I don't have the massive distrust of the police that many do, but nor do I fully trust The System to have my own personal best interests at heart. That is, even if individual police are good actors, I think that the system that supports them doesn't really care about me, exactly.
I can't think forward to what I could do in order to feel comfortable having the police in my home. But I suppose I could think about what that would look like. So, ok, to feel comfortable with police in my home, I think I'd need:
To hear more stories in the media of police defending victims rather than abusing their power
To hear personal stories from people along the same lines
To believe that the laws are in my favor when I am living according to my ethics (closer to the truth in MA than in many states, but still)
To believe that if we run afoul of the law, the children of my house will not automatically be seized.
I think my distrust of that level of power is high enough that I would be unlikely ever to feel comfortable with police in my home, although I would call 911 anyway under the right (well, wrong) circumstances. The fact that I am clearly deeply athwart a lot of the culture with respect to issues of surveillance further decreases my trust (or, indeed, my belief that trust could be built).
I agree with gosling on de-escalation training, particularly around issues of mental health.
It would also help if I knew anything about how the local police are trained to handle issues of sexual assault, and what their record is, and if the training and record were good, since that's such a notoriously badly-handled, retraumatizing pile of fail in so many cases.
BUT HEY I'm already white and middle-class and conventionally-gender-presenting and English-speaking and reasonably mentally healthy and so forth. And I would feel safer about the police if I thought this didn't give me advantages in dealing with them - if I felt that everyone were accorded the
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Policing seems to be exactly the sort of job where the people who are naturally attracted to it as a career option are exactly the sort of people who one would least trust doing it. I can't see myself ever trusting "the police" unless that changes.
Putting effort into recruiting and emphasizing the public service aspects of the job would help there, so as to attract candidates who are interested in helping others.
I should also add, I have no hesitation about calling 911 in an emergency. Because in my mind (and my experience), 911 is what you call to get the fire department and the ambulance, not what you call to get the police.
The idea of an "emergency" in which one would want police just doesn't compute in my head. I'm trying to think of such a thing and failing.
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I can't think forward to what I could do in order to feel comfortable having the police in my home. But I suppose I could think about what that would look like. So, ok, to feel comfortable with police in my home, I think I'd need:
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I agree with gosling on de-escalation training, particularly around issues of mental health.
It would also help if I knew anything about how the local police are trained to handle issues of sexual assault, and what their record is, and if the training and record were good, since that's such a notoriously badly-handled, retraumatizing pile of fail in so many cases.
BUT HEY I'm already white and middle-class and conventionally-gender-presenting and English-speaking and reasonably mentally healthy and so forth. And I would feel safer about the police if I thought this didn't give me advantages in dealing with them - if I felt that everyone were accorded the ( ... )
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Putting effort into recruiting and emphasizing the public service aspects of the job would help there, so as to attract candidates who are interested in helping others.
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Because in my mind (and my experience), 911 is what you call to get the fire department and the ambulance, not what you call to get the police.
The idea of an "emergency" in which one would want police just doesn't compute in my head. I'm trying to think of such a thing and failing.
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