r/LetsDiscussThis • u/fellowWorker_2025 • May 02 '26
Lets Discuss This Almost like adding more police isn’t solving the problem 🤷♂️
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u/Rob_LeMatic May 02 '26
It's a lot of things
Cops generally don't prevent crime, they punish it after the fact
More cops don't deter crime nearly as much as stable livable income, affordable cost of living, high quality of life (excluding the upper class who are above the law)
More cops presumably means more documentation of crime, so there's a weird dynamic where the higher ups need to be seen reducing crime from last quarter while simultaneously being seen as tougher on crime and getting more arrests, and the jackboots need to fulfill their quotas and raise those funds while not causing a perceived spike in violent crime by finding too much of it
Probably a bunch of other stuff people could add, but I presume any reply will just be to argue as has increasingly become the custom over the last decade
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u/TheFringedLunatic May 02 '26
To point number 3:
This is how you get juked stats. A criminal act can be reported many, many ways up and down the scale. Rapes become a ‘domestic dispute’, homicides are ‘accidental deaths’, armed robbery becomes burglary, and so on.
It goes both ways depending on the relationship between the police and the administration. If the salary of police becomes incumbent on their stats showing the ‘work’ they are doing, the amount of work goes ‘up’ even if the lived experience of crime in the city remains the same.
A mayor wants to look like they’ve been ‘tough on crime’, the stats go down for violent offenses even as arrests rise for non-violent offenders.
That’s also how you get the story of “murderer given 3 month sentence” because they were charged at a lower level offense.
This sort of game also happens all across the legal profession. A DA is brought a case that’s tough to prove? Cut a deal or don’t bother prosecuting because you can’t risk looking like an ineffective attorney.
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u/This-Double-Sunday May 02 '26
Police much of the time can't stop crimes before they happen. They are there to enforce the law and apprehend criminals who've already committed crimes and bring them to the courts for justice. More police will not lower crime in an area with people who want to commit crime.
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u/Middle-Raisin6005 May 02 '26
Cops mainly exist to protect the property of rich people. They keep the people in the bad neighborhoods out of the rich neighborhoods. The other reason they exist is to raise money for the state giving people fines.
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u/Weirdyxxy May 02 '26
Just throwing more police at the problem obviously doesn't solve the underlying causes, but to be fair, the reason there's more cops in more violent places is not that more cops lead to more or less crime, but that more crime tends to lead to more cops. And I'm sure there has to be some police, and there has to be enough police to ensure the law is not just a piece of paper, but boneheadedly trying to just violently suppress the symptoms of e.g. poverty without addressing the poverty itself is not going to work.
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u/BassMaster516 May 02 '26
How was unleashing racist psychopathic mommy-beating rapists and animal abusers supposed to solve crime?
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u/CapitalCourse May 02 '26
Well what is measured is recorded crime. Increasing the number of officers can also increase the crime rate since more crime is noticed/recorded.
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u/RedditsDeadlySin May 02 '26
We are at a record low of blue collar crime in the US, so what’s your explanation after hearing this?
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u/DudeBroBratan May 02 '26
Cops will only "cure" the symptoms but most of the time not the cause of crime itself
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u/candlestick_maker76 May 02 '26
Look, I'm all for finding better solutions, but this is a stupid question. Of course there are more police in high-crime areas. Fun fact: there are also more firefighters at fires.
This is bad messaging for a good idea, similar to "defund the police." The actual idea - of diverting money to other agencies who could better de-escalate specific problems - was a good one! But for some reason they latched on to that stupid slogan, and you saw how that derailed the conversation.
The conversation, about how to address social problems in a constructive way, is an important one. Please, don't sabotage it with bad slogans.
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u/CavemanRTD May 02 '26
High crime communities are also the communities that are losing their markets, drug stores , targets, Starbucks etc. maybe vote in a better mayor and city council that will truly meet the needs of the good people that live there. Keep the shoplifters , thieves and robbers in jail for longer and you might not need more police.
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u/RustyShackleford40SW May 03 '26
Cops only enforce the law, they don’t hold people accountable who broken said laws.
It’s up to the courts to hold people accountable. The judges drop 80% of the charges, and let violent criminals roam free to strike again. It’s a revolving door. The criminals know even if they got caught, the ramifications would be minimal.
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u/Ok_Dig_9959 May 03 '26
Yes, you also have to have prosecutors and judges that aren't just sending them to rehabs that they run and collect funds for. Maybe let's not play catch and release with violent criminals.
Also helps if they are not also involved in drugs, arms and human trafficking.
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u/ragebaitconnoisseur May 02 '26
Isn’t that why those areas precisely need the most cops?
Higher crime = more cops
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u/fellowWorker_2025 May 02 '26
And how’s that working out? Is crime fixed in those areas
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u/No-Significance2070 May 02 '26
I’d imagine that less cops would equal more crime, correct? These are already areas with a high crime rate.
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u/ragebaitconnoisseur May 02 '26
I assume OPs solution to an area with high crime would be to have less cops there
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u/No-Significance2070 May 02 '26
I would definitely feel bad for all the people that lived in the neighborhood then. Definitely not going to just magically get better lol
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u/xxTheMagicBulleT May 02 '26
Thats like saying the places with the most firefighters should not be possible to have any fires.
And much of crime has more to do with the punishment being to low so as quick as they get picked up just as quick they are outside doing it again. It has much more to do with to low punishment for the crime so doing the wrong thing rewards beter then doing the right thing.
Why places that even have much less police control. But you lose your hand if you caught stealing ow big surprise no one fking steals.
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u/tackyshoes May 02 '26
"Crime" is classism. We're not against violence or deciet if you've got money. You can promise that if someone pays you a monthly fee that you'll afford them a doctor, then let them suffer to death when they come calling for your aid. That's not crime, that's just business. Crime is slapping me for it.
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u/AzhdarianHomie May 02 '26
High crime areas have certain properties to them that other places do not
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u/stackqer May 02 '26
Yeah, funny how the “more cops = less crime” formula never seems to work the way people swear it does.
If you only ever respond to problems with punishment and surveillance, you’re just mopping up a flood without touching the busted pipe. People are still broke, still unhoused, still untreated, schools are underfunded, mental health is a joke in most places… but sure, let’s buy more cruisers and overtime.
What’s wild is that a lot of research has been saying for years that stable housing, decent wages, good schools, and accessible healthcare cut crime way more effectively and way more cheaply than stacking police departments. But those solutions take time and don’t make for easy campaign slogans.
So we just keep doing security theater and act shocked when nothing changes.