No disagreement from me here, i think the communication of "defund the police" backfired a lot. But I think the thought behind it is sound if communicated right.
My problem here is that vilification of police (no matter how justified) is inevitably going to make it a strongly partisan thing. It would probably have been easier to start reforming police approaches if you put psychologically ill and homeless people front and center to communicate the idea that in many situations, the police is illequipped to cease a conflict while other services are better equipped to do that.
Okay so let talk about the meat of it which is the policy. The whole mental health profession dealing with people with mental health problem sound rational. And I were buying it at first. But here is something to consider.
Nurse administrators need to review organizational policies and procedures to determine if current practices support the retention of psychiatric nurses.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
"
Background: One corporation with four psychiatric inpatient facilities experienced an average RN turnover rate of 54% annually, with approximately 75% of new hires leaving within 6 months of employment."
In one of the post here talking about I am blaming the victims with the ACAB thing. Let's take Portland for example during the racial unrest, most of the people participating were white. They were not solely care for just black rights. They were pushing other far left things as well, and create a Autonomous zone in Portland. The funny thing is the absence of police, they create something similar to police. This is like when libertarians and anarchist when press on larger issue that not a single house hold or even a small group of people can deal with. Slowly and slowly, they came up with these central governing body that all but in name, our already existing government institutions. Then there were unrest and shooting at the autonomous zone, and ambulance arrived at the scene. But they don't come in, they won't come in without the police presence. The polices were order to stand down to de escalate things.
So let said, you called for wellness check for your family members, and these mental health professional came at the door but won't allow in. What legal power do they have to break down the door? And with the high percentage of gun ownership in America. If someone with a mental health episode with gun, how safe can that be?
So now, we go to the link above. Mental health nurses are in SHORT SUPPLY. If college are all free, how many will go for this profession? Knowing the job quality is terrible. Risking assaults and injuries to your own body? No need for polls or study, The people that already in these nursing, fled at high percentage. This is why I like conditional free higher education, to push people toward fields and careers that society needed.
And the people who had these jobs in the first place, may desperate for works. Probably less privilege than others because if anyone who had options of a better choice, not many will go for a lesser options. Why are we let these nurses bare the burden of physical assaults for the rest of society. We can raise their wages, but at some point, it is too not enough of an incentive. And the lowest among us would even go for it anyway if they doing for the money at the risk of their health. I mentioned this, because of "funding to mental health."
EDIT: Mental health professionals themselves are also in very short supplies to be stretch even thinner.
Oh man, I can rant a lot more about homeless situation and the complication of it.
Other countries have mental health problems too, but why is it in America it is so so so bad? Certainly even with the mental health things cannot explain all these people who do these properties damage.