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WashedOver ,
@WashedOver@lemmy.ca avatar

I was listening to a business podcast the other day and they were discussing the issue for many police departments across the nation was just finding enough staff.

There are shortages in many large cities and small towns even with low 6 figures of pay.

They discussed the long hours, lack of support, extra scrutiny of the job, the risk of injury and loss of life, combined with the co-worker shortages making it tough to find people.

They didn’t get too much into a lack of justice or too much of it. Depending on the situation. (Many on social media will discuss how they abuse their authority and then at the same time demand more extreme measures against people caught doing things on video. I know I’m guilty of this too.)

At the end of the day like many sectors they aren’t getting the best of the best and certainly not enough staff in general which I suspect makes it even harder to deal with misconduct issues when there is no one to replace the officers in question, especially in small towns that are already short.

GED or not their beggars situation is only going to get worse not better potentially leading to more of the wrong types being employed.

specseaweed ,

I’m a union guy and I’ve been a union guy my entire life, since my first job in the early 90s. The problem here is the police union. The police union bargains to prevent the dumb bullshit they do from being taken away from them. When you see cops directing traffic after events, that’s because the cops are soaking up overtime and refuse to let another job title handle traffic. When you see cops responding to non emergency events, it’s because the cops are refusing to let another job title handle little shit.

We need more cops, but we would need FAR fewer and could focus their resources FAR better if we could redefine what a police officer does in the year of our lord 2024. It is a job title that is in obvious need of reimagining. What police provide and what the citizens want is not aligned and it’s crazy that the cops are just like, nah, we ain’t changing how bout dat

They just refuse to change but they make sure to complain the entire time.

mosiacmango , (edited )

Just to emphasize your point, the guy in this article is the 2nd in command of the seattle police union.

The guy he’s talking to on the phone about how worthless this woman’s life is that a fellow officer just hit and killed? The head of the police union.

Seattle pd has been under a federal consent degree due to racial policing and unwarranted violence for over a decade for context. They also made the news recently for illegally hanging a trump 2020 flag in the same break room where they had trophies from george Floyd protests displayed. Of course no one was reprimanded.

Real good people.

TexasDrunk ,

I bet it would be easier to find qualified candidates who care about the community if they started getting rid of these kinds of jackasses.

nonailsleft ,

Not to say there isn’t merit in your argument but there was a video posted on old lemmy where they had a not-a-cop direct traffic because of this reasoning and he got his soul kicked out of him by two huge dudes who apparently didn’t like taking orders

There’s a reason there isn’t a country on earth where this job isn’t done by someone with some authority

Aylex ,

Out here in South Africa, more often than not homeless people will be directing traffic when the lights are out. Fun fact!

mojofrododojo ,

SPOG man… like, damn, if a union could be called evil - they’re up there. And afaik SPD never adopted a pay system that allows them to effectively manage overtime, so we’ve got patrol officers out there bringing in $250k with overtime reported after the work, on paper forms that no one could keep track of.

NGL seems like a racket, esp after they were mandated to modernize back in 2013.

lolcatnip ,

Maybe nobody wants to sign on to work alongside corrupt cops.

Fedizen ,

as far as safety goes, they have less occupational risk than delivery drivers.

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