Yep, the state loves to control the two largest metropolitan areas. They also own St. Louis' police. They want full control over the cities because we're the cash cows for the state, despite all the lip service paid to farmers and rural people, who all depend on the money we generate here for their welfare.
It's a remnant of Civil War-era law and unlikely to ever change.
Yep we damn well didn't want to give the pigs anymore than they already get. And you aren't wrong about the situation in St Louis. People don't even understand how that shit can be like that. It's completely fucked up in the eyes of most the rest of the world but in Missouri it's just Tuesday.
Yup, I hate the KCPD.
It wasn't that long ago that they were just letting break-ins happen because they wanted to make Jackson County Prosecutor look bad and try to kill her reelection hopes, all for having the temerity to criticize the shitty job that cops do here. I see them when I'm out walking the dogs a lot and they're always friendly to my face, but I keep in the back of my mind that these people are a piece-of-refuse gang and they'd happily shoot me and my animals in the head if it were convenient for them.
Remember the cardinal rule, friends: Don't talk to cops. Ever.
If two-thirds of a populace is opposed to something, and their government approves it anyway. Then their government is illegitimate.
Yep. Most governments are illegitimate
The issue here is what to do when you have multiple levels of government. One government entity may be against a policy, but a larger government entity which includes the smaller entity may be for a policy.
This case is regarding police funding, but this could apply to school or welfare programs as well.
Yeah, and I know this sounds trivial by comparison, but we had something similar here recently and it was a proposed ban on fox hunting that the government scooched away that the populous were wildly in favour of.
I have to say that if 25% of my city's money was being spent on police I'd be making them earn their fucking money and you may infer from that what you will.
Imagine the opportunity cost. And guess who lost the most in that trade? The most vulnerable.
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,
Core concept, really.
25% of a city budget to police? Wtf?
A lot of towns and cities spend way more than that.
I just checked, in Helsinki, Finland (my instance's location), 25% of the city budget (~1,25B€) would cover the police expense for entire country and more (~900M€).
Here police is managed by the state but I tried to make things comparable. And I don't believe the police is extremely underfunded there. Is the US police driving tanks or wtf?
Is the US police driving tanks or wtf?
Yep. They literally are 🤬
Urban police have a fuck ton of high tech equipment, high pay, and unlimited overtime (because the cities politically can't stop them from taking it). They also have frequent legal costs because they keep violating citizens' rights.
Speaks volumes what those in charge think of the population doesn't it?
Here I am bitching at the metro because the grocery store has weight sensors on the self checkout because no one trusts me as a consumer.
All those armoured tanks they buy aren't cheap.
Alright, well I guess this transit expansion is going under the police file. I hope you like driving buses, cops.
But more seriously...
Adding insult to injury for Kansas City, local officials will have no say in how their money gets spent by the police department—even as they are required by the state to pour more funds into it.
Talk about a corruption machine.
Missouri is a very corrupt state. Besides what you just mentioned, which is true, we also voted in an anti-gerrymandering law in 2018.
Before it could go into effect, the Conservative Party got a repeal of the law onto the ballot with very shady text to trick voters into repealing their own votes.
Yup.
All we get is one seat on the state commission that runs our police, which is filled by the mayor. We are effectively powerless to regulate the police in any meaningful way.
Republicans are for "small government" unless they control the state and it is a local gov.
No, they're still for small government...as in they close down a tightly regulated and budgeted govt agency to outsource it to their buddies private company which exists solely to generate a profit.
I wonder if you couldn't start hiring social workers and garbage collectors under the police's budget. Pitch it in some ridiculous but slightly connected way. Garbage collectors could be 'gathering evidence' as the law allows garbage to be searched without warrant, and social workers could be some sort of 'post-incident contact follow-up-ers.' Hell, expand it to wildly mildly connected things, like roadwork and bike paths, you know, to make the cops able to get around faster.
Social workers, Crisis intervention teams, psychologists and a whole lot more. Police work doesn't necessarily just consist of shooting people. But I guess in the US that's a radical viewpoint.
Policing in the US rose largely out of slave patrols. You can’t just tell them to hire social workers and expect any change. The problem is so deeply rooted and systemic that you have to eliminate the entire concept of police and start from the ground up.
The problem is the KCPD doesn’t report to the city. They don’t have to do what the mayor says so they just do what they want.
It’s gross and they end up paying out a lot in lawsuits.
Oh they privatized trash pickup. It sucks. Cost more and you never know when they will get there. It has improved marginally in recent years. But even just a year or two ago. They would regularly not show up till the day after pick up was supposed to be. Often well after sunset. I'm guessing they were probably purposely understaffing. Abusing their employees to nickel and dime the contract for every cent they could get.
And if there's one thing our dip shit state legislature is against. It's having competition for privatized services. Especially after the Kickbacks they get.
Well see the police budget is now 99 percent this new peoples internal affairs that get anti tank weapons and are hired to follow cops around there are ten with gins pointed at cops at all times under the logic that policibg makes you good so were just policing the police so they're more efficient and good
Fuckin' statewide vote for an issue that only affects one city...
And it's not 25% of the city's budget. It was a 25% increase in the police budget, bringing it to 38% of the city's budget. Just enough that KC had to scrap plans for free bus fares.
Wouldn't be surprised if the bus thing was the real goal all along
I'm starting to think that our democracy is broken.
Why can't the city just put all sorts of social services under the police department. Heck do the whole city and everyone gets better pay and benefits.
i mean i heard before USA has a flawed Democracy.
I wonder how much of that 25% is being spent to pay for lawsuits it settled or lost? I'm sure that's not just an LA thing.
"Small government" red states love doing stuff like this. The state of Indiana passed a law banning 'no turn on red' signs, just to spite Indianapolis.
These states are run by rural losers who resent the fact that they depend on the predominantly blue cities for all their economic activity.
Yes, we are in the rare situation of not being in control of our police department. They do not report to the mayor and he has very little say in how they behave.
Gotta pump up those urban crime stats.
Hey this happens in Canada too. In BC, the capital city has 23% of budget go to VicPD. The city has tried turning down budget increase requests, then the province stepped in and forced them to do it.
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