What Defunding the Police Looks Like for Women

Anney and Samantha talk about what defunding the police means and what it might look like for women.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, this is Danny and Samantha and welcome to stuff
I've never told you production of I Heart Radio or
today's episode. We did want to issue a trigger warning
at the top here. Um, we do have some stats

(00:26):
and and mentions of domestic violence, rape and assault. So
just putting that out there if if today you're not
in space to deal with any of that stuff just right,
perhaps wait or or skip it. Yeah, and I guess
we can go ahead and put just a heavy societal
issues as a warning as well, because we are going

(00:47):
to be talking about the funding the police and what
that means and what that could mean for women or
those who identify as female. And um, yes, everybody's kind
of tired. Uh, everybody is kind of worn down with
it talking about it. But as many have said before,
think about dealing with this every day and then wonder

(01:08):
how it's hired, you really would be, and why we
should be talking about it and why it's important to
talk about it. And today it is a big topic
locally and nationally defunding the police and what does that mean.
So we know a few cities that have begun to
have a conversation of cutting budgets or reallocating, and then
there's also been the bigger discussion of disbanding the police
force altogether. UM. And by the way, in fourteen, Camden

(01:31):
County Metro Police did start doing some of that work,
let go of all of their staff and re hired
half of them back and then new officers and downgraded
the budget um as well as the personnel. But apparently
as you looked a little deeper, some of argued that
they didn't really defund but just restructured. And though it
was a good first step, the question is was it

(01:51):
enough to make a real difference, because they ended up
getting all their budget back and they still have the
same amount of police officers, if not more now. UM.
So there's call it kind of questions of who has
it actually been done? Like we're asking should it be
done today? We did want to focus on this as
the impact and how it might impact those who identify
as female, UM and just an overall who's going to

(02:13):
be impacted and how effective would it be? But first
we're gonna do a quick rundown of what it means. Right. So,
I think there has been as this conversation has been
taking place a lot in our news and social media. Um,
there has been some misunderstanding of what it means. So,
so what do we mean when we say defund the police? Um?

(02:37):
So we've been talking a lot about police brutality and
what it means to hold responsible those who use force
and deadly tactics as a power play, how to hold
people accountable in power And it's been a conversation that
has been talked about for a while, and usually after
significant murders like Michael Brown Jr. And Eric Garner and

(03:00):
kind of like it sounds redistributing the funds allotted to
police departments for more community mental health level of care.
That's pretty much the basic definition of defund the police,
and we're not gonna linker too long on it. This
could be the first part of disbanding the police altogether
and redoing the structure from the ground up. This also

(03:25):
includes dismantling the idea that police are stewards for the
protection of their citizens, as we are witnessing police brutality
for non violent offenders as well as non violent protest,
which conflicts with these ideas anxieteas of protection. Many cities
have already started to debate uh reallocating some funds to
other areas, specifically for housing, healthcare, and non punitive forms

(03:47):
of rehabilitation such as counseling and education. The budget for
many of the larger cities are billions of dollars, which
outstrips by millions and usually billions of dollars for other
types of government programs. Most education budgets, as well as
mental health budgets for counseling, drug treatment, or even employee
care are significantly less, and a chunk of that. Police

(04:10):
law enforcement funding is specific for military level of equipment
and tactical training, and here we should point out a
type of training does not seem to coincide with the
level of responsibility that should be placed for such types
of equipment. So we're giving these big giant guns without
actually teaching about other ways of de escalate and or

(04:32):
how not to use them, or how to hold them,
or how to use them responsibly. Yes, things you would
hope people would know. It would be common sense. But
yet yet Um. Another thing we wanted to touch on
pretty briefly is that the history of law enforcement, because
this has come up by many different outlets. Um. So yeah,

(04:56):
we're not gonna go too much into it, but just
kind of context to give context of what we're talking about.
The history of how the police and law enforcement in
the United States got started. Some of the earliest forms
of law enforcements like night watches, it can be dated
back to the sixteen thirties with Boston, and they weren't
necessarily a popular idea and we're privately funded and for

(05:20):
profit purposes. Later in the eighteen hundreds of Boston created
the first public funded law enforcement offices for the purposes
of securing and protecting transports and supplies. Somehow, the idea
of the citizens to pay for this type of services
came with the added notion that it was for the
common good. And by the way, some say that the

(05:42):
police force was used in the eighteen hundreds to not
just protect business supplies and transports, but to also control
and watch the immigrants moving into the colonies. By the eighties,
most of the major cities in the United States had
law enforcement or police force. So let's train is late
this to the South. Slavery was the driving force of

(06:03):
profit and wealth, and because of this, police force and
law enforcement was created as a way to preserve slave
labor and the enforcement of that system. Originally created in
the seventeen hundreds in the Carolinas as slave patrols not
only to enforce and threaten those who are enslaved, but
to catch possible runaways and prevent slave revolts. Later, it
would be used to enforce segregation and the harassment and

(06:25):
oftentimes kidnapping of those who were freed from the enslavement.
And by the way, the slave patrols changed after the
Civil War and they were known as the KKK, who
would try to seize control. In the nineteen hundreds, August
Volmer restructured policing and he was known as the father

(06:46):
of modern policing. His ideology included sociology, psychology, and social
work into this idea of policing. He also felt college
and further education should be a part of training and
the requirements to be in a police officer. He even
created a separate system for juveniles. Later came prohibition and

(07:08):
organized crime, which pushed for more police and law enforcement,
and so began the state and federal level of policing.
Teamen were created to ensure prohibition by the Department of Treasury,
so later we could see the creation of the FBI
no longer leading to the ideas of Vulmer who had
patrols on foot, meeting neighbors and working for their own

(07:29):
neighborhoods and use social work and psychology as a part
of the method of policing. J Edgar Hoover began a
more forceful and more removed approach. The underlying of our
racial discrimination has always been a part of inserting authority.
We see more evidence of the injustice and unequal treatment
as this modern civil rights movement makes impact, moving on

(07:49):
to other protests and rights so the years, we can
see the conflict between protesters and law enforcements, and we
have seen many tactics too in protests, whether through loophole
rust or curfews, or even playing into commendation which includes
facial recognition technology being used by federal level of law enforcement.
Now with the more recent practices of law enforcement, we

(08:09):
see the uses of federal and state policies as ways
of enforcing new criminal standards that typically target people of color,
specifically the black and Latin ex communities, such as the
Zero Tolerance Act and stop at frisk. Racial profiling was
and is still actively used as a way of conducting
suspect search and seizures. Welcome, Yeah, as In fact, I

(08:32):
think I've still told the story a few times, as
in my own training when I was part of a
GAIN task force. One of the things that have been
implemented not only for law enforcements for police departments, but
also for juvenile justice level um of kind of practices
is to do GAIN training. Now, I typically would go

(08:52):
in thinking that we were trying to understand gains and
also kind of see who was there, who isn't there,
who is marked, who isn't marked. One of the times
that I went to the conference, the first thing that
one of the trainers said he was that, yes, we
use racial profiling. You're welcome, because this is how we
can catch the big wigs in the gang world. Which,

(09:15):
by the way, there was a good diverse crowd for this,
and I was there with two of my female black coworkers, uh,
and we kind of just sat there and shocked hearing
him say that out loud. And yes, he was white,
by the way, So to pretend like it's not happening
is absurd. Now, this was I spent a minute five six,
five years ago. I think that that training was, but

(09:37):
it's still relevant because that is still a mindset once
placed in their minds as a right they still use.
Just put that out there. But speaking of training, all
of that in the group mentality, we didn't want to
talk about the training course that is implemented. They are
over eighteen thousand police departments in the US, and the

(09:57):
standards are becoming an officer are fairly animal. Training to
become a police officer ranges from state to state and
they can range from ten weeks to thirty six weeks,
so two and a half months up to nine months.
And by the way, they're also retrainings every year recertifications,
but that almost equals out to be less than two hours,
about ten hours. Of course, they do have to do
training on their own and they are required to do so,

(10:19):
but they can pick and choose what they want, just
as a reminder now, this typically includes some written tests,
some understanding of local and state laws or by laws
and codes. Also includes gun training firearms qualification, which they
do have to do every year. For example, Georgia's post
training or peace officers standards in training is eleven weeks
with requirements for recertification in gun training and elective training

(10:42):
throughout the year, which can include specialties for sex crimes,
and crimes against children and et cetera. When it comes
to this conversation of why aren't there more trainings or
more requirements for a job that has so much responsibility,
several organizations are collaborating or trying to collaborate with departments
to teach different methods. These efforts don't seem to be

(11:04):
making too much of a difference. Some experts believe that
this may be due to the training method of shadowing
under more senior experience to police officers who have been
trained with a bias level of training. Um, maybe sort
of similar to what you were saying, Samantha, where Um,
that's just what's being taught by people who have been

(11:24):
there longer, and that's just how it's been so that's
being passed down. Um and uh, possibly the people being
shadowed they don't have the correct type of training that
would implement intervention, social interaction, and de escalation. So there's
so much more, so much more of this conversation to unpack.

(11:44):
But first we're gonna follow for a quick break for
Wordsmoor sponsor and we're back, Thank you, sponsor. And we
did want to talk about the attitudes towards women in

(12:09):
the police force, right. I know that's kind of been
a big conversation of women have been implicit to the
brutality as well and unsanely conduct as well. And we
have seen several shootings that it didn't involve women. But
we've also seen several women who have taken the lead
in trying to stop corruption. Um. And we won't talk
about this too much, but there are several police officers

(12:31):
who have been fired and or ostracized and blacklisted because
they stood up or protected citizens. Um. We also know
that we had a big viral video of a female
black police officer chasing down the man who shoved an
innocent protester and she made you to get in his face.
I mean that that's gone viral, and I think it
is important to note that there are those who would

(12:55):
want to stay for justice, and of course we would
also want to say put this caveat. We know not
all cops are bad. That's not a thing, and we're
not trying to say that that's implicit. But I think
what we have a bigger conversation of where's the majority's
mentality in these issues? That makes sense. But yeah, we
didn't want to talk about women in the force and

(13:15):
the women have actually been involved in law enforcement since
the early nineteen hundreds, they've not actually been a part
of the team. Women were originally hired to be guards
for female prisoners and was a part of the Quote
Women's Bureau, and it wasn't until the nineteen sixties when
New York female police officers sued for the rights to
be promoted and to allow women to be officially a

(13:35):
part of the police force and move up in the ranks.
Women are now allowed to be a part of the force,
but research shows that there is a resistance to that.
Statistics show that only eleven to fourteen percent of police
are women as of a few years ago, and there
seems to be a lot of reluctance and having women
being a part of the police force, whether it is

(13:57):
due to the idea that women are not masculine strong
enough to be in such a tough masculine field, or
one that is definitely perceived that way, are that women
are too nurturing or are not physically capable for completing
the job right. This may also align with the idea
that in order to be in law enforcement, a person

(14:17):
must be tough and show no weakness. The militarized idea
of police being crime fighters and must use brute strength
in order to protect. This part of the discrimination against
women and whether they are effective as officers. The term
pansy policing, often associated with the de escalation tactics, which
does take more time and more investment and more relationships,
has been associated with how women would police, which is

(14:40):
not always true, as we talked earlier, but it does
correlate to the use of force and brutality as a
solution instead of de escalation, and why is not used
as an alternative. I wonder if another piece of this too,
is sort of that I know a listener wrote in
about this for video gaming, but that idea that men
feel like I don't not all men, but that that

(15:02):
idea of when people feel like they can't be as
gross or that whole boys, but we've always I can't
do that around women. And then I was thinking about
this other day because there's also been this conversation of well,
in our a lot of our media, the police are
painted in a different way than is accurate, and I
was thinking about how a lot of women that I've

(15:25):
witnessed and these police procedurals or whatever are usually very
masculinized and very like one of the boys. Um So
I wonder if that's a piece of absolutely, I know
while I was researching this, it does talk about the
boys Club being infiltrated and how they no longer could
be who they were, and whether that's being over the

(15:47):
top masculine, over the top racist, over the top sexist
that they could not have that freedom to do so
and having a woman as a part of that mint
letting go of the freedom to be blunt, quote and
quote and honest and in a course, I guess we
could talk about it being politically correct in that sense
of the time, and yeah, it definitely was part of
that in them being angry, much like in culs being

(16:10):
angry that their space was infiltrated by women and that
it is being taken over by women in general, and
it's not, but just having one woman means it's taken over, right,
I can no longer be as gross as I want
to be in the workplace or what um with that.
There have been statistics that show women as officers are
more effective due to their communication skills and use of

(16:33):
de escalation. According to a criminal justice site, women are
more likely to be effective in avoiding violence and quote
diffusing potential violent situations and are less likely to quote
engage in serious unbecoming behavior, which I feel like it's
such a nice way to say it, engage in becoming behavior,

(16:53):
very unbecoming of you. Of course, this is only a
small conversation of the big your problem and the toxic
environment in a field that has power and a lot
of say so over citizens. But it is interesting to
see the numbers and statistics of gender specific behavior in
a high risk, high stress job. Right, So we have

(17:16):
talked a lot about the history and it's just the
background of policing. There are big questions. There are so
many questions about what we do if there are no
police and it's not a question of not having police officers.
It's just a question of how we see police officers
and who that should be and how that should be restructured.
But many people have argued, again, what happens if the

(17:38):
police force loses funding or if they're disbanded, And we
wanted to look at some statistics specifically as it concerns
women or those identifying as women. And of course, one
of the big questions that we see repeatedly who will
you call if you are raped? Who are you going
to call if you are assaulted? So let's get this
out of the way. Let's go ahead and put this
out there. And I know our audience, it's like preaching

(18:00):
to the choir, but just in case you need an
sounded argument and or you want to just give our
podcast to them to listen, they probably have stopped, I
think at the beginning. But whatever, you see the title done.
And as most of you already know and has been
discussed on the show, the amount of cases that are
actually reported is minimal. According to the Rape Abuse and

(18:21):
Incest National Network or RAIN, three out of four rape
sexual assault cases are never reported, and out of that
only less than half and I say less than half
because it's not quite the number. Things like forty percent
of those cases are actually arrested. Then less than half
of that ever lead to a court appearance or a trial,
and so on and so forth. So yes, the numbers

(18:43):
dwindled down. And as we have discussed previously, even if
a case does go forward in a trial, we often
see minimal accountability for perpetrators and more trauma for the victims.
And when we look at harassment and sexual assault propetrated
on campus. Things have slowly reversed since the current administration,
as we discussed previously UM. The Obama era, though of

(19:05):
revamping the system of complaints and allegations within the system
due to the inaccurate and oftentimes ignored handling through the
police system, has allowed for a different setup for victims
and it has been for the most part more successful
and establishing accountability and safer environments for victims. And as
we recently discussed in our title nine episode, it is

(19:27):
slowly being uprooted, but for campuses that are maintaining the policy,
it has shown greater level of trust for victims that
those who are affected by harassment, sexual abuse, and rape.
And I think that is an important thing here clearly,
the fact that things are going on reported as bad UM,
but that's policing, isn't what getting rid of policing If

(19:51):
it's that's how it is right now, Like I don't know,
there's a disconnect there in it for me, Like there
can be other ways like this UM where people might
feel safer or feel more trust. So what we had
talked about it previously in our time of episode when
we had the investigator come on and talk about his

(20:12):
informative interviewing skills and training and how to talk to victims,
about the fact that not many people are receptive of
his type of policing and or investigation, and the fact
that how important it is to get the trust of victims.
And he gave off so many more statistics in his
own experience of seeing how many cases came through and

(20:33):
didn't come through. And I think it's important to remember
that it's never been about reporting to police. It's always
been about accountability and how to ensure safe environments and
who was doing that. It's not necessarily a police right.
And and if that would be a good one to
go back and listen to you, because I know he

(20:54):
talked about how he didn't have the training and he
didn't understand like what he saw as some one being
kind of forgetful. Wherein we've talked a lot about how
the brain works and the stress and trauma and memory,
and so he talked specifically kind of what we're talking
about in specific with rape and sexual thought, because he

(21:15):
was saying, I didn't have the training, I didn't understand
and now that he knows, he knows that there's a
better way. But is having a harder time to convincing
other departments, which says a lot um. So as we're
talking about rape and assault, we also wanted to talk
about violence against women and those who identify as women.
So in the past ten years, a study shows that
the number of women murdered has not decreased. The numbers

(21:38):
are pretty steady, even increasing slightly in the last couple
of years um. And women are more likely to be
martyred by someone they know, and we've talked about this
before and most likely by intimate partner, and the number
of domestic and partner bolets has not significantly improved in
any way, as in fact, the numbers are still fairly steady.
And when it comes to the deaths of trans women

(21:59):
in the past five years, we not seeing any decrease
nor any real advocacy or assistance in deterring violence against
trans and gender nonconforming individuals from the government or law enforcement.
In fact, this year alone, the number of transgender or
non binary deaths have come close to the yearly number
from the past three years, which begs the question has

(22:20):
policing deterred crimes against women? And we will also wanted
to look at policing women. The overall arrest numbers may
have decreased in the last ten years, there's a rise
of arresting women and specifically women of color. Majority of
the rest, like many others, are non violent crimes such
as theft, drug related traffic, or probation violations, which could

(22:41):
be due to anything from not paying fines to non
compliance and checking in. And more than half of the
women are locked up in jails and not necessarily in
state level prisons, as in fact, most of those women
have not been processed or seen in court, but are
actually awaiting for trial, and many of those remained incarcerated
due to having funds or the assets to post bail.

(23:03):
I think we should also know that these numbers are
not the most accurate due to the data that is
received by different organizations, as most of the Justice Department
did not do data based on sex or gender until recently,
and then we want to say recently, I mean in
the last probably six years, and in the last four
years they've doubled down in not doing that data. Just

(23:24):
to put that there um and getting these numbers nationwide
have been noted to be really difficult again, which is
another issue that has been a part of the bigger
conversation accountability and correct data, which we're going to talk
a little bit more in a bit. And if we
look at the limited arrest and tension records of women,
the statistics UM not surprisingly are also limited. The Death

(23:48):
and Custody Reporting Act, created in ten has not been
helpful UM. In fact, when two members of Congress, the
Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Gerald Nadler of New
York and the Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Crime,
Terrorism and Homeland Security, Karen Bass of California, requested an
investigation on why the Department of Justice has not implemented act,

(24:11):
they received a response from the current Inspector General they
would not be able to get any information to the
end of the fiscal year, which is in September of
this year. By the way, the d o J went
on to say they will not be sitting report of
the d c R a UM. Also worth noting the
original requirement was that it would be collected and submitted

(24:32):
quote no later than two years after December. So so yeah,
we could not find the statistics. The numbers are so limited.
It is I'm sure it could be, but I have
a feeling it would be us going to d C
looking through actual paper documents for anything like one of
those montage sheenes and the movies where they're doing all

(24:54):
the research and they get the little newspapers down everywhere
and then they could flip through that little what is
that thing? You have no idea, but I know exactly
what you're talking about. I used to I used those
when I was younger, By the way, That's how I am. Wow. Um,
and Dada collection is so so so it's so important. UM,

(25:15):
just to say, very very important. UM. We do have
a lot more for you, but first we have one
workup break for a word from our sponsor and we're back.

(25:39):
Thank you sponsor. So we did want to look at
in this idea of defunding the police, where would those
funds originally meant for the police go and how would
that help? Right? Um? Yeah, so where does the where
would the money go? That is the big question. If
you're on social media and been watching the debate, is

(26:00):
about this issue that I'm sure you've seen the many
sarcastic remarks saying things like call the social workers or
I'd like to see a social worker handled this in
regards to recent violent crimes, or for one guy who
one plus question of seeing a bear in the streets,
in which, of course the replies to that was hilarious,
like dude, you know there's wildlife and animal control, right,

(26:21):
but whatever, um, And many seem to not completely understand
what social workers do. UH. Situations like domestic violence, child abuse,
strugg related situations actually already start with social workers. So
social workers are brought in to conduct many forensic interviews.
And when I say forensic interviews, I'm talking about interviews
in relation to crimes and or victimization. And we are

(26:46):
oftentimes trained to come in and have a sit down
conversation with youths and also psychologists and counselors. So you
have different people um doing these types of interviews, and
social workers complete investigations within homes and oftentimes have to
involve police or law enforcement for assistance after the fact. Um.
And but relationships between agencies are buried. And I say

(27:08):
this as every I went to several different areas, I've
worked in different counties in each county had different relationships
with different agencies. Will put it that way. And many
of juvenile justice systems have turned to restorative justice practices
and seek social workers as an answer to rehabilitation over
punitive justice. Social workers and social service providers have been
implemented to train workers to practice therapeutic and restorative programs

(27:31):
as well as motivational interviewing and tactics that will help
build relationships with offendors. With budget cuts UM, typically we
see mental health services being the first thing to be
taken out UM though federal gance may happen. The limited
amount of funds as well as the strict requirements and

(27:53):
standards for people to qualify into a program limits who
has served and how long, and often becomes one size
fit all type of program. And just like anything within
social services program works, it is stretched beyond capacity and
often becomes less effective due to the lack of skilled clinicians,
are limited amount of space in programs which can be

(28:15):
easily fixed with YEP more funding. And you'll hear in
an upcoming interview that we did with a coworker, a
former coworker of mine from the Department Juvenal Justice, who
is a counselor UM who has her degree in school counseling,
how we talk about that we witnessed many times where
things become ineffective because it's running the ground essentially. And

(28:37):
we talk about burnout a little bit, and this is
what causes burnout. Not only do we take the person that, hey,
we found a great clinician, Now let's give them fifty
times where they can handle because you're the one good thing,
and then we end up losing that program or that
person and it becomes a whole spiral. And by the way,
with funds, as you have seen in the news lately,

(28:57):
there are being threatened if they're doing something that specific
authorities don't like. I don't know how else to say it.
So do they think you're being insulting somehow, and or
you're doing something a little too political or not political enough,
they may just take away their funding and just threaten it. Um.

(29:17):
We have seen this as we are talking about COVID
nineteen and the school systems and whether or not they're
going to open the schools or not. And I find
that so disgusting. But that is also a key proponent
of why funding does not always work. Then again, we
do have things like Title nine, which also reinforces better
behavior to so you have that hit and missed type

(29:38):
of situation. But going back, if you look at cities
that have already defunded or reallocated funds to community social
services program we see a decrease in police brutality and
better treatment methods instead of just incarcerations. Cities like Eugene,
Oregon have become a model city where they have created
a mental health crisis response with clinicians and medical assistance.

(30:00):
They were given a budget of over six million dollars,
which by the way, is significantly less than the overall
police budget, but they have shown good results. Also, just
a side note, according to one statistic from a few
years ago, and we talked about this in that episode
I'm telling you about so get ready for the episode
with my friend and I and of course anybody, and
he was like, what's the hell is happening? Sorry about that?

(30:23):
Women make eighty five percent of the social workers in
the field. So increasing funds and money would be increasing
pay for women in services like social work and counseling,
which has some of the highest level of burnout and trauma.
Just put that there, Yes, and then if we look
at mental health and crisis intervention. According to one report,

(30:44):
police departments report that one and four of those involved
in police shootings have untreated symptoms of a mental health diagnosis,
and according to the Treatment Advocacy Center, the likelihood of
a person with a serious mental illness like schizophrenia, schizo
effective disorder, others chicotic disorder are more likely to see
prison time for a misdemeanor. Now, these members are somewhat

(31:08):
debatable as we don't see the bigger picture when it
comes to people who are not diagnosed or who are
incorrectly diagnosed, as well as people who have multiple arrests
and offenses. Sort of hard to us all of that out,
and as we talked earlier, the data is not there.

(31:28):
We have missing data. So what would be funded for
those in native medical assistance? The obvious answer is qualified
counselors and therapists. Many systems have limited amounts of preventative
measure as a way of pre trial requests. So that's
another conversation is what are these pre trial requests? What
can we do to do to diffuse the situation um
all those different levels. So let's say we have theft

(31:50):
or vacancy. Instead of locking them up, what would counseling do?
And by the way, free or affordable counseling UM as
a preventative and not at an afterthought, and instead of
bringing police as first responders, what would happen if we
brought in a crisis intervention team. And by the way,
more than half of the a p A or American
Psychology Association members are women and a majority of them

(32:12):
are in governance position, which would also be a part
of the macro level practice and nonprofits. Another need is
crisis intervention programs. Places like Eugene, Oregon, as we mentioned earlier,
have already implemented the CAHOOTS program or c A h
O O T. S UM Program or Crisis Assistants Helping

(32:35):
Out on the Streets. As of ten, they were able
to assist twenty four thousand calls with medical attention and
crisis assessment. A crisis intervention training program has been implemented
and taught to police forces by the National Alliance of
Mental Illness, which they started doing in night. The program
was created to help decrease the potential harm to the

(32:56):
citizen as well as to the officer. The idea about
hid the program is based on the fact officers are
often first on the scene and typically are not trained
to handle a crisis situation. In regards to someone with
a mental health diagnosis. The program is ongoing and has
been looked at and provided to several departments. However, it

(33:17):
is self referred and is ongoing process which often can
be forgotten during the heat of the moment. And here
in Atlanta, the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities
does offer assistance, but much like any mental health services
around the country, the limited funds also limit who and
how they can assist. For any case to be accepted,

(33:37):
the continuating circumstances has to be severe, so it becomes
an afterthought instead of prevention or intervention, and it becomes
kind of an aftercare process of how to treat them
after the initial crisis, which is not great um and
though Georgia did put in a crisis line a few
years ago to complete assessments in referrals, not many people

(33:58):
know to contact them. And by the way, the minute
amount of services after an assessment and referrals are often
roadblocks to actual treatment due to the cost and lack
of insurance. So there are some ideas already out there,
it's just that no one seems to be catching on
and or it's not fundative, or and or there's no continuation.
So you have one one thought process or one great idea,

(34:20):
but it stops there and it doesn't get to the
root of everything that's happening. Sure. Um, yeah, there's there's
so much at play here. Uh. And one of the
things we did want to talk about is education. Um
and and this is such a huge broad topic in itself.

(34:41):
We can look at it in specific ways when it
comes to this conversation. Pay raises for teachers, better employee
insurance for all employees, and we could talk about universal
health care and we wouldn't even need to discuss this
as an individual career employment thing. But that's another They're
a whole separate episode right now. That is a thing

(35:03):
we must include in this conversation. UM. Better technology equipment,
funding for trips and additional educational learning experiences, after school programs,
tutoring services, and arts, extracurricular activities. We could go on
and on about the things that are currently needed to
better our current school system. And provisions to all state
funded programs that would equal out the playing field and

(35:25):
educational experiences UM. And we're talking about this in terms
of keeping people out of prison. Um. But we also
need to look at what this looks like as a
preventative measure in recidivism. Right. So, recidivism within the US
is over fifty six percent likely after the first year

(35:45):
of release and only grows every year thereafter. But research
shows that with educational opportunities the percentage goes down exponentially.
Just with vocational training alone, the chances decreased by And
the question is why. I think it's pretty simple. By
providing education, the likelihood of attaining a job and opportunities
for pay without resort to crime grows significantly. Um And

(36:08):
by putting money into education, the amount of tax dollars
being used for individuals being incarcerated, which by the way,
costs per person on average, will decrease due to the
decrease of recidivism. No, these numbers come from gt L,
which runs inmate calling system among other things, but the
d J reports similar numbers as well as the Bureau

(36:28):
of Justice. Yes, and also no, probably everyone knows, but
just in case recidivism is ending up backup prison if
you've been in there. Um So, we also wanted to
talk about the aspect of homelessness and housing and having
affordable housing as a piece of this whole thing. Arrest

(36:50):
among the homeless community is a fairly high number, and
among those that are arrested shows that the homeless population
are more likely to be suffering from a diagnosed men
to illness, and reports from specific cities such as l
A have shown that one out of three arrest or
interactions with the homeless involves some type of force or brutality.

(37:10):
Many of those who are arrested for misdemeanors and infractions
often are jailed for longer periods of time than the
rest of the population due to no income, no assistance,
and typically untreated mental health needs. And there are multiple
levels of trying to undo the systems that use gel
incarceration for solutions for homelessness. Um Everything from mental health
resources to actual homes and better living situations would alleviate

(37:33):
the use of arrest and incarceration. Of course, this is
just a few of the things that can happen if
funding is redistributed to assist in fund community based programs
and services. And we could keep talking about other services
like mentor and programs, family services, and many more, but
we do want to talk about if this even is possible.

(37:56):
Right um, though there have been a few cities that
have started to look at the budgets and redistribute funding,
such as California, New York, in Minnesota. There have also
been cities that have disbanded and rehired police, but the
results seem to be uncertain as either again the data
isn't clear, isn't there, or the policies did not change
UM in the greater picture, or it's pretty new in

(38:20):
some places and specifically we just don't know we were
as we were researching. Camden Metro Police Department has come
up repeatedly, and as we said at the beginning of
the show, it doesn't necessarily show any change, but because
even though they did one thing, they didn't do the other,
if that makes sense, UM though they did put a
lot more of their budget into police UH de escalation

(38:42):
programs and community health programs, and it does show that
there have been a significant decrease in arrest for them
since then. However, they're still reports from the citizens saying
that they have had many times where they've been profiled
and or UH mistakenly rested and used the same taxes

(39:02):
that we've seen in SeeMe UM alarming patterns that we've
seen in the bigger picture. So it's kind of that
well okay, but um, and what we are seeing in
improvements are the ones that like Eugene, Oregon, um and
other cities, And there are several other cities that I
didn't point out but didn't want to talk about where
they've been implementing more things like crisis in intervention and

(39:23):
our mental health services as part of the first response.
So that's definitely where we need to look at. But
again data isn't clear when they don't want to give
it to us. But yes, this is the big, big conversation,
and redistributing funds is a giant topic. And though it
this is a bigger part of what reformation and undoing

(39:44):
a military level of policing may take. There are a
lot of things that we need to do we need
to take a close examination of. But we're not gonna
go into that because it's obviously we've taken a lot
of the time just talking about funding and defunding and
redistributing money and allocating funds. Um. But some of the
things that you might want to look into, and we
might look into later on our topics that include undoing

(40:07):
qualified immunity, the role in power of police unions, and
the continued military training tactics for community police officers, and overall,
if we talked about the spanning police, what does that
actually mean? Um? But yeah, so there are other people
who are having this bigger conversation, and we did want
to focus in what it looks like for women. But
because the subject is so new and because it is

(40:29):
so contentious, we don't always have that specific data, and
typically we don't have that data until after the fact.
And we all know that. But as you can tell,
if we were to rethink and redo some of the things,
it would impact the whole entire community. It would impact

(40:52):
a lot of the marginalized people who have been continuing
to live in fear for the entirety of their lives
because the system is not where it should be. Yeah,
and um, this topic is obviously very very dense and
for some people very very personal. Um. And almost every

(41:16):
section we talked about education or social workers, homelessness, mental
illness in some aspects and a lot of ways. Do
you impact women more, um, whether it's because they're the
ones doing the work in that field or whether they're
the ones being more impacted by those issues. So this

(41:38):
is a really important conversation and um, it can get
really heated and it is very complicated, but that doesn't
mean we shouldn't have it. Um. It's very very important
in fact, because of all those things. Yes so, Um,
there are a lot of big questions left to examine
and a lot of details to hash out and discuss

(42:03):
and as we said multiple times, data that we need. Um. So,
if there's any particular aspect of this that you think
would be really beneficial for us to dig into, you
really want to hear more about, please please let us know, yes, please,
And those who are actually in that field, and those
who are working for things like the crisis and evengtion,
please reach out to us. Tell us what's going on,

(42:24):
and tell us what you see, and tell us what
you think needs to happen to help reformat the system
for the better. Right, Yes, please, And you can email
those things to a fancy email stuff Medio Mom Stuff
at iHeart media dot com. You can find us on
Instagram at stuff Mom Never Told You, are on Twitter
at mom Stuff Podcast. Thanks as always to your superproducer

(42:47):
Andrew Howard, Thanks Jubie, and thanks to you for listening
Stuff I Never Told You. The protection of I Heart
Radio for more podcasts from my heart Radio is the
iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. The p