It's completely fucked up but it illustrates so many overlapping problems. Libraries are the last remaining places where homeless and poor people can sit and rest without the expectation that they buy something. That's great but inevitably there are issues of drugs, hygiene, mental illness, etc. so when someone needs to be removed, the police have become the only people available. By neglecting their calls or otherwise refusing to remove people, the police can make shit real difficult for the library in retaliation
If they had social workers in the library and real mental health professionals on stand by, the library could actually tell the police to fuck off
Well said... America has a problem with expecting the police, a state-sanctioned violent gang, to mediate everything from domestic violence disputes to mentally unstable, suicidal or drug addicted people who need help. Instead of being helped, they get ignored, beaten, shot, or thrown in jail.
We need to reimagine what our emergency response services should look like beyond police, fire and medical. Imagine if we replaced police with a variety of response specialists, such as for example, psychological crisis response specialists to respond to mental breakdowns and suicidal behavior. Addiction response specialists to offer resources and access to counselling/rehab for drug addicts. DV specialists who are equipped to offer support and remove the victim from the situation if they want to get out. And for violent situations, the responders should be trained in deescalation and non-lethal subjugation tactics, so that lethal force is only ever an absolute last resort.
I know all these problems are a lot more complicated than I'm making it seem, but this would still be a huge improvement from what we currently have. Police are good at taking a bad situation and either doing nothing or making it worse.
It's completely fucked up but it illustrates so many overlapping problems. Libraries are the last remaining places where homeless and poor people can sit and rest without the expectation that they buy something. That's great but inevitably there are issues of drugs, hygiene, mental illness, etc. so when someone needs to be removed, the police have become the only people available. By neglecting their calls or otherwise refusing to remove people, the police can make shit real difficult for the library in retaliation
If they had social workers in the library and real mental health professionals on stand by, the library could actually tell the police to fuck off
Well said... America has a problem with expecting the police, a state-sanctioned violent gang, to mediate everything from domestic violence disputes to mentally unstable, suicidal or drug addicted people who need help. Instead of being helped, they get ignored, beaten, shot, or thrown in jail.
We need to reimagine what our emergency response services should look like beyond police, fire and medical. Imagine if we replaced police with a variety of response specialists, such as for example, psychological crisis response specialists to respond to mental breakdowns and suicidal behavior. Addiction response specialists to offer resources and access to counselling/rehab for drug addicts. DV specialists who are equipped to offer support and remove the victim from the situation if they want to get out. And for violent situations, the responders should be trained in deescalation and non-lethal subjugation tactics, so that lethal force is only ever an absolute last resort.
I know all these problems are a lot more complicated than I'm making it seem, but this would still be a huge improvement from what we currently have. Police are good at taking a bad situation and either doing nothing or making it worse.