Dear Editor:
RE: Resist the urge, Jan. 12.
Dave Adsett’s “battle cry” about his version of common sense in dealing with police funding and reviewing the budgets of what he labels the “publicly funded hangers-on” needs a reply.
Adsett and his collective “we” need to know that many readers are not astounded by professors and organizations employing frontline staff advocating for a reallocation of community resources.
We are the people who know that what Adsett believes is “theoretical spew” is in fact based on empirical evidence which shows that communities always fare much better when resources are allocated at the front-end of the system, instead of the back-end on enforcement and the penal system.
Contrary to what Adsett understands, these facts are known. Those communities have lower crime rates, reduced need for ever increasing police budgets, and are populated with educated citizens who don’t fall for the fear-mongering catchy slogans which inevitably result from a story about a good Samaritan getting ambushed as the only rationale being considered for a societal shift toward a police state.
That is what makes sense to the public.
David Fast,
Ariss