Class, please read this report on the 911 system (also found under the readings tab on OpenLab). What does the analysis on the 911 system reveal about the need in communities and how they be better addressed instead of calling the police? (Please also discuss anything else that comes to mind).
Please be sure to respond to at least *two* other student posts.
*Be sure to review the discussion board grading rubric found under Course Materials to know the expectations for participation*
The analysis on the 911 system reveals that communities need a deep systemic understanding of 911 calls. Many 911 calls for service are unrelated to crimes in progress. For example, blocked driveways, public intoxication, others include drug abuse, homelessness, or mental health crises, which are better resolved with community-based treatment or other resources. According to the report understanding the landscape of emergency, communications has value for police and public safety communications agencies. It is also crucial to developing a system that best serves the nation. Encouraging community members to report lower-level crimes through the department’s Internet reporting tool is significant to handle large volumes of calls of service. For example, incidents involving barking dogs are much better redirected to animal control. This is why communities need to have a better understanding of the 911 system, not for themselves but to help better the system.
I totally agree with you.
I really liked how you explained this
I agree to separating problems and bringing it down to contacting for help from our community instead of taking it straight to 911
Katherine, I think you exceptionally described the analysis of 911 calls. I think it is important you mentioned that it is crucial to have a system that “best serves the nation” because it does not put all blame on an uninformed community, but rather critiques the 911 system itself. It seems like more research is needed in order to reach a more productive process.
The 911 system reveals the need for better understanding the system in communities. Most of the time, when a caller calls 911, they report on “quality-of-life issues like noise, blocked driveways, or public intoxication” which can be solved with simple communication. Then there are “drug abuse, homelessness, or mental health crises that would be better resolved with community-based treatment or other resources”. Lastly, there are such problems as violent accidents, someone hurt, lost or in danger, etc., and can be solved with the need for police and or medical assistance.
You have explained the point so nicely.
I agree with you on what you said when people call for noise complain but that’s not 911 problem and that’s what they don’t understand
Hello Magaly, I agree with you since most 911 calls are not even due to real problems, things like noise complaints should really be minimal things because the time a cop takes investigating that noise complaint there could be a serious call happening at the same time, such as a hit and run, or even someone getting injured by a gun shot.
I agree as most of the calls are usually non threating. Shows you how society doesn’t take law enforcement serious.
Yep I agree that a lot of the problems people call 911 about would be better solved by simple communication! I feel like a lot of people would rather call the police than engage with their community, which just ends up alienating the neighbors even more
911 call is for emergency. Mostly to resolve life threatening issues. However lot of people do not understand that. Lot of people would call 911 for making a noise complaint. Some of them also call 911 for a blocked driveways. These problems can be solved just by simple co operation with each other amongst the community. But this is also true that not all of our communities have enough resources for solving some non emergency problem such as drug abuse or mental health related issues. These are very serious problem but we do not have to call 911 for that. We should find a different way to resolve that and make people more aware about the importance of calling 911.
Hey, saif I agree with your statement, like I previously said in the past post most people call 911 for minimal things. People often call some of them “Karens” since they would call the cops for almost anything, a disagreement at a store or even someone skating on the side walk or by a bench.
There are many Karen’s now a days and that’s the worse. I also believe 911 calls should be for emergency only and not minimal problems
I think that’s a good point that not all communities have resources for dealing with non-emergency problems like drug abuse and mental health — it is extremely unfortunate that they don’t, and that 911 and the police are often the go-to authority for dealing with them.
I totally agree with you.
The problem is that people doesn’t know who to really call in some points. People need to know the different call for 911 and policing. Sometimes people call 911 for crimes happening but not understanding that 911 is basically for an emergency when someone needs help right away because of an injury or an immediate danger
Yeah I agree with you, I feel we should send a message out to remind people that calling 911 is for emergency purposes.
The analysis on the 911 system uncovers that most emergency calls are not even because of wrongdoing, these calls generally come from objections, vagrants at a recreation center or at the metro. The greater part of these calls are irrelevant to wrongdoings in progress, police frequently react with the instrument that is generally natural and convenient to them: requirement. This debilitates police assets and opens innumerable individuals to avoidable criminal equity framework contacts. Individuals need to comprehend that we ought not to be calling the police because of somebody who’s twofold stopping or skating at a public spot, these are minor things that we can settle in our networks without help from anyone else. That being said we should utilize the crisis line for genuine crises and violations, for example, calling an emergency vehicle because of a physical issue, a shooting, burglary, or even battles.
In my whole life I was told that 911 calls were only for emergencies. In this article I can see that people just used that number for anything. Creating a system where you can get the right numbers to call in situations or a book sent in your mail would prevent minimal calls that really aren’t emergencies.
I thought the same thing which actually blew my mind. Reading this article I noticed the same thing you did and was shocked.
about people just calling for anything*.
Yes, there are even people who are frequent 911 callers! I like your idea of a phonebook of some kind or even the 911 system integrated in your smartphone could help determine when to emergency call or not.
Reading this article made me aware of that communities need to understand what 911 is called for, and not just the basic of which everyone knows, but to go deep into it because I was shocked when reading this article that most of the call that 911. call takers received aren’t calls where crimes is actually being committed. It made me think of videos that go viral where a white female (known as Karen’s) call 911 to “report” a child selling lemonade or using their bikes and or things they do not like. Which is crazy because I feel like when things like that happen it takes away time from the 911 call taker to respond to someone who actually is needing the help of police officers. I don’t know if any one you watched a tv show called Emergency call on abc, its really good it about 911 call takers and you get to hear the call they pick up and see the stress they go through sitting there picking up calls after calls.
That is the problem in todays society as they view law enforcement as a joke but don’t understand that police officers could be saving another person whos actually at risk. I think society needs to separate their negative views on bad officer and not to all.
911 call is made in for emergency as stated by saif ali. Many residents will dial 911 and report a noise problem or a problem that’s non threating . The issues like these can be easily apprehended by speaking now if the situation isn’t fixed and the person is acting hostile then yes 911 is needed. To prevent phone calls to officers who are attending serious manners their should services for that. New services that could work like 911 would definitely be an improvement and another safety measure that we can have like the citizen app which I’m sure has saved lives.
The analysis in the report on the 911 system shows that quite a lot of calls to 911 do not require a police or even an emergency response, and needs of the callers in many communities would be better addressed by a different, non-emergency call system and/or by having public service workers besides police respond to certain calls.
The report explains that the most commonly used category by 911 operators is “other,” first showing that 911 callers will use 911 to report all kinds of things, most likely not intended to be reported to 911, and not likely to require a police response, at least in principle, even if that is the standard procedure in any given locality.
The actions taken by the Tucson Police Department to have non-sworn personnel respond to many types of non-emergency calls, to have appointment-based responses for some non-emergencies, and especially to transfer calls to more appropriate services when needed all seem like especially good options for reducing when police respond to 911 calls, both allowing the police to focus on their core responsibilities and by reducing the number of police responses, reducing the number of interactions that may become escalated just by police presence.
American citizens, police departments, and government agencies are not running as smoothly as they could be regarding emergency response systems. Communities need to be better addressed on when to call 911, and when to call other non-emergency numbers in a time of need. There is a lot of research and innovation yet to be done to better understand the analysis of calls that could help create a better 911 system. Because the area is underresearched, communities lack proper policy and practice. Many calls to 911 can be better directed to other non-emergency lines such as 211 or 311 that could provide other non-police help such as assistance from health or animal services. Crisis hotlines are also alternative response services that specialize in mental health crises. Proper structure within police departments is also vital to sorting calls of all variety that can be dealt with by nonsworn personnel. Call types and coding based on research would better inform agencies’ response decision making. Overall, calls need to be better filtered in order to prioritize what officers need or do not need to respond to, and citizens need to be educated on who to call in a time of need.