system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: Defunding the US police is realistically an awful idea.

I'm going to preface this by stating I'm not *just now* forming this opinion based on recent events, nor am I condoning the events that have transpired the past few months at the behest of certain police officers.

I'm currently a junior at a major university working towards a B.A. in Criminology. As I've worked on this, I have been an intern at one of the largest police departments in the state of Missouri. I have spent hundreds upon hundreds of hours assisting the department in any capacity they allow without me getting paid a cent.

I have been with officers while on patrol and provided backup to officers on multiple occasions. Most of my time however was in the training division of my department. I have assisted the training process of new police recruits through their 1200+ hour long academy(this number varies by department and state). I have helped recruit, train, and command the volunteer youth section of the department. 

With my background out of the way, my point here is very simple: *once you take away funds from the police they won't be able to train recruits effectively or to the standards of that department or state because they simply won't have the budget necessary to do so.* 

The department is going to divert funds away from the training division and allocate it to divisions where they already have full time officers that must be paid. This means recruits won't be getting paid for their 6+ month long academy, which in most cases is a full time job itself. 

The way police are trained is very reminiscent of the way the military trains its recruits. In case you don't know, the police are a paramilitary organization. Period. (whether I agree with this is another topic entirely) For recruits, it's not easy mentally or physically and for the department it's very expensive to do.

Along with the difficulty, not being paid for the training will in turn will reduce the number of applicants who want to become officers. And what many people don't know is that departments are already having a difficulties recruiting people for this job. People simply don't want to become cops. It's dangerous, it's hard, and the pay is absolute shit for years after becoming a full fledged officer. 

Departments will lower their standards to meet the demand. What does that mean? It means somebody you wouldn't let slide before will now have the chance to become an officer of the law.  

What's the reason for defunding the police? Poorly trained, bad officers. 

Some of these police brutality videos you see it is *clear* that the officer is poorly trained for the situation. They react based on fear/emotion instead of the reality of the situation. And quite frankly, some are just pieces of shit. There's no getting around it, there *will* be pieces of shit who become officers. This is with any occupation on the planet and it sucks. The difference here is that in this occupation you are required to have a firearm which is the equalizer to any altercation. Bad officers will abuse this. 

How do you weed those people out? Better training and more training. This requires more funding. 

Don't make a bad situation even worse by taking away something necessary to train officers.
gpt
This entire argument relies upon the argument that training is the only area where police can cut spending.

That seems like oversimplification. What about cutting equipment, firing the aforementioned ill trained officers, re-allocating tasks and cutting operating costs associated with that, and so on...