Police are asked to do too much

— Photo by Scott Davidson

From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com 

There’s something to be said for those fliers cropping up in Providence that say “Don’t Call the Police. Scan for Alternatives’’ around a bar code. The Providence Journal’s Madeleine List wrote about this in the Oct. 27 paper.

If you scan the QR code with your smartphone you’ll be taken to a Web site that lists agencies that city residents can use to obtain assorted services, such as for housing, mental health and substance-abuse issues.  These are things that the police don’t necessarily have to be brought into.

Unfortunately, Ms. List’s article says, the list also includes domestic violence. The police need to handle that.

The main point, to me, is that police are called upon all too often to act as social workers rather than as anti-crime and public-safety personnel. There’s no way that cops can be trained  and otherwise resourced to adequately address  all the problems that they’re unfairly called upon to face these days. School personnel are also increasingly asked to serve as social workers, especially in places with lots of dysfunctional and impoverished families, many with only one parent around – the mother. The more of these functions that can be spun off to specialized agencies the better.

Of course, some of these problems are intertwined. Much criminal behavior is caused by perpetrators’ mental illness. So you sometimes need to bring in the police and social services.