I'm struggling to understand the defund-the-police movement. What I hear in the media is that law enforcement is overworked, unappreciated and experiencing high levels of stress, which has been blamed for some unacceptable behavior. This is something we should be spending more money on, hiring more officers and reducing overtime.

If we want to improve the quality of our officers, we need to improve the quality of the individuals hired and the training received. Both of these things could be achieved by raising the requirements to apply, raising the salary to compensate for the requirements and requiring a form of recertification. What we need is more funding, not less, and I appreciate that there are duties performed by law enforcement that could be done by someone without a badge, firearm or authority to arrest.

We do this with so many other career fields to make sure that we hire and retain the best possible people, but when it comes to law enforcement, the response is punitive instead of corrective. How would police unions stop this type of reform or be against improved wages, reduced overtime, less stress and improved quality of life for their members?

Rich Pineda, Graham

Newsprint | Sappi Global