This is precisely like the situations which are present in every large company, where people fight to protect stupid, manual processes and digital paperwork in the name of justifying their existence at the company.
After cities fund these departments, people work very hard at justifying their employment, and trying to increase their metrics, to make it look like they're having an impact.
"We" recently ran afoul of the police because my son was caught having been handed an illegal substance in the high school bathroom. The investigator threatened us with prosecution for possession, then admitted it probably didn't rise to this action, and then ran down a litany of programs and counselors she could get our son involved with. I could tell she was salivating at the thought of getting our son put into these programs, just to be able to say something like, "We 'helped' 17% more kids this year; we need more funding!"
The investigator seemed to be on the hunt for names; we declined to have our son give a statement at all.
My wife is a counselor herself; we're dealing with that side of it.
After cities fund these departments, people work very hard at justifying their employment, and trying to increase their metrics, to make it look like they're having an impact.
"We" recently ran afoul of the police because my son was caught having been handed an illegal substance in the high school bathroom. The investigator threatened us with prosecution for possession, then admitted it probably didn't rise to this action, and then ran down a litany of programs and counselors she could get our son involved with. I could tell she was salivating at the thought of getting our son put into these programs, just to be able to say something like, "We 'helped' 17% more kids this year; we need more funding!"
The investigator seemed to be on the hunt for names; we declined to have our son give a statement at all.
My wife is a counselor herself; we're dealing with that side of it.