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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   3665 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 23, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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I'm interested in seeing the for and against for the argument that "crime is a result of social deprivation and social workers are a better use of money than police for solving it". The only arguments I can muster up in favour of policing are common sense ones which don't (though they should) pass muster in online debates.

Caveat: I want to either use this information to win internet arguments or concede the point in my own head and stop starting that argument altogether.

I would expect neither answer to be generally true.

(1) For example if people are stealing food because they are starving to death then distributing food would be an obviously good idea.

(2) If someone runs around with weapon and threatens to kill themselves/hostages/whoever then negotiation is likely a better idea than just charging with tanks like in Beslan school siege (or nerve gas like in Dubrovka Theater). Though combining both would work even better, and negotiations without threat of deadly force would be unlikely to work well. Except people on pure psychotic break I guess.

(3) If someone runs over pedestrians for fun then locking them up is an obviously good idea.

In typical sort-of-working country cases of the (1) type and (2) are rarer than (3).

The only arguments I can muster up in favour of policing are common sense ones which don't (though they should) pass muster in online debates.

If someone claims that gang of people systematically breaking in and stealing all valuable stuff would be solved if social worker would talk with them, then someone is really confused.

If someone claims that gang of people systematically breaking in and stealing all valuable stuff would be solved if social worker would talk with them, then someone is really confused.

Well the claim is usually that if there had been some type of non-policing interventions earlier in life than it never would have gotten to this point.

Well, but we do not have time travel.

So even if that would be true and would be used then criminals are capable of travelling from places where such ideal methods were not used.

So even if such methods would be 100% effective it is not changing that in some cases you will need to arrest people and jail/imprison them.

Also, no know methods fully preventing criminality exist anyway. Or at least they are not in use anywhere.

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