Police's Effect on Crime: How will Doug Ford's investment in police pay off?

Cops are perhaps the most discussed job in society, the media makes it seem that way at least. This has especially been the case the past couple weeks in Ontario. Last month Doug Ford announced a new plan to boost the amount of cops in the province and subsequently deal with Ontario’s crime rate. This plan does a pretty good job at achieving the former goal, the latter not so much. 

Ford’s ingenious idea is to take away tuition fees for police training and not create a requirement for post-secondary education. Certainly more cops will be trained, and presumptuously hired with this solution. But what does having younger and less educated cops entail?

Well we don’t necessarily know, but we do know what having cops looks like right now. In Edmonton it looks like an 18 year old boy (not man, as reported by CTV)  getting beat up by a cop for seemingly just walking away from him. This video shows something that resembles a mafia shakedown more than an “arrest” being made by police. Especially considering that at no point does the victim show any aggression towards the cop, meanwhile the cop rings of a combo that even Vitor Belfort would be jealous of. 

Luckily I can say Ontario police officers aren’t making highlight tapes for a UFC audition, but rather a WWE audition. The weakest of the audition tapes took place in Barrie when a man got ticketed and detained for 30 minutes because he crossed through a red light on his longboard. As the officer walked away, the victim did a little trash talk, little did he know this officer was auditioning for a heel role. The officer immediately assaults the victim and begins to threaten him with his taser. He eventually pins him to the ground and subsequently hits him in the head with the butt of the taser. The cop then slams his face in the ground for good measure, you don’t talk shit to this big boy. 

I am unsure if this next instance is an audition considering the cops were off duty so they couldn’t record it on their body cam’s, but maybe the article alone will get them a callback. It would surely be a shame if these two brothers just beat the shit out of a 19 year old with a pipe causing him to lose his eye and didn’t get a call back from the WWE, or at least some local wrestling events. They attacked the boy for seemingly no reason, if I didn’t know this was a WWE audition tape I would think they targeted this boy (while these brothers were off-duty) just because he was black and alone. Hell, if I didn’t know better I would compare the incidents mentioned so far to gang or mafia mentality more than cop behavior. But cops are stopping the gangs so that’s a silly thought. Especially since this incident was covered up by Durham and Toronto police. Despite both parties knowing of what the off duty cops did they did not share this with a police watchdog group for months. 

The theme of off-duty police officers attacking black boys continues with two officers in Brampton who attacked a 19 year old boy who sold them a “fake” apple watch. This attack ended with the death of the boy. The police then failed to notify anyone they had contact with this boy for months afterwards. Once again this attack resembles a scene in which the local mafia or gang has been bamboozled in a small way and must ensure their manhood/respect is regained by beating the ever living shit of the person who showed them even the smallest level of disrespect. For these police it is not the law that they wish to enforce, but rather their superiority. If the cops wished to enforce the law they would have simply called in the fake watch, they knew the boy's name, there were so many legal routes to getting their money back that did not involve killing the boy. But charging someone with theft does not gain you back your respect, or make a good WWE audition tape. 

The next audition tape is an officer who was called onto the scene to take a drunk man home, a request and service that police fulfill often in this area. But the cop who got called onto the scene had a different idea. This officer was not the typical person paroling the Slate Falls First Nation community. Naturally this officer had to prove his gull, show those he rules over who is boss. Similar to that of the “muscle” that is present in good mafia shakedowns, they must establish they are not to be played with. The officer did this by slamming the drunk man’s head into the car and subsequently throwing his unconscious body head first into the cement ground. Message sent, don’t be messing with the mafia, I mean police. I am beginning to think these aren’t just audition tapes, but rather normal police behavior. 

Unfortunately we have now moved away from WWE audition tapes into just plain old gang behavior. This can be seen  in Hamilton when a group of plain clothes officers arrested and beat a man while unconscious on the ground because he was in possession of property obtained by a crime. A seemingly small offense that can be dealt with through a calm arrest rather than pummeling this man's head with your feet. This arrest resembles a lesson being taught by someone who didn’t pay their mafia dues in time, or competition who wasn’t staying in their own turf.

The gang behavior continues in Saskatchewan with “Starlight” tours. This gang initiation-like event involved Saskatoon police arresting Indigenous men (many times without cause) and bringing them out into the middle of nowhere Saskatchewan in freezing cold temperatures to, well, freeze. This escapade of theirs was revealed to the public and seemingly halted in the early 2000’s. But similar gang antics have continued throughout Canada since, most notably in Thunder Bay. Oh wow, there I go using a gang instead of the police again, my bad.

You really must understand my confusion though, right? All of the incidents I have discussed can have the attacker/attackers be replaced with a gang member and nobody would flinch a muscle. Even the motives for attacking resemble that of a mafia mindset. Those who disrespect, fall out of line, or just look at them the wrong way and they will set you straight, whether that be with a pipe, a fist, a butt of taser, or a good old tackle, they will make sure you know who is boss. 

The result of this gang-like approach to policing has not been shown to actually reduce crime, especially not with an increase in gang members (aka policemen). A study conducted in 2016 took a look at all available research on increased police force size and its effects on crime (These papers spanned from 1968-2013). The study concluded that increased police force sizes have negative to no statistical correlation with decreases in crime. It was so conclusive that the study outright stated that research should move to other methods of crime reduction because police force size ain’t it. Now the paper does say that the previous findings it looked at had a high degree of variance in the results. If I had to guess this is likely due to the myriad of internal police studies that have taken place where the cops themselves determine they are extremely successful at stopping crime, shocking. 

Fundamentally it makes sense that more cops don’t equal less crime. Cops are a reactive force to crime, they get called to come solve it afterwards or show up 30 minutes after it happened. 

I think this tweet below sums up cops' crime solving ability.

(Tweet about cops)

Cops don’t actually solve, or even stop that much crime. In fact a report from 2019 in L.A. County found that sheriff’s spent 68% of their time doing officer initiated traffic stops. A whopping 88% of all sheriff activity is cop initiated. No wonder their beating people with pipes and squaring up with anybody who chirps them, they are fucking bored. These people are strapped with a gun and the right to kill and sent to just roam around poking and prodding at citizens who “fit the profile” aka are a minority. Did I mention that all but one of the police brutality cases I discussed before involved police officer/officers beating someone who was either Indigenous or Black. All more cops will do is simply make it so more minorities get harassed by police officers. Got to love that the “public service” we pay a shit ton of tax pay money into is essentially a gang that harasses those same tax payers. 

So if crime won’t go down with more officers what would actually make policing more effective? Well at the very minimum they need a whole new approach. Currently the only proactive method police have to stop crime is police initiated stops, which have a clear racial bias to them. In the study previously mentioned Black people face nearly double the officer initiated stop rates of any other race. This leads to the issues seen in Toronto where Black people face a much higher chance to be arrested and charged than any other race. The true extent of racially biased policing is seen in the fact that the same Black people who get arrested at a disproportionate rate in Toronto have the lowest conviction rate. Meaning when the crimes are actually brought to the court they are discovered to be bogus more than any other race. Clearly the decision to stop and arrest Black people at higher rates than any other race is fueled by a racist bias and not actual crimes being committed. These so called public servants act as a occupying force in communities, enforcing obedience whenever they can. 

Police deciding what is needed for the same people who pay them is a cruel reality for nearly every community in Canada and the U.S, unless you are rich of course. Luckily anti-police groups have been calling for a solution to this problem for years. 

Defunding the police is possibly one of the most misunderstood policy routes (by the media and politicians at least). Its detractors often don’t understand that the changes that would occur under a “defunding” process would ultimately benefit police officers. Defunding the police does not involve taking money away from police forces and throwing it in the air. The money that is taken from police forces would be reinvested into social services that could help the vulnerable in society, such as the homeless, mentally ill, and physically disabled. Police frequently have to deal with issues and situations that they are completely ill equipped to handle. This often results in people who are having mental health breakdowns getting shot or beaten to a pulp. Rather than having 3 police cars pulling up to a man having a mental health breakdown in the heart of a city, have someone who is trained extensively to deal with these types of episodes. Allowing for the person to be calmed down and eventually brought to a hospital where they can begin some form of treatment. Police will still be used in emergency situations that require their help, but police do not need to constantly be patrolling, turning routine traffic stops for issues that may not even matter into arrests, deaths, and beatings. 

Doug Ford unfortunately thinks that instead of more social services and community based care centers, we need younger and dumber cops. The fact that people can now from 19 begin the process of becoming a cop is terrifying. I do not want anyone below the age of 25 walking around with a fucking gun and harassing people. Studies have found that officers who are at the minimum college educated use less violence at a rate of 40%. This alone is a reason to require a college degree for officers. 

Perhaps the greatest irony of Ford’s new policy is free tuition for police officers. Making it so post-secondary education does not cost money is obviously a great thing. It has been proven over and over again that having a population who can readily access post-secondary education not only allows for great benefits for the individual but society as a whole. It also allows for greater social mobility and takes down the barriers anyone who doesn't have well off parents face trying to get an education. I grew up in a relatively lower class, we did not live paycheck to paycheck but I sure as hell never left the province as a kid. My parents worked hard to give me and my siblings what we needed but when it came to post-secondary education my parents could only do so much. I need several lucky breaks to be able to afford the entirety of my school, which basically just includes a bachelors of science. It required a relative living in the city I was going to school, an incredibly busy and tip happy summer job, full time work during school, a car that refused to quite out on me, an understanding of how to cook on a razor thin budget, friends who let me crash at their places and who were willing to drive me places, and finally a decent amount of cheating in school. A majority of lower class people will not have these breaks. 

The reason Doug Ford’s policy is so ironic is he wants to have the crime rate drop but instead of fixing the number one factor that causes crime he just chooses a policy that will further the struggle these people go through. Poverty is by far and away the factor that correlates the most to crime. It is as simple as when people are desperate to feed themselves and family they will do whatever it takes to achieve that. Of course providing free tuition to the lower class would immediately help address poverty in Ontario, but nah just cops get it. Fucking ludicrous, Ford is completely fine with allowing countless Ontarians to suffer in poverty as every aspect of their lives becomes more expensive and on top of that they will have dumber and younger cops harassing them every step of the way. The fact that cops have free tuition does not bother me that much, what bothers me is the fact that this isn’t the case for everybody. Poverty is the issue in this country, not crime. 

(Minneapolis precinct burning down)

Alright here comes the part of the piece where I no longer use any real studies or evidence and stop being nice to these sensitive pig motherfuckers. Have you ever stopped and asked yourself who is the type of person who becomes a cop? The answer is people who have something to prove. Rarely it is to prove they care and want to help society. Most of the time it is people who want to prove they are something. Whether it is people who got bullied, did the bullying, or flamed out in highschool they all want to just have a little taste of power. Policing as an institution then gives them this power and directs them to flex it on the working class. The same fucking class all this pig fucks came from. 

All cops function as, is a way to protect the capital of the rich through. Have you ever noticed rich people don’t deal with the police, in a negative manner at least? Cops are class traders who think they are protecting society, when in reality all they are doing is protecting the rich. ACAB.