Illinois Dems push bill rewarding schools that replace armed officers with therapists

[Steve-French]

Democratic lawmakers in Illinois have drawn up a piece of legislation that would give extra cash to schools that reallocate funds toward replacing armed security officers with unarmed social workers and behavior therapists.

The controversial bill, proposed by Rep. Emanuel “Chris” Welch, D-Westchester, would offer grants to schools that use funds meant for school security and instead spend it on mental health services, including hiring social workers or implementing other practices "designed to promote school safety and healthy environments," as The Associated Press reported.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...t-replace-armed-officers-with-therapists.html

What's wrong with having both? I like the therapist idea, but I don't see what good it would do to take away armed guards.

 

[Shoemaker]

My reply was going to be the “why not both” taco girl, but I see you covered that.

SROs, good. Someone to help kids suss out their immature thinkings? Good.

 

[Amerikuracana]

Should a police officer in every school with more than 100 kids. Period. They sit behind the fkn liquer store for a couple hours at a time; they cruise the highways back and forth trying to write enough tickets to cover 90% of their gas, wage, and benefits for the day; and in the burbs if you get the common "husband yelling at wife" emergency, 8 fkn cars show up. A cop needs to be at every elementary school.. And every other school.. Not to harass the damn middle schoolers and figure out which 8th grader you can illegally search for vape paraphenelia, but to just be there to make sure nothing bad happens to our kids.

 

[Swing]

Even assuming that this works better overall, I can't be sold on the idea that we should only focus on preventing potential shootings at the expense of a school's ability to handle actual shootings as they happen. Prevention is the best medicine, but that doesn't mean you get rid of your surgical tools.

 

[oldshadow]

That makes as much sense as thinking that just making a school a gun/weapon free zone will protect the kids.

 

[Shoemaker]

Should a police officer in every school with more than 100 kids. Period. They sit behind the fkn liquer store for a couple hours at a time; they cruise the highways back and forth trying to write enough tickets to cover 90% of their gas, wage, and benefits for the day; and in the burbs if you get the common "husband yelling at wife" emergency, 8 fkn cars show up. A cop needs to be at every elementary school.. And every other school.. Not to harass the damn middle schoolers and figure out which 8th grader you can illegally search for vape paraphenelia, but to just be there to make sure nothing bad happens to our kids.

SRO at my high school didn’t care about anything kids did except assault and truancy. Beyond that, he was hands off.