Should funding for local police departments be redirected to social and community based programs?
Yes, replace police with unarmed community based responders for non-violent calls
In fact, here's an article on Forbes, that took me only a couple seconds to find, on non-violent-response models:
"Eugene, Oregon, is home to one of the oldest such civilian response programs in the country, launched in 1989. The Crisis Assistance Helping Out on the Streets (CAHOOTS) program, operated by Eugene’s White Bird Clinic, pairs a medic with a crisis worker to respond to 911 and non-emergency calls involving mental health, homelessness, and substance use. The teams are trained to provide crisis intervention, counseling, basic emergency medical care, transportation, and referrals to services.
With an annual budget of roughly $2 million, the program saves Eugene $14 million annually in ambulance trips and emergency room costs, plus an estimated $8.5 million in public safety costs—and has successfully diverted thousands from the criminal legal system. Of the estimated 17,700 calls CAHOOTS responded to in 2019, teams requested police backup only 311 times."
That's fascinating data, thank you for sharing. It certainly seems like programs like CAHOOTS have a lot of potential for both cost savings and effective non-violent response. It begs the question, does this model have the potential to be effectively implemented in larger or more densely populated areas, or in communities with different challenges?
@VulcanMan6 8mos8MO
Yes, this is not at all the only town that has implemented this kind of model, and it is currently on the rise. Of course, such systems cannot help completely on their own, and should also be paired with the additional necessary policies to help improve the lives of the public before they would have to make these calls in the first place. After all, improving the means of response is great, but it's still better to reduce the causes of these problems rather than simply reacting to them.
