When I was working in the computer field, the standard response to just about every purchase decision was: “You’ve got three options: Good, fast, and cheap. Pick two.” Management seemingly always sacrificed good or fast for the purpose of “fiscally responsible management,” leaving us computer techies to deal with network failures, slow speed and user complaints.
Most of us have experienced the cost of “going cheap” on at least one occasion, and while sometimes we get lucky, our attempts at frugality far too often wind up costing us more in the long run than we would have paid if we’d chosen the better (but more expensive) option.
Car repairs can quickly mount up to more than you paid for that cheap used car. Buying a fixer-upper home and hiring the lowest bidder to fix it up can turn that inexpensive little bungalow into the highest-cost home in the neighborhood. Cheap shoes often not only wear out quickly but sometimes send us limping to the nearest podiatrist.
Still, this bargain-hunting, “get-the-best-for-less” mentality runs deep and wide through our American culture. In few places, however, is its falsity clearer than in police funding.
Last summer exploded nationwide with protests that ranged from peaceful gatherings for prayer to scenes seemingly out of some apocalypse-themed movie where it became impossible to identify the good guys from the bad.
In all of these public rallies, gatherings, protests, riots, or whatever label was assigned to a particular event, police officers were identified as both the guardians who protected the public and the villains whose actions caused the violent outbreaks.
Our police officers — the overwhelming majority of whom are the kind of people you’d want as your next door neighbors — became the unfortunate victims of “armchair quarterbacking” by those of us who have watched too many action movies followed by too many videos of police officers whose behavior did not match our live-action, fanciful expectations.
We expect much from our local law enforcement officers: We want them to be fully capable of Seal Team Sixing a hostage situation in the morning and comforting a lost child in the afternoon. We expect them to be able to extract accident victims from their vehicles and help keep them alive until medical help arrives, and we want them to pull over every idiot driver who performs a traffic violation — except us — and ticket them.
We demand our police officers be mental health experts in a crisis situation and also willing to take a bullet to prevent the death of a loved one. We question every “wrong” action we see in videos, and we give our opinions on how it could have been done differently without considering the split-second response time in which these officers have to make life-or-death decisions.
And we expect top-level performance from these police officers at the lowest possible cost to us taxpayers.
We seem to be asking ourselves, “What’s the least we can possibly spend to ensure that those of us who live here are safe from those people over there without infringing upon our own personal freedoms?
Shouldn’t we be asking instead, “How important is it to us to hire the best people possible and ensure they have the training and resources they need to keep our communities safe so that all residents can enjoy the freedom and privileges we expect as American citizens?”
The answer is not “defund the police.” The answer is to step back a pace and look at what we want in our future and how we can get there. Invest wisely, not just frugally, in proactive measures that will reduce the crime rate. Fund services that will lead the convicted back to being productive members of society whenever possible. Provide services for children, who far too often become the forgotten victims of crimes committed by their parents.
Above all else: Compensate the public employees performing these services at the level we’d want if we were the ones doing that particular job.
I think we’re worth more — and so are our police officers and others who strive toward making our local communities the best they can possibly become.
A lifelong resident of Hancock County, Linda Dunn is an author and retired Department of Defense employee. Send comments to [email protected].
