I see a lot of people saying "Defund the police doesn't mean no police". Ok, fine.
But it's a shitty slogan that, regardless of actual meaning, is doing more harm than good. Normal people don't get the nuance. To them it just sounds like the "defunders" want to get rid of all police. And normal people think that is a very fucking bad idea.
Do you know what regular people do when they are worried about their safety, children or their property? They vote in candidates who are tough on crime.
I think for meaningful police reform the slogan needs to change. You need to get normal people on board. "Defunding" is not the way to do that.
I read another comment elsewhere with which I totally agree. I think we're at a tipping point in the US where if the slogan was "End the War on Drugs" you're likely to get majority support, and ending the war on drugs would do more than any single thing to bring about social justice in the US.
Contrast that with "defund the police", the goals of which are amorphous even from its supporters, and if you don't think calls to defund the police are met with stares and questions like "are you insane" in any place besides mid-to-large urban areas in the US, you really need to pop your social bubble.
For better or for worse in a democracy you need to convince the majority (or near majority) of the population over to your side. The slogan "defund the police" is not the way to do it.
We have tech to monitor ppl wherever they go, we could easily monitor these people w/ ankle bracelets etc and make sure they're behaving. We could require them to go to therapy and figure out the root of why they do what they do, you know what you'd do w/ a child who's acting out and misbehaving....
Maybe we curtail a lot of issues.... Save prison for pedophiles, rapists, murderers, assaults, etc....
Thanks to the opioid epidemic, this is no longer true. There are huge swaths of rural and Rust Belt America that now realize that the criminal justice approach to a drug problem is counter productive.
OK I admit pique and curiosity at the downvote. There are mathematical models which can be used to measure gerrymandering.
And the way in which the Electoral college disempowers lots of people (a vote in an 8 million person city counts less than one in Ohio, or a small town in Wisconsin) is easily verifiable.
One might disagree with ethical implications which can be drawn from these facts, but, these facts are facts, and there's even math to back it up.
Most people are sympathetic to the protests but that doesn't mean there won't be a "law and order" backlash if they feel changes to policing are making them less safe. It's definitely happened before.
Personally I'd go with "Reform the Police" or "Police the Police". Or maybe "De-Militarize the Police" which is not the only goal but one with broader support.
Just as a slogan, "Reform" is too boring and vague. "Police the police" is catchy but sounds more about oversight, which is not really the idea here. I thought of "Reduce the police", which might get broader support than "defund", but isn't as catchy and maybe still wouldn't get majority support. Polls show the police are still popular, though obviously and justifiably less popular lately. I suspect these calls for defunding (and abolition) are going to scare public opinion back in the other direction, which is a pity, since there really is a reform position to stake out here. For example, I bet even most police offers don't want to be the ones to have to deal with mental illness, addiction, and homelessness. A moderate and non-scary reform movement would surely get massive public support at this time, while a radical one is likely to provoke a counterreaction. It probably always works that way though, and eventually something comes out of it anyhow.
Maybe let BLM pick and setup their own police inspectors and have some oversight over an agency that polices the police. Instead of D.A. handling cop cases it would be members of this agency (they'd have lawyers who handle prosecutions - their own D.A.). Could be on a national or state by state level.
I think most people do not see most teachers as the basic problem in public schools. E.g. polls show overwhelming support for paying teachers more. The same has been true of police, but less so - Maybe that's changed?
If people perceive most of the workers as the basic problem in addition to the management and the government, which they rarely do, but police may now be an exception, I don't see why the union should be spared.
This is worrying to many on the left, since it implies that unions could be bad. The ideologically consistent viewpoint is that the very concept of policing itself is so evil that it taints even associated unions.
That sounds like it goes in the opposite direction, we need police to have MORE not LESS oversight and be under more scrutiny and actually get punished (probably 2-3x the sentence of a non-officer).
I agree that to a lot of people, defund seems to imply abolish, which is not a great position. On the one hand, I think the word choice is somewhat purposeful, as it's designed to sound extreme and appeal to people who see the police as an extreme problem. On the other hand, it definitely lends itself to purposeful misrepresentation by opponents.
That said, I think given the popularity of the movement, the phrasing doesn't necessarily doom it. It's a popular enough phrase now that it's getting explanatory media coverage (I just saw the last John Oliver, where he explained that defunding the police doesn't mean abolishing them, and there's lots of other articles out there if you Google "defund the police"), and since the idea behind it is good, once people understand it I think there's a reasonable likelihood they get on board.
With all that in mind, I actually still struggle to come up with better phrasing that's both strong enough and also clearer in meaning. The obvious phrase would be "reform the police," but police reform has been talked about too much already and hasn't been effective as previously described, so that's got too much baggage to be good. "Fix the police" could be okay, but it's too general. "Redistribute the police budget to a wider range of services" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. It's a tough one.
Abolish has it's merits, assuming they replace it after abolishing. Abolish is more.... tear down and rebuild back up something similar but re-imagined... maybe following the Swedish model.
But, really the police system is so draconian, might we not be better w/out it than we are now? I mean have you seen the videos of mayhem at the hands of the police, it's hard to think of them at all in a positive light. I mean, did Germany keep the S.S.
Cops are literally murdering, abusing, and going rogue - and may actually be fully infiltrated by purpose by white power extremists.
Some of the cops responsible for Eric Garner dying, actually wore t-shirts saying "I Can Breath" for fuck sake. Mayhem would be better than police inciting of mayhem. All the rioting, looting, etc didn't happen in a vacuum the COPS CAUSED IT by their corrupt actions.
Or phrased another way, meaningful improvements don't fit inside snappy slogans. Which in turn means they don't really fit inside protest movements.
Obama wrote an essay about this. He said the only way to get meaningful change is to get involved in local politics. "Vote in municipal elections" is not a slogan that will appeal to the kinds of people who are fanatical BLM activists though.
But I think it's healthy that actual defunding is on the table now. The police need to be accountable. It may be a solution to the police union problem. Defund, start over without the union.
The point isn't to save money. It's to force reform by taking away the current police department's money.
(This is an excellent example of why the "defund" slogan is confusing; however, of the other suggestions I've seen in this thread, I haven't seen any that make clear the level of change that's needed.)
What do you expect to happen when you take away their ability to pay for reform?
I can think of a few things that will require more money: better/longer training for officers, and doing more investigations into citizen complaints. That stuff isn't free.
When you defund an organization and at the same time demand it does better, you create a siege mentality among the members of the organization. They will get worse, not better.
In a lot of places cops are paid for training and on the job while training. Why not have it be a 2-4 year training that they actually pay for out of pocket? You know like every other field in America?
Why should we subsidize their training?
Furthermore, maybe we make sure cops have 1 vest, 1 badge, 1 gun in a holster, ammo, and 1 tazer. Ban assault rifles, use USED cars, get rid of tanks, armored vehicles, etc... Get rid of tear gas, and explosive ordinances. Basically take away a LOT of their toys.
So gun, car, badge, uniform, vest, payroll and that's it. No paying any money at all to unions. Maybe even save some money for performance bonuses if they can lower their brutality outcomes as a collective body. Cops w/out any reports get like a 5k bonus at the end of the year. 20k after 10 years, etc...
At least in the cases where I've heard specifics, the intention is to essentially disband the existing police department and start a new one, that doesn't have the old bad police officers or the old union, protecting them from the consequences of their lawbreaking.
And whilst you're building a new police force from scratch, who will be doing the policing in the meantime? Who will be appointed to create this new police force and how will they be chosen? What will they do the first time one of their new police officers gets shot? What will the city do if the brand new police force is incompetent because none of them have any experience? And then if they decide to unionise too?
Rebuild it from scratch rarely works out well in software. It's hard to imagine it working better for an entire police force.
Well, that's not really building a new police force. She says the new force was largely made up of the same people as the old one. That's re-interviewing/re-assessing everyone, calling it firing+hiring is perhaps meaningful from a legal or contractual perspective, but from an outcomes perspective they could have done a rolling perf review + firings with new management and a big focus on cultural change, whilst preserving continuity of service. There was no discussion that they actually stopped policing for a few months whilst they did this re-assessment, so I suspect they were "fired" in a sense but were being told they'd still have a big chance to get their old jobs back. Otherwise a rolling "fire" and "rehire" wouldn't have worked.
That said whatever they did and whatever it was called, it apparently worked. But I wonder if that was due to this re-culturing vs the more practical aspect of using body cameras.
It doesn't appear to mention it in that article, but one aspect that gets brought up a lot with regard to remaking the police departments is replacing the union. In many cases, it's the local police union that's actively working to prevent investigation or prosecution of police misconduct and crimes.
Firing and re-hiring everyone, legally and contractually, lets you get rid of the existing union and work on building a new one that's actually focused on what a police officers' union should be focusing on: protecting good police officers from abuse and corruption from above, negotiating salaries and job conditions, etc., much like any other workers' union.
I worry it's a shitty slogan that will undercut real change.
Many will think it's no police, hence no police brutality, only to learn it's really just a re-organization of the police. Potentially a minor one, as many (most?) haven't shared details.
Cynically, it seems an effort to take away attention from real reform, such as eliminating qualified immunity or banning police unions.
If huge swaths are pushing for defunding, wouldn't this spur the more conservative dems/gop to say oh shit, half measures aren't going to work, if we DONT reform, we're gonna get abolishment or more riots?
I mean seriously, this is a watershed moment in history unlike we've ever seen before and might ever see again. Real reform may come by getting strong on 'defund', and instead we end police unions...
Abolitionism may be just ending all police unions, that could be a big enough abolition to end a lot of this systemic bullshit. (That combined w/ ending choke holds, qualified immunity, and prosecuting cops and not holding them accountable).
so the slogan is the problem, not the current policing regime, or the perceived benefits to ~200M people incentivized by comfort or complacency to keep that regime in place?
any slogan will be disparaged by vested interests. let's try not to distract from the core issue.
> so the slogan is the problem, not the current policing regime
No, that's not what OP is saying at all. They're saying that the goal is good, but the slogan misleads people who haven't put in time to understand it. And most people haven't put in time to understand it, and won't based on the slogan. The goal is great, but the slogan is hurting the goal.
It's akin to "single payer" in the health insurance context. If you're not already well-versed in the subject, you probably won't know what it means, because it's focusing on the process rather than the intended result.
Why should the message be diluted to reduce normal people's fears?
It's explicitly demanding an alternative system to one that has for decades instilled fear of violence towards Black folks.
I support the slogan, and the weight behind it. The intention is to spark discomfort in normal people, change won't happen when normal people feel comfortable.
I feel like the same quote-unquote “normal people” (I think it’s a dangerous term because it’s unquantifiable and can be used to justify anything) you describe here have also been passive contributors to the racial violence of police departments across the US for years now.
So I challenge your logic and your assumptions.
If anything the last two decades of American politics have shown that a highly-mobilized and engaged minority, if they have leverage over officials via money or votes, is able to shift policy _despite_ opposition from a numerical majority of people.
Whatever the reason be it cultural, environmental, or ?? the US violent crime rate even removing all gun related incidents is still significantly high then most other first world countries.
Agree. Now imagine that the public have over 8 million (maybe as many as 15 million) semi-automatic "military-style" rifles. (These are the NRA's numbers, FWIW — I don't think anyone knows the number of AR-15s, etc. are in U.S. citizens possession.)
I'm not sure what relevance the number of civilian-owned rifles ("military-style" or otherwise) has to the daily life of a police officer. concealable weapons (mainly pistols) are of much greater concern when interacting with the public.
Yes, I think semi-auto pistols (concealed or otherwise) are likely a bigger concern for police for things like traffic stops.
I can't seem to find the number of semi-automatic pistols, only the larger number of firearms (all types) — thought to be close to or over 300 Million in the U.S.
I think the bigger problem is that we completely underfund mental health, education, and community oriented programs, and then ask an armed police force to pick up the slack.
That's really what "defund the police" does. The police union has a toxic contract with the police department. By dissolving the counterparty of the contract, you remove it from the equation. New law enforcement agencies can start from scratch without the weight of either the contract or, initially, any of the problematic personnel.
So having seen many ground up rewrites of code I have to ask how do we make sure that when we redo the police we avoid the problems we got this time around?
Police toxicity is a path-dependent phenomenon. We got here by decades of incrementalism, where politicians, many of whom were, at the time, avowed racists, agreed to various aspects of civilian-police relations. Simply starting over today with current civilian leadership to draft a new doctrine guarantees a dramatically different outcome.
My local police union has been called out multiple times for publishing racist things in their newsletter and literally nothing has come from it. They can openly publicize in print that they're racist and continue policing. They also blame "antifa" for any anti-police action without investigating.
There's a reason most other labor unions don't want anything to do with cops joining. A police union is closer to a mafia family that protects its members instead of a traditional labor union.
I've heard the same line of argumentation used against all kinds of labor unions though. e.g. "teachers unions are failing our kids because they protect bad/apathetic/partisan teachers" or "auto unions are why American auto companies are failing since they protect workers who work 30 minutes a day and slack off the rest".
> "auto unions are why American auto companies are failing since they protect workers who work 30 minutes a day and slack off the rest".
I grew up in Flint, MI and my father was an electrical engineer at one of the 3 major automakers. We would frequently go to the auto plants for school field trips. I remember one particular trip where we were walking around the production floor and there was a guy just sitting in a chair sleeping right in the middle of everything. Nobody seemed to think it was a good idea to wake him up. Everyone just worked around him like he wasn't there. It was kind of surreal.
I'm not saying that proves the point in your quote above, but the unions were notorious for making it impossible to fire employees even if they showed up drunk or high or didn't do their jobs. They also didn't seem to be protecting workers interests very well, as their wages have stagnated for decades and they've lost the great benefits they used to have. It doesn't mean unions are a bad idea, but the auto unions seemed to be a particularly bad implementation.
There's something to this argument, in my view. I think that unions are torn between serving the "labor movement" for lack of a better term, and serving the narrow interests of their most senior or influential members.
I grew up in a suburb of Detroit at a time when the auto industry was contracting. What I recall was that senior assembly line workers (my neighbors) were working 60 hour weeks and pulling down overtime pay, while junior workers were getting laid off.
Naturally, unemployed people had no union representation at all, and this was a perfect opportunity for politicians to start stoking anti-union resentment amongst the working class, which persists today.
Meanwhile as I recall in one of the European countries, perhaps Germany, the unions negotiated with the government and agreed to a 4 day work week, in order to keep a larger number of workers employed. As reported in the US, this became fodder for "those lazy Europeans and their 4 day work weeks."
In the US, the car companies reacted by pulling the plug on entire factories and moving them to anti-union states.
Well sure, I am only human after all, but trying to have a discussion based off of what I perceive is going on in someone's head rather than based on the merit of the argument is usually not a fruitful way to have a discussion. Further, I have personally lived through experiences where bad teachers have been protected by the union, including a teacher who made a pass at students but was ultimately protected by the union. Years later, that teacher was eventually let go, but it was only after said teacher made some unsavory comments on social media and the school faced a ton of backlash because of it. That experience did not change my view on unions even though I felt that they should have been fired a very long time ago.
Police unions are different than others in that they are the only group allowed to impose violence on other citizens. No issue with dismantling unions if it is not found to be an optimal organizational solution to minimizing harm.
I think the police's role in state sanctioned violence is a fair distinction, but is violence the only important factor? I have seen a lot of arguments against unions for e.g. harming children by protecting bad teachers; some would argue that the education of future generations underpins a large section of systematic inequality within our society, including poverty and crime, which are issues that also happen to intertwine with the problems surrounding police violence. Bad cops are easier to spot than bad teachers so I understand the impulse to dismantle systems that openly protect them, but I am not convinced that unions themselves are actually the issue.
In most cases, the net harm is actually minimal, e.g. increased levels of incompetence, drinking on the job doing paper work, forcing bosses to outsource, slower delivery times, etc.
In the case of police though, harm can be quite high when bad apples are protected.
Because the unions have much more power than labor negotiations, including being able to decide what laws and policies apply to the police departments.
How is it that police unions can determine what laws apply to police departments? I've never heard of that, could you point me to where I could read up more on that?
So the article seems to present the typical argument against unions, i.e. "they protect bad employees", but ultimately the story concludes with the creation of a new union that negotiated an improved and ostensibly successful deescalation policy as part of the labor agreement. I don't think article presents a convincing case that unions are the problem.
But if you don't like BuzzFeed or John Oliver, it's trivial to find articles about the harms caused by police unions from sources across the political spectrum.
In the abstract, conceptually, unions aren't a problem. I love unions! But police unions have such a long and consistent pattern of making police worse that I'm not sure any police union can maintain good things for more than a year or two.
I would be pro-police-union if police unions worked like all other unions, fighting for better pay and conditions for their members. That's just not how police unions work in the USA.
P.S. As you say, the article mentions a new police union that so far seems to be okay. It should be noted that union was formed after completely dissolving the existing police force of Camden, NJ, and all of its contracts, including the contract with the existing police union. Time will tell whether the new union starts to be a problem or not, but certainly starting under the threat of "act up and we will dissolve the entire police force again" is a good start.
A number of ways, for instance from what I read in the New York Times article a couple days ago. First is direct political activity -- anybody in city governance who crosses the union loses their seat in the next election.
Second, the union contract can effectively dictate how laws are enforced on the police, e.g., the what the disciplinary mechanism is like, so the laws become un-enforceable.
Third is through labor action such as work-to-rule.
When most people hear "defund the police" they assume it means cutting police budgets, and perhaps also involves repurposing money for social services. But reforming any organization generally takes more money, not less -- for example, things like more/better/longer training for officers and better handling of citizen complaints all cost money.
Both of the generally accepted options would have bad outcomes: a society without any policing, or police departments mandated to reform without the funding necessary to succeed.
Many police organizations have been violating rights and abusing people for decades; saying that they need more money before they fix their problem just astonishes me. Do you really think the populace will trust them to change?
If someone's been violating your trust for an extended period of time, they need to earn it back before you give them anything they want.
Many federal government organizations have been violating rights and abusing people for decades; saying that they need more money before they fix their problem just astonishes me. Do you really think the populace will trust them to change?
If someone's been violating your trust for an extended period of time, they need to earn it back before you give them anything they want.
Well, I don't know if they can. The analogy that comes to mind is that of an long-term abusive spouse: When you threaten to leave, they say they'll change, they just need a little time and your help. Do you believe them?
If the goal is to prevent police brutality, it seems like it would be more effective to deal with the problem directly - punish police officers who use excessive force.
Derek Chauvin, the officer charged for murdering George Floyd, has had 18 previous complaints against him [0]. If police officers can get away with using excessive force, then they might think that it's acceptable behavior.
Reducing the police force by 20% could reduce police brutality by 20%. But you're also reducing legitimate police activity by 20%.
I'd rather see efforts focused on getting justice for victims of police brutality and excessive force.
>If the goal is to prevent police brutality, it seems like it would be more effective to deal with the problem directly - punish police officers who use excessive force.
Create laws that make it clear what counts as excessive police force. Create a government body whose job is to investigate and prosecute officers charged with excessive force.
In the states, many of these laws are on a state by state basis. We could see something at the federal level, and then we have one more law that will be contended by someone. Even if a law where to be written, with more specifics, we still have interpretation in the judicial system which can take many years to become tested and understood enough.
The scope of what we consider "legitimate police activity" is too large and this call is to reduce that scope as well. A 20% reduction in police activity is not an unfortunate byproduct, it's the direct result that people are calling for.
Reducing the police department's scope may be a good call. I just don't think it will have the effect that people are hoping it will have - stopping police brutality.
It's similar to how some people thought going to war with Iraq would be retribution for 9/11. But the Iraq War just caused more problems. Dealing with the problem directly was a lot more effective (going after the people responsible for 9/11 - Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda).
If people want fewer police, that's one thing. But if people want to end police brutality, I think we should take that on directly.
It's a hard question because many "social services" calls are violent. Do we expect a social worker to protect a child from an abusive parent? Do we send both an officer and a social worker? How do we know the people calling 911 were accurate in their description of the situation or that it won't escalate?
Regardless, I agree that the dialogue is important and overdue.
Right but on the other side, how many situations escalate because now they have an armed person with a few months of training on the scene.
"Do we expect a social worker to protect a child from an abusive parent?"
This already happens a lot. Often police can't do anything substantive unless there's a crime in action or some existing record. A social worker might be the only safe long-term presence around (and availability/quality of social workers is an enormous problem). Removing children from their homes can often put them in the foster system, which is also woefully inadequate and has funding/employment issues.
If it doesn't come from defunding the police, I think the major piece to take away from this overall conversation is that Americans are in dire need of better social programs that can better treat these things before policing is needed.
At the moment we have a weak mental health system and an overbearing policing system. It's no wonder our prisons are filled, our homeless have rampant addiction issues, and people are getting shot on the street.
Having done work as an EMT, people get violent on their own volition more often than you may think. Completely anecdotal but I've seen dozens of drunk/high/mentally ill etc people attack others and zero incidents where the cops escalated the situation.
It seems to me that cops/no cops each has its own pros and cons and neither is a clear "right" solution.
We definitely need more mental health support and less frivolous prosecution for things like drug possession and homelessness. Social programs would (hopefully) go a long way in addressing some of these at their root cause.
Progressives are notorious for clutching defeat from the jaws of victory. Why are not calling this "reform the police" or "police aren't social workers" or "invest in prevention instead of police". The are literally hundreds of things we can call it that the majority of Americans would get behind. I find it very frustrating because there is much better ways to deal with a variety of issues like homelessness, drug addiction, and even some traffic stops, but the slogan is going to keep that from happening.
The takeaway from these events is clear: There are a very large portion of Americans who live in a separate world from you, where "defund the police" does sound like an ideal goal, and police interactions are solely a source of danger.
Because the police are there to protect property of the upper class, it may be hard for a member of the upper class to envision a functioning society without those protections. However, what these demonstrations are trying to show is that there is a large portion of society in which the police are simply an oppressive force.
I don't know what "a very large portion of Americans" is, but if the question is "should we get rid of all police? " I would be very surprised if more then 10% of people agree with that.
One idea I've seen is the idea that a dollar of funding spent elsewhere can reduce crime more than a dollar of funding spent on policing. This isn't true for every dollar, as funding often comes with diminishing returns. For example, $400k away from police but instead spent in youth programs will give kids more ways to engage in the activities which reduce their likelihood of being engage in petty crimes due to boredom.
As for those demanding full defunding, I doubt they actually want that. Demanding exactly what they want would be a bit like walking into a salary negotiation and starting with the salary you are willing to accept.
Disciplinary policies are "on the table" in negotiations between many city governments and police unions. Taking away funding for salaries will actually add more pressure to make other concessions, which will make the police brutality problem even worse. Collective bargaining with police (for these concessions, at least) needs to end now.
The need for policing is not going to disappear. If we don't have trained professionals, we'll have untrained amateurs. Doubt that will be an improvement.
It's ironic that you say that because the whole reason we have so many problems with police is because they aren't trained in many important areas like dealing with mental health. If instead we specialized the police more and moved funding to other social services, we'd have much better trained professionals which it seems like you're in favor of.
"Defund the police" doesn't mean taking away all police. It just means reducing funding and reducing responsibilities of the police to avoid them becoming a catch-all for any civil issue.
It seems there's a debate between people who mean "defund" literally, that is, who want to abolish police, and people who are trying to moderate or (depending on your perspective) dilute the idea. The first group seems to have been at it for longer. If so, they must resent their slogan and their idea being coopted in this way.
Interesting article, thanks for sharing! That everyone seems to have different definitions of what "defund the police means" and urge each other not to take the meaning too literally whereas others do take it literally reminds me a lot of Peter Thiel and his comments about not taking Trump literally during the campaign.
Okay, but in that scenario, that private police officer won't have the collective benefit of a public union. A DA won't be biting the hands that feed them if they choose to prosecute a private police officer.
And the poor are dying from a death of a thousand social services cuts- diminished mental and physical health services, childcare and teen programs, etc. It's not unreasonable to assess whether local spending on police and other services can be re-balanced for better community outcomes.
DA are elected. Voted[in by the same people who want a powerful private police force.
I think it would go the other way and protections would be granted to these private forces when they are asked to take over public enforcement in public spaces.
They also wouldn't be bound by same standards police have now. DAs wouldn't have access to public information they have now because the information would be private. Nor would private police be forced underlaw to declose facts. That notepad that gets handed in doesn't exist nor does the body camera footage.
Don't say it can't happen because many prisons are private and much worse for the prisioner, the guards, the families. Think slave labor doesn't exist? Try earning 45 cents an hour.. in America in jail.
I'm not sure why people always jump to such extremes. When I see "defunding", I see something more like Camden, where they fired all the police officers and hired non-union to form a new police department.
"After Camden, New Jersey, “disbanded” its police department seven years ago, as Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor writes in From #blacklivesmatter to Black Liberation, the footprint of the police force expanded, firing 250 officers and hiring 411 new ones, along with 120 “civilian clerks.” In its first year, excessive force complaints still topped those of any other police department in the state. “Broken windows” policing escalated, with disorderly conduct summonses increasing by 43 percent."
> By the department’s account, reports of excessive force complaints in Camden have dropped 95% since 2014.
I can't find many sources about the number of excessive force complaints in Camden after 2014.
Assuming the numbers are accurate, I'd say the lesson is that it isn't a magic bullet. You might end up hiring a bunch of sadistic assholes again anyway. But without a union obstructing everything you do, it does give you a lot of power over regulating conduct and implementing guidelines for how officers apply (or don't apply) force, how they handle potentially dangerous situations, how they handle people in general, whether they prefer de-escalation over seeing citizens purely as dangers to be dealt with. There's actually a chance at accountability without a union obstructing every attempt to improve behaviour. If you have somebody in charge who cares about improving the policing environment (and the appropriate political, judicial and public oversight), these seem to be very good things to me.
when in ideologically-friendly circles, you say "defund the police!" and don't worry about how literally people will take it. they will assume your position is the same as theirs and agree.
when an outsider questions you, you say "oh, of course we don't mean it literally". then you go back to using the unqualified version within your bubble. after a while, who knows what you mean? who cares?
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Yeah with far fewer bad boys with guns. We only really need someone with guns to respond to a situation when a violent crime is in progress. There are many, many crimes that are not and there is no need for a cop with a gun to show up to all of them.
You can't make good policies as emotional reaction of a recent event. I have seen next to 0 non-radical politically feasible research from left wing or black think tanks. Most of the research focused on reducing police violence comes from the Libertarian think tanks like Cato or Fee. Conservative think tanks somehow like police brutality. President's tweet today[1] perfectly summarizes the position of conservatives on police violence.
"Defund the police" could have been sensible slogan had these people talked about it for last 10 years producing research and suggestions. Right now it is just a rallying cry.
Sounds fun until you think about how the wealthy/rich already have private security and so they never needed police. The police was primarily for the regular people who don't and can't afford to have private security.
But it's a shitty slogan that, regardless of actual meaning, is doing more harm than good. Normal people don't get the nuance. To them it just sounds like the "defunders" want to get rid of all police. And normal people think that is a very fucking bad idea.
Do you know what regular people do when they are worried about their safety, children or their property? They vote in candidates who are tough on crime.
I think for meaningful police reform the slogan needs to change. You need to get normal people on board. "Defunding" is not the way to do that.