• TSG_Asmodeus (he, him)@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    Can someone explain this to me?

    The Crown corporation said last week it lost $315 million before tax in the third quarter, larger than its $290-million loss a year earlier.

    The financial results put Canada Post on track for “another significant loss” in 2024, which would mark the seventh year in a row in the red.

    Who gives a fuck if an essential service ‘loses money’? Why is this never levelled at Firefighters, or this would be nice, Cops? Why the fuck can’t we defund cops? After all they’re a massive draw on our resources for study after study showing minimal positive impact. In fact, let’s dive into that.

    First, here’s where the data is from.

    1. Although perceptions of the role of police are changing, crime control and order maintenance are still viewed as primary police roles by the public and the officers themselves. Despite this widely held perception, a considerable amount of research indicates that “crime control activities generally occupy less than 25% of police officers’ time, and for most officers, this percentage is considerably lower” (Griffiths & Verdun-Jones, 1994, p. 71).

    2. The Edmonton Neighbourhood Foot Patrol Program represents a return to the tradition of the earliest days of policing where citizens are expected to police themselves. The program was started in 1987 in 21 of Edmonton’s busiest neighbourhoods (Ministry of the Solicitor General, Correctional Services of Ontario & Ministry of the Solicitor General of Canada (SG, CSO & SGC), 1993, p. 27). The program’s objectives are to reduce calls for service, improve public satisfaction, increase officers’ job satisfaction and solve community problems (Griffiths & Verdun-Jones, 1994; SG, CSO & SGC, 1993). An evaluation of the program, conducted between 1991 and 1993, found that property related offences decreased 26%, insurance claims for break-and-enters decreased 17%, calls placed to the dispatch centre decreased 39% and the number of reports taken over the phone decreased from 54,000 to 11,000 (Cassels, 1994, p. 73).

    3. One difficulty arising from the expectation to maintain a crime control orientation while being asked to perform other duties by the public is the creation of considerable confusion and uncertainty among police officers about their proper role. One study found that officers in an Eastern Canadian department had considerable difficulty responding to a survey question about their role; 38% did not define any particular role in their work, 12% said their role is primarily public relations-social service work and 9% defined it mainly in terms of traffic law enforcement. Only 41% indicated that their prime role is law enforcement under the Criminal Code (Griffiths & Verdun-Jones, 1989, p. 59).

    So why the fuck are we talking about the viability of postal workers getting raises when replacing cops with basic citizens increases the amount of crime prevention? These people don’t even know their own job description!

    I’m sure we’ll read all about this in the news, any day now.

    • streetfestival@lemmy.caOP
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      4 days ago

      You make some excellent points. I agree, we’ll likely see similar points raised any day now by one of our many legacy newsrooms now owned by US private equity /s

      Cops don’t protect public safety, they protect capital.

      I will also add that military is regularly exempt from cost-related scrutiny, while healthcare is an essential service for which costs are constantly scrutinized (by the same people seeking to privatize and profiteer off it, and screw over the rest of the province/country).