Larke - The Uniform Reporting Law Enforcement Improvement Act

[BarryBobPosthole]

What is it? Are we fer it or agin it?

Is it a federal prosal?

BKb

[Captain]

It is a continued effort to have all states and jurisdictions to report crime the same so comparisons will be more accurate. For example we may classify a home break-in as just that, whereas another state may list the same offense as a burglary.
In North Carolina a home that is broken into during the daytime is a breaking and entering. If it happens at night it's called burglary. If it happens at night when someone is home it's called 1st degree burglary. If it happens during the day with someone home it's called a home invasion.
Each state has its own "elements" of crimes thus making it hard to compare crimes from state to state nation wide.
This is an effort not to make states change their laws to be the same but to try to have offenses reported the same nationally so better and more accurate data can be compaired.
I hope I have not confused you.

[BarryBobPosthole]

Then it sounds like a good thing.

BKB

[Captain]

And on re-read it is data collected by every local and state law enforcement agency and submitted to the state and they compile it and forward it all to the FBI who acts as clearing house for comparison stats.
I was in Law Enforcement long before this came along. I remember in the beginning stages it literally was one person within the local agency reading every report and making hash marks on a piece of paper as to what they thought the "crime" fit and then counting the marks and entering them on a tally sheet and submitting them to the state
Years of that and with the introduction of computers a UCR code was made for each offense and entered at the time a report was taken making monthly reporting much easier.
I cannot think of any reason to be against it unless you are the person in the agency that has to do the monthly audit of the reports and fix all the officers screw-ups

[Captain]

It makes it easy to get factual comparison of any offense you want
Note the address at the bottom of the image where this data cam from.

IMG_3894.JPG

[BarryBobPosthole]

One of the things I think we have to somehow find a way to account for is all the mentally ill people that cops have to deal with. I think a good many of the police shootings, with both cops and citizens as the victims, is mental illness. Seems to me like this might help shed some light on e actly how much and what kind of that kind of stuff they deal with.

Who is sponsoring this bill, do you know?

BKB

[DeputyDog]

That's a good thought but one of the problems with it is HIPPA. Access to medical records is hard to get and then you have the same problem of different interpretations in different jurisdictions. Some places might consider depression "mental illness" and there are a lot of people out there without an actual medical diagnosis.

[BarryBobPosthole]

Agreed. I guess building standards for both identifying and training for how to deal with it is what I'd hope would come out of something like this.
I'm not sure we'll ever get all of the mentally ill off the streets, but we sure as hell ought to help our law enforcement deal with it.

BKb

[DeputyDog]

In my experience the biggest problem with the mental health system is they put people out into society and expect them to be able to medicate themselves. They function very well while they are taking their meds and the system won't pay to have them in some type of supervised setting so they are put out on the street. The first thing they do is stop taking their meds and they become a problem. I won't say most, but a lot of them have no support system and are left on their own. I'm not saying everyone with a diagnosed mental illness should be locked up or hospitalized but if they need to be medicated and have no support to make sure they are when they are not in an inpatient setting, they fall into a destructive pattern and in my opinion the system has failed them.

[BarryBobPosthole]

The people I knew that died by suicide or by cop had addiction problems. I suppose that is one form of mental illness.

The war on drugs has created a huge part of the mental illness problems we face, when we imprison them instead of treat them. I know that flies in the face of some conservative beliefs. And I know there is a big part of that population that can't be helped. But i'm not sure what putting them in prison solves either because they'll become career criminals then.

Tough issue,

BKb

[DeputyDog]

I wasn't talking about jail or prison for those with mental illness but some type of supervised halfway house or something similar so that there is someone making sure they are taking their meds like they are supposed to do that they can function in society and not outside of it.