The average school shooting is said to only last for roughly 12 minutes, while the average police response time is said to be around 18 minutes or more.
And in some instances, the time that it takes to be victimized could be even less, with the entire crime taking place within mere seconds. Unfortunately, the police often only show up after the crime has taken place, not beforehand.
Depending on where you live and what neighborhood you frequent, most of us don't need to deal with the threat of being victimized by a mugger or worry that we are going to be raped while we're walking to the grocery store or coming home from work.
I think if the rate of victimization were to increase, and people were being victimized on a more frequent basis, that it would only more clearly point out to us the glaring shortcomings of the current model that is allegedly set up for our protection.
The way that policing is designed today, in many ways isn't working to meet the needs of those who fund the service.
In some instances, you could find yourself waiting up to an hour for the police to arrive and help you.
And in that time there is plenty of damage that could be inflicted upon you, your loved ones, or your property. So it might leave you wondering, is this the only option that we could ever come up with as far as trying to keep our loved ones safe? Should there only be one option?
Perhaps an alternative option might provide superior results?
At the moment, we're only given one option as far as what service we want to see try and carry out the responsibility of protecting ourselves or our property. And when we aren't satisfied with their abilities, we can always opt for extra private security protection. But should we have to add on the extra so that we can try to make up for the inability of the first organization?
If we aren't satisfied with their performance, why can't we opt for something else instead?
It seems that with the current model, we are unable to render any effective review when it comes to the performance of those whose sole task it is to try and offer some semblance of protection.
How would you like that, if you were forced to order pizza only from one establishment every time that you wanted to eat dinner, and you were never allowed to choose anything different—regardless of the results and efficiency of their performance.
It's very difficult for the police to calculate the value in regards to the services that they provide, because they aren't receiving any revenue on the market. And for this reason it makes it difficult for them to prioritize various activities from one another. How do they know which is producing more value: patrolling the roads, raiding pot shops, investigating a burglary etc. It's no wonder that this has prompted many departments to focus on the more lucrative activities, such as civil asset forfeiture in relation to many non-violent victimless crimes.
Unlike government organizations that seek to provide the service, private security companies are going to pay real consequences when things go wrong and when customers are dissatisfied with their performance.
The responsibility of protection is an important one and it's a job (if you want or need delegated to someone else) that should be left for people to carry out who have your best interest in mind, should it not? After all, if they don't have your interest in mind, how could they provide you any honest protection? But we aren't given a choice, we are only left with the forced option that we face now. And the government's frequent shortcomings and failure to prevent dangerous and violent events from taking place, will only perpetually reconfirm how ill-suited they are to try and carry out this responsibility.
Pics:
Pixabay
Sources:
https://ijr.com/2016/03/554002-heres-how-long-on-average-it-takes-for-police-to-respond-to-a-911-call/
https://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2015/12/police-response-times
https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/15/us/florida-school-shooting-columbine-lessons/index.html
https://www.theguardian.com/public-leaders-network/2016/jan/16/police-controller-999-call-danger-officers