Defunding Police: Impact on EMS?

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MMiz

I put the M in EMTLife
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Recently there seems to be a growing movement to defund police forces.

What sort of impact do you imagine it would have on EMS?
 

Carlos Danger

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It is an interesting idea. It appears that what most people mean when they talk about "defunding" the police is diverting some funding from police department budgets to social services and welfare programs (which I generally disagree with) and forcing the police to focus more on responding to serious complaints and investigating crimes rather than expending resources arresting people for selling loose cigarettes and doing no-knock raids on the suspicion that illegal drugs are present and pulling folks over for not wearing a seatbelt.

Re-focusing police priorities is something that I've long thought was a good idea on multiple levels and for multiple reasons. Done properly, it would have no impact on EMS at all because police would still have plenty of resources to respond to assist other public safety agencies.

Done improperly - which is how I expect government to do things - you'll end up with misallocated funds used for harmful welfare programs and police departments without the resources to do anything and the very communities who these initiatives are meant to help are going to be harmed further.

At the end of the day, I don't see these efforts going anywhere.
 

CCCSD

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No seat belt tickets causing you an issue? Perhaps you enjoy missile babies laying on the roadway? Dead kids in rollovers?

Might want to rethink that stance.
 

Carlos Danger

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No seat belt tickets causing you an issue? Perhaps you enjoy missile babies laying on the roadway? Dead kids in rollovers?

Might want to rethink that stance.

Imagine being so binary in your thinking that you can't grasp how a person might believe that a consenting adult should be able to choose whether or not to wear a seatbelt, and also not enjoy missile babies laying in the roadway.

Here's a term you should learn:

non se·qui·tur
/ˌnän ˈsekwədər/

noun
  1. a conclusion or statement that does not logically follow from the previous argument or statement.
    "his weird mixed metaphors and non sequiturs"



 
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PotatoMedic

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Personally if you desire to not wear a seat belt or wear a helmet then insurance should be allowed to decline coverage for the event.
 

DragonClaw

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Imagine being so binary in your thinking that you can't imagine a world where someone might think that a consenting adult should be able to choose whether or not to wear a seatbelt, and also not enjoy missile babies laying in the roadway.

Here's a term you should learn:

non se·qui·tur
/ˌnän ˈsekwədər/

noun
  1. a conclusion or statement that does not logically follow from the previous argument or statement.
    "his weird mixed metaphors and non sequiturs"




Just imagine...
 

E tank

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Bell bottoms and mood rings didn't last a decade and this won't either. It does betray a certain pre-adolescent logic. Just whom are these progressives trying to help? The economically disadvantaged are the ones that will hurt by this. The affluent suburbs will do just fine.

Just a pathetic lack of self awareness. Until the message of finish high school, don't have kids until you're married and when married stay married sinks in absolutely nothing is going to change. Goes for white folk too, incidentally, but for right now, the poor working whites are still coasting on the cultural capital of 2 generations before them. That is fast running out.
 

CCCSD

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Imagine being so binary in your thinking that you can't grasp how a person might believe that a consenting adult should be able to choose whether or not to wear a seatbelt, and also not enjoy missile babies laying in the roadway.

Here's a term you should learn:

non se·qui·tur
/ˌnän ˈsekwədər/

noun
  1. a conclusion or statement that does not logically follow from the previous argument or statement.
    "his weird mixed metaphors and non sequiturs"



Your statement, not mine. You said nothing about age. Perhaps you should review non sequiturs.

I’m hoping that when you decide to exercise that choice about not wearing a seatbelt, LE responds. I hope they ensure no bus responds to you after you go airborne. Jackbooted oppressors that we are, we would hate to stomp on your rights...or cause the taxpayers to foot the bill.


You are more than welcome.
 

DragonClaw

Emergency Medical Texan
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Your statement, not mine. You said nothing about age. Perhaps you should review non sequiturs.

I’m hoping that when you decide to exercise that choice about not wearing a seatbelt, LE responds. I hope they ensure no bus responds to you after you go airborne. Jackbooted oppressors that we are, we would hate to stomp on your rights...or cause the taxpayers to foot the bill.


You are more than welcome.

So you won't help a perp that is injured, much less someone that is just making choices that may end up badly for them and haven't committed a crime (in a world where seatbelt laws are not a thing)?

😬
 

Rano Pano

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Bell bottoms and mood rings didn't last a decade and this won't either. It does betray a certain pre-adolescent logic. Just whom are these progressives trying to help? The economically disadvantaged are the ones that will hurt by this. The affluent suburbs will do just fine.

Just a pathetic lack of self awareness. Until the message of finish high school, don't have kids until you're married and when married stay married sinks in absolutely nothing is going to change. Goes for white folk too, incidentally, but for right now, the poor working whites are still coasting on the cultural capital of 2 generations before them. That is fast running out.

What?
I think everyone else was too busy intentionally missing each other’s points to respond to this. I don’t want to put words in your mouth so maybe some clarification. Predominate communities of color need more traditional family values to fix them? That’s your answer to everything going on right now?

This thread topic is interesting to me so I’m not trying to hijack it. Looking forward to other responses in regards to it.
 

Peak

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There are two assumptions in place. First that the police are either being used beyond their role or that they are too expensive. The second is that some other goverment body can do those jobs cheaper or more effectively.

Having had to interact with CPS, APS, and various other social services I would argue they are far from efficient.
 

mgr22

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There are two assumptions in place. First that the police are either being used beyond their role or that they are too expensive. The second is that some other goverment body can do those jobs cheaper or more effectively.

Having had to interact with CPS, APS, and various other social services I would argue they are far from efficient.

Just to build on this, I think literally defunding police -- i.e., eliminating funding -- is pretty clearly an over-reaction. That's not surprising; major changes often begin with well-intentioned and/or opportunistic people overshooting the mark. It takes time and experimentation to find suitable middle ground.

Examining police practices, like examining EMS practices, with the idea of making them more effective, sounds fine to me. And going back to the OP's question, perhaps EMS undertaking a voluntary review of practices before that's mandated would be a favorable development. Practical issues remain, though: Who would do these reviews? Who pays for them? What are the criteria? Would the scope be local, regional, or national? How would results be measured? Would the QA/QI loop ever be closed? What sort of oversight would be needed? Could such a process be kept free of corruption?

I see lots of opportunities for consultants who have the creds to undertake such projects -- sort of like security specialists after 9/11.
 

Phillyrube

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Our PD started the Crisis Intervention Teams almost 20 years ago. This is an officer especially trained to handle mental health, domestic violence, other similar calls. Working both sides of the street, I saw a big increase in EMS response to rule out medical or tramatic causes of behavioral changes. Once those are ruled out, the can of worms opened. EMS was tasked with transporting many of these patients, many times restrained physically if not chemically. Big issue is the lack of beds where this patient can be transported. Sure, you can turf them to the ED, but the same issue happens: where to they go next? EMS was used to transport since many patients did not want the stigma of being in the back behind the screen. Knowing an EDP was coming into the ED, they would be triaged and then the wait ensued for turnover. The patient is not critical or emergent, so we wait. Once it took us over 90 minutes to turnover, but then a couple trauma alerts hit the place the same time. Much of the issue is what kind of insurance does the patient have, and will they take it at the Pleasant Acres Home for the Idiotic and Feeble Minded.
PD is tasked with transporting the patient from medical screening to the proper treatment facility. Many times this entailed an up to six hour trip across state. Now, is this proper treatment? EMS again to the rescue.
I don't have the answers, and I don't see it getting better.
"336 zone, respond a social worker to the domestic, 123 ABC St, cross street Main."
 

Carlos Danger

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Examining police practices, like examining EMS practices, with the idea of making them more effective, sounds fine to me. And going back to the OP's question, perhaps EMS undertaking a voluntary review of practices before that's mandated would be a favorable development. Practical issues remain, though: Who would do these reviews? Who pays for them? What are the criteria? Would the scope be local, regional, or national? How would results be measured? Would the QA/QI loop ever be closed? What sort of oversight would be needed? Could such a process be kept free of corruption?

I see lots of opportunities for consultants who have the creds to undertake such projects -- sort of like security specialists after 9/11.

The past few days I've read a little about the "community led public safety" model after seeing it referenced in several of the articles about "defunding" police departments.

Essentially it involves a committee of citizens providing oversight and priority-setting for their local police department. Apparently it has worked well in some places and makes all the sense in the world to me. Government agencies are supposed to work for and be accountable to their citizens and not the other way around. In actual practice it is of course much easier to achieve this on the local level than the state or federal level. There are all sorts of potential advantage to this and very few downsides that I can think of.

As it relates to EMS, a committee of citizens could, for instance, direct their police agency and EMS agency and even their court system to work together to develop a program to deal with OD's and other non-violent drug offenses that avoids arrest and provides referral to treatment.
 

DrParasite

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What sort of impact do you imagine it would have on EMS?
If I look into my crystal ball....

I see more calls having EMS respond to solo without LEO.
I see calls, where LEO is responding just for a report, will get an EMS response instead, and a LEO to follow up later.
I see more use of non-LEO agencies to handle traffic control at MVCs
I see an increase in T/C, because LEO won't have the resources for moving violations. Also an increase in auto/ped calls.
I see more calls where the crisis counselor in injured because PD wasn't sent first.
I see a larger percentage of EMS personnel being assaulted, because the bad guys know the cops don't have the manpower to stop them. and if they do get arrested, the DAs will just drop the charges.

Now, I do think that alternatives to LEO is a good idea in some cases, however until there is evidence that PD doesn't need the funding because other agencies are picking up the slack, pushing to defund PDs are a stupid idea.
 

GMCmedic

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I'm not really sure what to say since nobody has actually presented a plan beyond defunding. I expect this will all die down soon.
 

Tigger

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Frankly it would be nice if we could recognize that law enforcement should play a much smaller role in the provision of mental healthcare. The funding that some law enforcement agencies gets to deal with a medical patient population while having minimal medical training could go a long way to bolstering co-responder models that some EMS agencies have already shown to be successful. These programs should not be based with law agencies. They should be partners sure, but law controlling mental health response is just waiting for a bad outcome.
 

E tank

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What?
I think everyone else was too busy intentionally missing each other’s points to respond to this. I don’t want to put words in your mouth so maybe some clarification. Predominate communities of color need more traditional family values to fix them? That’s your answer to everything going on right now?

It's a good place to start, yes. Sociological study demonstrates it pretty undeniably. Saying having two present parents (divorced or not) is pretty controversial these days, I know, but the data is what it is. This is a thorough treatment of the problem in poor white communities but the issues it addresses are pretty universal. (A wiki article on the book)


It doesn't address racial hostility or what to do about that, but this problem isn't a one and done fix. But if you can improve the poverty problem, you've gone a very long way in meaningfully addressing the disastrous situation. DOJ and DHHS studies (there are a lot of them) demonstrate that povery and crime in fatherless house holds are more likely than those with fathers. You can't fix anything until you fix that.
 
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