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by goodmunky 891 days ago
I suppose if you’re not American you may not know there was a defund the police movement in 2020 along with decriminalization of “urban camping” around the same time. As a result there are less police on the streets, more crime, and many more mentally ill and addicted homeless. See my home town of Austin, Texas for example. Just yesterday a teenager was hacked by a machete maniac at our town lake. Sane people are now more hesitant to walk many of our popular streets. As a side note, traffic on pedestrian fatalities are up because the mentally disturbed and intoxicated junkies wander into traffic fairly often.
2 comments
kadoban 891 days ago
> there was a defund the police movement in 2020

There was a decent amount of _talk_ for some time by mostly fringe figures. What major police departments were in _any_ way defunded by any stretch? None. Not one.

> along with decriminalization of “urban camping” around the same time

Again, where and exactly how?

What actually happened is largely that conservative news spent the year talking up crime and blaming the non-existent increase on their favored political foes.

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curmudgeon22 891 days ago
I suppose there were no full-on defunding, but it does look like there was some reduction in funding, which (from the article) is a trend reversal [1]

> With public pressure on them, mayors and city councils responded. In 2020 budget votes, advocacy groups won over $840m in direct cuts from US police departments

> Portland, Oregon, cut $15m from its budget

> Austin, Texas, has made some of the most dramatic changes in the country, directly cutting roughly $20m from the police department

1 - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/07/us-cities-de...

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pandaman 891 days ago
The afore-mentioned Austin had free-for-all "urban camping" 2019-2021 [1]. It took a referendum and a bunch of lawsuits to repeal.

1. https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/homeless/austin-camp...

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pandaman 891 days ago
The afore-mentioned Austin had free-for-all "urban camping" 2019-2021 [1]. It took a referendum and a bunch of lawsuits to repeal.
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wilg 891 days ago
Should clear up now that the Austin police budget is at an all-time-high, yes?
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