The Cities Taking Up Calls to Defund the Police
citylab.com
citylab.com
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.
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.
Drugs, Shop-lifting, DUI, Robbery (unarmed), Prostitution, Protesting, etc...
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....
A minority has had outsize political influence in the US for a decade or two now. Because of the electoral college and because of 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.
http://math.cmu.edu/~wes/gerrymandering.html
https://math.duke.edu/news/electoral-plot-detecting-gerryman...
Doesn’t have the same ring, but would solve many of the issues people are protesting about (accountability, etc).
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.
Sort of like the brownshirts before WWII. [1]
Edit: Youtube took down a video of them back in 2019. [2]
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmabteilung
2. https://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/youtube-bans-anti-nazi-docum...
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.
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.
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.
(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.)
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
Most people don't know what scope, or descope means in this context.
any slogan will be disparaged by vested interests. let's try not to distract from the core issue.
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.
Based on your own judgement, based on talking with your friends, based reading articles in XYZ publication, based on “common sense”, based on what?
Why is it a scary concept to them?
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.
This leads to: Everyone's constantly being spammed messages being made to feel uncomfortable because someone, somewhere always has an agenda to push.
That's leadership through fear. 100%.
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.
They have been asked to enforce the 1.5m rule, encountered agression and started protesting because ... they want to be armed.
( They have called for arms before COVID )
edit: Oh, forgot to add : we have these 'enforcers', and their responsibilities have been extended, because we basically defunded the police.
Or, alternatively, "Did I say that you said that?"
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.
The current leadership (Trump) is very racist and authoritarian, so I'm not sure that your confidence fits the current time;
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.
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.
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.
For video, and I highly recommend this, try https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf4cea5oObY
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
[0] https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/28/us/minneapolis-officer-compla...
Regulation without teeth is ineffective.
This is another example of what people mean when they say the system is inherently flawed and needs to be disassembled and rebuilt from the ground up: https://twitter.com/michaelhayes/status/1270059013854711821
Then create regulation with teeth.
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.
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.
Regardless, I agree that the dialogue is important and overdue.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
https://www.npr.org/2020/06/03/869176943/police-unions-and-c...
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.
Private police forces employed by the rich will maintain order on private property. The poor will be less protected.
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.
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.
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/29/nyregion/overrun-by-crime...
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/01/what-happened-to-crim...
Seems like it was relatively successful without turning into a neoliberal hellscape.
https://whyy.org/articles/complaints-excessive-police-force-...
> With about a month left in 2017, 15 complaints are on the books, roughly half of last year’s total.
> In 2014, the total was 65 – the highest in a state that has its share of crime-ridden cities.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-04/how-camde...
> 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.
edit:
It deleted my last edit. Balls.
https://www.nj.com/camden/2017/08/how_njs_most_dangerous_cit...
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?
It'll be really cutting edge.
Second, it looks like you've been using this site primarily for political and ideological battle. We don't allow that, regardless of which ideology you favor, because it destroys the curious conversation this site is supposed to exist for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
If you or anyone wants more info about how and why we moderate HN on this question, there are many past explanations at these links:
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
"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.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-draws-rebukes-...