City hall opposition gets brighter all the time
City hall opposition is getting brighter all the time, wanting a police patrol to comb young people’s web presence looking for threats of violence, and criticizing the mayor for “not having been present” after the shootings last week. They think it’s better if elected representatives grab the focus and grandstand after a story like this?
Ephraim 20:14 on 2022-08-10 Permalink
The police can hardly figure out how to boot their computer, never mind combing people’s web presence. It’s the biggest argument for the consolidation of forces… the ability to hire IT personnel who actually know what they are doing.
Kate 09:05 on 2022-08-11 Permalink
What concerns me about this is: how would they begin? Would they get lists of names from high schools? Would schools be obliged to participate and would the students, or their parents, have the right to opt out? And would the cops, as they do, focus on north‑end schools and select names that “sound Black” to focus on?
Would the cops even be able to figure out Snapchat and TikTok?
I have this image of the cops figuring something out, and then realizing the “kid” is now 23 and working for a bank.
It’s a comment on a different story, but after I wrote this I remembered this Côté cartoon.
Ephraim 10:28 on 2022-08-11 Permalink
They can’t, they don’t have the knowledge nor the know-how. It’s really a job for CSIS. And even there, I don’t know if they have the manpower. And really, the people they should be telling this to are social workers, not the police.
The thing is, we are again asking the police to do a job that isn’t theirs to do. This is (likely) caused by the lack of school counselors in the system. They are supposed to catch these problems at a young age and be able to intervene. And sometimes these interventions are small but meaningful. For example, when you have a child and the parent appears to be an absentee parents (or neglectful). They intervention might be a simple as having the parent understand their position in the child’s life and the gentle encouragement that it takes… but as difficult as actually having that child moved out of the household because of substance abuse. But combing the child’s social media isn’t going to find this
But the earlier we intervene for the welfare of the child, the sooner that we prevent something showing up later in the social media. This is a time we need social workers and counselors, not police.