The police abolitionist movement is calling for removing untrained, armed, and oftentimes extremely racist individuals from the streets and replacing them with social programs, housing, education, healthcare.
You can't just do 10% of the ask here and then be surprised when shit doesn't magically get better.
I’m sorry but it is quite obvious that a whole lot of people carrying around ACAB (all cops are bad) and “defund the police” signs don’t go along with the this-is-what-they-actually-mean explanations. They mean to have their message taken at face value.
I saw myself spraypainted on a Minneapolis building “actually defund the police”. it is hard to reinterpret all cops are bad as anything but the obvious, and it is quite popular.
It's a compromise and likely won't come easy or fast given current federal government setup. But other than generational change (ie old people who are heavily conservative die off so younger, more liberal people become the voting base) likely combined with removing money from Us politics (no easy fight there) I doubt it will happen soon.
Unfortunately, this part is extremely vague and is missing a track record. So how it ends up in the real human world, is police funding gets cut and the funds get diverted into corrupt politicians' pockets. Like the Chicago mayor that successfully reduced police funding only to have a separate police detachment placed near her home.
Literally any other first country has these, how is this vague and missing track records ?
None of these require cops. Yes, you likely need some form of police force for the very, very edge case scenarios where the others won't do, but abolish police means abolish the police.
* Dissolving existing police departments and making officers reapply as a way to eliminate the worst offenders that are currently protected by the blue line of silence.
* Re-establishing the police as a much smaller operation where their duties are limited to situations where deadly/coercive force is needed.
Things that would become police “adjacent” and would be handled by other government officials.
- detective work
- calls about the homeless
- all non-violent offenses like noise complaints, property disputes, drug possession, moving violations, shoplifting, etc.
The hope being that many people who are currently officers would actually rather be part of the non-violent operation.
Canada had an experiment of removing policing for just one day. It did not go well at all.
Montreal in 1969 was on the brink of civil war. The Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) was basically the Canadian version of the IRA. Having police on the streets wasn't enough. The situation continued to escalate until the Canadian Armed Forces were deployed to police Montreal in 1970.
I don't think that time and place is representative of any Canadian city today. As such, it's rather hard to draw any conclusions from your example.
Police abolition is asking for a change to the socioeconomic systems that lead people to rob in the first place. The threat of police locking you up surely isn’t doing it.
> The threat of police locking you up surely isn’t doing it.
Because the criminals keep getting released, especially for political reasons.
Increased policing does work. Crime rates have been going down.
Decreased policing doesn't work - crime rates go up, just see what's happening in NYC, Chicago, Seattle.
Maybe. Yet this crime still happened, in spite of all the perps got arrested before.
> Or maybe they will get to you in time
Unlikely.
> Because the criminals keep getting released, especially for political reasons.
Like most states, NY, IL, and WA have each eliminated parole for violent offenders, so that’s not it.
You’re going to have to be more specific with your stats. Crime rates continue to decrease in those cities - even in Chicago. The 2016 spike in homicides is an interesting topic if you care learn the driving forces behind it. There wasn’t a mass release of criminals as you suggest, but there was a series of gun laws invalidated by the courts.
Or it might not, because the prison is a deterrent.
> You’re going to have to be more specific with your stats.
People shot in NYC: up 206% compared to last year.
https://abc7ny.com/nyc-crime-increase-in-violence-gun/630297...
https://www.amny.com/police-fire/crime-stats-show-that-shoot...
Chicago: murders more than double compared to 2019
https://blockclubchicago.org/2020/08/03/chicago-sees-its-mos...
https://abc7chicago.com/chicago-crime-shootings-weekend-viol...
Seattle's CHAZ/CHOP zone (the left-wing socialist anti-police project, "summer of love", as the mayor describes it): 525% rise in crime.
https://www.the-sun.com/news/1073428/chop-zone-seattle-rise-...