It’s not ‘defund the police’ it’s ‘refund mental health’
People Against Prisons Aotearoa have gone from militant Trans Prisoners Rights Organisation (which if ACT Party researchers dug into would cause a far larger headache than it currently is) and transitioned into a constructive voice for reform, which was desperately needed now their militant antics are dreadfully misplaced…
…unfortunately for PAPA, punk street crew is more important than you know, actually achieving anything, which is why defund the police is promoted.
It’s not ‘defund the police’ it’s ‘refund mental health’.
Firstly, Tamatha Paul is right, many in the community fear the Police.
The face of the NZ Police is the grim guilt of the colonising settler and the pearl clutching response by ACT, NZF, National and even Labour is the predictable bellow of the State defending their stooges.
I believe New Zealand’s remarkable acquiesce towards Police abuse of power is a terrible by product of our colonising settler culture.
Consider the deep investigation as to why NZ Police shoot and kill so many New Zealandersand the ongoing criticism of why Police chase policy kills so many New Zealanders.
Since 2003, New Zealand has seen an exponential rise in car chases – from 500 in 2003 to 2500 in 2010. This mirrors the pattern of Australia, and the UK and the US, the latter two of which have seen car chases rise since the 1990s. In 2009, concerns over the frequency of police chasing led to a review of police pursuit policy conducted by the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA). This review examined 137 police chases that resulted in serious injury or death from 2003 to 2009, with a total of 24 people killed and 91 seriously hurt. In the US, the figures are much more disturbing. Police car chases now kill 30 innocent people every six weeks and one police officer. In Los Angeles alone, more than 10,000 people have been injured by car chases since 2002.
…I think we as a culture turn a blind eye to Police abuse because of our colonising settler culture.
When Pakeha settlers grew nervous about angry Māori youth on the edge of town who were already feeling the negative alienations of colonisation, they gave the mounted constabulary the grim nod of guilty approval to do what ever was needed to ensure our place here on these shaky isles. We turn a blind eye to let the Police ‘do what they need’ because we privately acknowledge the negative impact of our colonisation without ever wanting to rectify that negative beyond heavy handed policing to enforce and ensure order.
The Police get away with abusing their power because we allow them to do it. Holding the NZ Police to account for abusing their power requires us to acknowledge why we’ve allowed them to get away with it for so long, and that’s why the establishment has come down hard on Tamatha for daring to challenge the narrative.
ACT, NZF, National and Labour are behaving like abusive parents angry no one wants to come to Christmas.
That’s all a given alongside Police acknowledging ‘unconscious bias’ and the crime stats that show Māori get sentenced far harsher by a system that judges them more harshly.
THAT’S ALL GIVEN, but you don’t scare the sleepy hobbits of muddle Nu Zilind with ‘defund the police’.
It’s not ‘defund the police’ it’s ‘refund mental health’
The Police are a blunt force trauma to mental health call outs…
Taser use on mentally ill people doubles: ‘It just beggars belief’
Mental health advocates have slammed the high use of tasers on people in crisis as a damning indictment on a health system which has left police as the default emergency responder.
New research shows more than half of people tasered by police are mentally ill, in distress or suicidal.
The report, commissioned by police as part of a wider investigation into bias within the ranks, found:
- Taser use during mental health calls-out had doubled since 2017
- 54 percent of people tasered between July and December 2022 were in mental distress, mentally unwell or suicidal
- People in mental health residences or in-patient units were tasered on four occasions
- Data on the mental state of those tasered was poor, with written reports often failing to mention mental distress that was evident from body camera footage
- Some police were using a taser as a “compliance” tool
- People clearly experiencing distress were deemed “non-compliant” (rather than unwell or unable to follow instructions)
- Police were unwilling to approach individuals they perceived to be unwell, seeing them as “unpredictable”.
…Police should not be the ones sent in to deal with people having a mental health episode, we need specially trained ‘First responder mental health teams’ who have the resources and skill set to de-escalate a situation and get a person the help they need.
Real wrap around social services provided after the call out.
A genuine attempt to heal and help people rather than criminalise them.
You know, solutions rather than counter productive damage.
The problem is that the entire mental health industry is horrifically underfunded and we have dumped them onto the Police, when the Police don’t have the skill set to deal with them.
We need our Police actually countering crime, not wasting their time on mental health call outs which they are more likely to exacerbate than help.
To do this requires enormous investment and a whole new branch of emergency response and with a Government focused on a $2.9b tax break for the richest landlords alongside $14billion in unfordable tax cuts, there is no way of that happening.
The system is now in collapse and the way National have manufactured a cost crisis in Health by purposely underfunding health means things are doomed to become more oppressive for the poorest and most vulnerable.
The safety net has become a noose.
It’s not ‘defund the police’ it’s ‘refund mental health’
The Left would eat their own young if they weren’t all vegans!
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Funny how the voters are perfectly ok with defunding the health system, education system, community and environmental services.
Because that’s exactly what’s happening here.
As an aside, this austerity government is already effectively defunding the police.
The government is making the recession worse.
When the next budget arrives in May, people probably won’t freak out, but they definitely should.
Therefore, if there is a snap election approaching just over the political horizon, the voters will simply vote for status quo for “stability” in these strange times.
We are so fucked.
Labour just need to go hard – lol – bit of an oxymoron there. Stop being soft cocks and lead with conviction FFS. Stop pandering to the fucking economy. Do a reverse Trump and kick out all the rich pricks
You do realise that the police are now in a position to refuse to attend incidents that involve knives when there is mental health concern? Considering the high proportion of violence associated with mental health presentations due to meth use, this seems bizarre to place it solely with mental health services. Meth use has never been and should never be a mental health issue. It’s a substance use and personal choice issue. Entirely different from mental health but successive governments have refused to address this. This is not a stand alone coalition issue. Now, mental health workers are expected to respond to emergency situations with no emergency services resources. My area mental health crisis team is now being expected to respond to what are and will be always be an emergency service response, with none of the resources to back them up. Don’t frame this as a “coalition issue” because it’s actually a “no government gives a shit” issue. Mental health services here would work fine if they were able to manage just mental health. But they’re not, they have to soak up the shit that no one else wants to address.
100% correct Gloria. The shit that is soaked up by mental health staff is due to our CoC capitalists. Attending a callout now where history shows knives are involved is now just increasing the risk of staff getting home alive. They are not paid to disarm mentally unwell clients. This is a construct of this capitalist government.