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An Anonymous Coward writes:
Camden, New Jersey is a very low income neighborhood. According to this NY Times article, until recently it had typical low income policing--heavy on corruption and violence and low on compassion.
But now they have a new chief and things have changed --
"Handing a $250 ticket to someone who is making $13,000 a year" — around the per capita income in the city — "can be life altering," Chief Thomson said in an interview last year, noting that it can make car insurance unaffordable or result in the loss of a driver's license. "Taxing a poor community is not going to make it stronger."
Handling more vehicle stops with a warning, rather than a ticket, is one element of Chief Thomson's new approach, which, for lack of another name, might be called the Hippocratic ethos of policing: Minimize harm, and try to save lives.
Officers are trained to hold their fire when possible, especially when confronting people wielding knives and showing signs of mental illness, and to engage them in conversation when commands of "drop the knife" don't work. This sometimes requires backing up to a safer distance. Or relying on patience rather than anything on an officer's gun belt.
While not out of the woods yet, it sounds like there is hope for Camden and maybe it won't just continue to be written off as a war zone.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03 2017, @09:28PM (2 children)
Because a sane person with a knife is more dangerous than a crazy person? Seriously? How about deal with your own knife-wielding crazy person relative, and don't call the cops--if you do call the cops don't whine when the knife wielding crazy person gets shot.
As to tickets, speeding fines should pretty much be abolished.
As with everything it depends on the person. Some mentally ill people can be really dangerous (I've seen it) depending on the nature of their psychosis, however, most I suspect are very confused (much more common in my experience). A mentally ill person might be really paranoid and carrying the knife simply to defend themselves (against ninjas, aliens, unicorns, or whatever). If an officer can recognize that the person's perceptions are wonky, they can try to convince the person that they are on their side, and then get them the help they need. The truth is that most mentally ill people are more of a danger to themselves than anyone else.
(Note: I am a survivor of major mental illness)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03 2017, @10:32PM
I just watched a movie about exactly that: Man Down (2015) [imdb.com] with Shia LaBeouf, Jay Courtney and Gary Oldman.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03 2017, @11:19PM
This begs the question: so what do we do about this Entropy user?