I don’t know what the answer is, but decriminalization does not feel right to me.

I agree with the first paragraph but IMO rehab should be offered to anyone who is seeking it even before they commit a crime. I knew a lot of people who wanted to go to rehab but they just had no options. One girl I knew actually went because her stepdad or dad not sure who had such good insurance it would be fully paid for by that. Even with all her "friends" telling her she didn't need it (cause they wanted to keep fucking her) she still ended up going. Me and like one other friend were telling her it was a good idea. She's doing great these days.

That's the thing is I've meet tons of people like us. The thing is there is such a stigma on drugs in our society do you really think someone who is doing well in life and has a great job wants to talk to you about how they do drugs? Do you think they want to tell you about the time they got addicted to something and just stopped and got off it without any issues? I think even you admitted how hard it was to bring that up. When I told my wife (GF at the time) about how much and all the drugs I do she couldn't believe it. I had my shit together constantly working out and never looked high to her but I was high around her all the time. When I told her why I waited 2 months to say anything to her she understood and agreed with me that if I would have said something to soon that she would have considered moving on from the relationship. We are just now getting to the point in society where people don't mind or think less of you if you get high for the most part. Not even everyone in on that level yet.

I will say I don't know if it will work out for the best I really don't. I just think it's worth a try with proper rehabs\counseling setup that are free and education. That has to be part of it or I don't think it will work.

 

[AZ103]

But officers are treated so well in the US. Why in the world would people not want to be cops? This is quite baffling.

Its a two way street. Even a lot of conservatives dislike police officers because they have had bad experiences. Citizens snd co

Raise the requirements or have incentives for college educated people to take the job.

For example, if you offer 20k for a college degree, 30k for an advanced degree, and a contract of five years (you don’t want them taking the money and then skipping out a year later), or offer a pathway to get the degree, and a lower bonus. As I said earlier, college degrees don’t guarantee a good cop, but generally, it does because you learn to navigate people better, have a better grasp on how to research and think, are a little more mature than a high school ged and being 18 years old, it’s life experience, and in the case of criminal Justice, you have a jump on the material and understand police work a little better.

If you raise the standards, you have to do something to keep those good officers there, so health insurance is a big incentive as is longevity pay of say 5% every five years or maybe 3%, but the only raises I got were from promotions and the odd 3% raise, but that only happened like 3 times during my career.

I think requiring degrees is the worst thing you could do. Raise the standards but not in the se basic gate keeper way that other jobs do. It wont get you better applicants just less. I think short of seperating traffic enforcement from real policing and propagandizing young boys that the cops are good guys again we are fucked.

 

[heavyarms21]

Yeah, I have little tolerance for really fat people in general and definitely don’t like to see fat and out of shape cops. I am not, nor have I ever been a good runner. In a foot chase, I was rarely helpful, but I could bench press a truck and I have been training bjj since 1997 and started kickboxing in 2002, so I am good in a fight. I think there should be regular fitness tests with goals or incentives for working out. Maybe 1.5 hours of comp time(used like vacation) every week for working out was an idea I tried to float to my old dept. In tx, the state police put a cap on officer size with a 40 inch waist which is an interesting idea. As for the fitness test, I hate that departments and academies put so much stock in running and as you age, obviously the fitness test becomes more difficult so it should take that into account. There is a local police chief that is around 350 and it is embarrassing.

Been in the Military my whole adult life 17 years , I have zero patience for fat people, and if you're not a good runner at least be strong or reliable in a quick burst.

 

[nhbbear]

I agree with the first paragraph but IMO rehab should be offered to anyone who is seeking it even before they commit a crime. I knew a lot of people who wanted to go to rehab but they just had no options. One girl I knew actually went because her stepdad or dad not sure who had such good insurance it would be fully paid for by that. Even with all her "friends" telling her she didn't need it (cause they wanted to keep fucking her) she still ended up going. Me and like one other friend were telling her it was a good idea. She's doing great these days.

That's the thing is I've meet tons of people like us. The thing is there is such a stigma on drugs in our society do you really think someone who is doing well in life and has a great job wants to talk to you about how they do drugs? Do you think they want to tell you about the time they got addicted to something and just stopped and got off it without any issues? I think even you admitted how hard it was to bring that up. When I told my wife (GF at the time) about how much and all the drugs I do she couldn't believe it. I had my shit together constantly working out and never looked high to her but I was high around her all the time. When I told her why I waited 2 months to say anything to her she understood and agreed with me that if I would have said something to soon that she would have considered moving on from the relationship. We are just now getting to the point in society where people don't mind or think less of you if you get high for the most part. Not even everyone in on that level yet.

I will say I don't know if it will work out for the best I really don't. I just think it's worth a try with proper rehabs\counseling setup that are free and education. That has to be part of it or I don't think it will work.

I think we should invest in a lot more treatment for addicts pre arrest and post arrest. Have a lockdown treatment facility in lieu of jail as I stated. I used to arrest people for crack and offer to take them to the treatment facility instead of jail

 

[method115]

I used to arrest people for crack and offer to take them to the treatment facility instead of jail

That's awesome. I think here in my city we have a program now that first offenses for drugs (might just be weed) your automatically allowed to take rehab first. Not a perfect setup but a step in the right direction.

 

[IamStryker]

my former department has a sign on bonus of 24 k and they are still short staffed but

Its a two way street. Even a lot of conservatives dislike police officers because they have had bad experiences. Citizens snd co

I think requiring degrees is the worst thing you could do. Raise the standards but not in the se basic gate keeper way that other jobs do. It wont get you better applicants just less. I think short of seperating traffic enforcement from real policing and propagandizing young boys that the cops are good guys again we are fucked.

It's not a two way street. One party shits on cops daily. The other party mostly supports cops.

 

[Islam Imamate]

The kids I grew up with who microwaved gerbils and sodomized the underclassmen in the locker room all went on to join the NYPD. Their psychological screening process obviously needs some work and I can't imagine how the NYPD could make their standards any lower.

Please tell me this is a made up story....

 

[Omni1]

The problem:

Police departments across the country are facing such serious shortages that 911 call response times are becoming longer and longer and departments are desperate to fill empty positions. For example, Dallas pd is down almost 600 officers. Chicago went from having 22k people/year going through the process of becoming a police officer in 2018 to less than 4K taking the exam in 2021. Retirements of police officers are up as are resignations.
There were 42.7% more resignations in 2021 than in 2019.
• Agencies of all sizes reported substantial increases in resignations from 2019 to 2021.
• There were 23.6% more retirements in 2021 than in 2019.
• Agencies of all sizes reported an increase in retirements from 2019 to 2020, and large agencies saw the largest increase.
Reasons given have been mostly related to the “racial reckoning” of 20 and officers across the country getting really shit on about the death of floyd and the defund the police movement.

It’s also critical to address this issue while we are facing a rising crime epidemic across the country. Violent crimes such as shootings and murders are up in many cities, some with over 100% increase. It takes at least 8 months for an officer to be able to hit the road by themselves. Usually 4-6 months in the academy and 4-6 months of fto training.

What police departments are doing about it:
Chicago has relaxed the education requirement of 60 college credits if the applicant has prior police experience or related fields. Police departments are eliminating special anti-crime units or gun units, departments are shifting resources to patrol to try and cover vacant positions, and departments are adding incentives to attract applicants or to entice officers not to retire.

My take:
I think lowering standards is a terrible idea, but if they are going to do that, it should be in a smart manner.

My opinion on the matter is that incentives should be offered for college degrees or police experience and it should be an incremental rate depending on the amount of education or experience the applicant has. I didn’t have to have a degree to become a police officer, but I had one from Washington and Jefferson college outside of Pittsburg, which is an elite school. What did it get me? Nothing. Now I have a masters and if I was able to become a police officer again(I can’t because of the metal hardware on my spine), I would expect to be compensated for having an advanced degree. While I have worked with great officers with no college experience, I feel the best I worked with had degrees, but where is the incentive to have a degree if it is not needed? A college education should also be offered for those that don’t have it and want it. I am sure many colleges would be willing to offer decent discounts or free tuition for police officers as it benefits the entire community.
The second thing I would do is to offer years of experience based incremental raises at set levels. So much at three years, so much at 5, 10, 15, etc.

the third thing is that the salary has to be increased and competitive with other professions. Police officers in some cities or counties can make a lot with lots of ot, but in other areas, the pay is laughable. I was a lieutenant and I made a tad over 50k before taxes.

And finally, we have to do something to retain officers. I think that pay is a serious motivator for that.
Offer a bonus every five or ten years to give officers that reason to stay.







https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/w...e-with-critical-staffing-shortages/ar-AAZLdh3


https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/18/us/chicago-police-recruiting-standards/index.html

I am pleased that there are less road pirates on the streets pilfering money from tax payers. If we can get the number of armed costume wearers down to zero I will be ecstatic. Police of today do not serve the public good. The Uvalde shooting is the latest example that clearly showed just how useless police truly are. They stood down & let a little punk kid kill innocent children. They should all be ashamed of themselves!

 

[Omni1]

What could go wrong with lower standards?

It would be reasonable to have IQ tests (instead of college credits) & effective testing that screens out sociopaths. Why these two things are not being done is mind boggling.

 

[Omni1]

that is a good question. At what point do certain crimes go un-prosecuted across the board and not just in progressive shitholes? At what point do departments say they will only respond to in progress crimes?

It's already happening due to high gas prices. Police will only respond to calls deemed urgent.

https://nypost.com/2022/06/10/michi...-urgent-calls-by-phone-because-of-gas-prices/

 

[Terry Noonan]

It would be reasonable to have IQ tests (instead of college credits) & effective testing that screens out sociopaths. Why these two things are not being done is mind boggling.

That sounds expensive! Imagine all the crack pipes and needles you could be buying for the homeless!

 

[rocketskates]

Local PD here starts out at $40k. Atlanta PD starts out at $48,500 but I doubt the added stress is worth the money.

Not at all. You can easily make the extra 8K up in overtime anyway.

 

[Noveltymortar]

It would be reasonable to have IQ tests (instead of college credits) & effective testing that screens out sociopaths. Why these two things are not being done is mind boggling.

They should IQ test but it's very obvious why they aren't.

 

[Protectandserve]

No one wants to be a cop anymore.

Most at my agency with time on like I have (10-15 year range) are looking to get out but there isn't anything that pays as well wr can find.

Were working on a new contract and hoping to get a decent raise, if we don't get it a lot of people are gonna bail and were gonna lose like a quarter of our sgts who are close to or at retirement age.

We can't keep up with the retirements and resignations. Were constantly rolling out at bare minimums or below with counting the K9 or motors as staffing.

Shits gonna get really bad soon, dropping standards or not.

 

[nhbbear]

It's already happening due to high gas prices. Police will only respond to calls deemed urgent.

https://nypost.com/2022/06/10/michi...-urgent-calls-by-phone-because-of-gas-prices/

I saw that story about the gas prices with a few departments and that’s not quite what I meant. I meant that certain crimes will not be investigated. For example, you call 911 because you came home and found someone had been stealing tools from your garage and you are told to contact your home owners insurance to get the tools replaced. Or someone vandalized your car and you are told an officer won’t respond and to report it to your car insurance(this already happened under da chesa boudin in San Fran)

Or, you are attacked at a bar or somewhere by some drunk asshole where he punches you several times and then runs away and instead of police responding because the subject ran away, they schedule you an appointment to come into hq to file a report with a civilian employee.

 

[nhbbear]

It's not a two way street. One party shits on cops daily. The other party mostly supports cops.

I know as a cop, the first time I felt like the potus was not entirely pro law enforcement was under obama after police responded to a burglary in progress and it was the home owner who was handcuffed until they could verify he was the owner. He was black and obama said that racism was a factor. Then he invited the victim, a friend of his or something, to the White House to have a beer with the officer. Then 2014, he totally took the side of protesters and called Mike brown a victim of police brutality and a “the tragic death of mike brown” who attacked a police officer and started down the path we find ourselves on today. My favorite part of his speech was that he said “there are good people on both sides of this debate” which when trump said that, he was absolutely lambasted. Then after the 2020 defund the police movement from the left went sour, biden had a meeting with naacp and said they were getting their teeth kicked in on the defund issue and that dems needed to move away from that. The bottom line is that dems support violent protesters over police by coddling them with the occasional chiding of violent protesters and looters for riots but they come down on law enforcement harder than they do the rioters.

 

[nhbbear]

I am pleased that there are less road pirates on the streets pilfering money from tax payers. If we can get the number of armed costume wearers down to zero I will be ecstatic. Police of today do not serve the public good. The Uvalde shooting is the latest example that clearly showed just how useless police truly are. They stood down & let a little punk kid kill innocent children. They should all be ashamed of themselves!

I was never a traffic cop-I have little use for them and I, like everyone else, cringe when I see a cop on the side of the road when I am going 15 mph over the limit, but I also accept responsibility for my actions if I get caught doing what I know is against the traffic laws, so “road pirates” don’t pilfer money, they punish stupidity and nail reckless drivers that put everyone at risk. I do not approve of what we used to call “chickenshit stops” or pretextual stops, but assholes on the road need to face some repercussions for dangerous driving.

Second, without cops-which you said you would love, who is going to respond to crimes in progress-you? Ok

And Uvalde disgusted and gutted me by the law enforcement response, but that incident and parkland are the exception to how most officers would respond to an active shooting. For every incident like Uvalde, I could counter with hundreds of examples where police did not bitch out and took on active shooters.

And help me out, I can’t tell whether you are a far right anti cop person or far left. Road pirates is a term used by copblock turds but also occasionally by sovereign citizen types and saying cops were “costumes” is also used by both sides.so which side of that douchebag coin do you fall on?

 

[nhbbear]

That's awesome. I think here in my city we have a program now that first offenses for drugs (might just be weed) your automatically allowed to take rehab first. Not a perfect setup but a step in the right direction.

They usually checked themselves out within an hour, but I got what I needed by getting info from them first. An addict that realizes that if they rat out some dealers to avoid jail will do so in a heartbeat. I went after the users to get info on the dealers. This was also almost 20 years ago and simple possession was viewed much differently. Until I was a corporal, I had to get permission to not take someone to jail for simple possession -even log back then. I still vividly remember the first time I took someone’s weed and did not charge them. I thought i would get disciplined for it.