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Comment by RubberbandSoul | Hacker News Reader

> defunding (i.e. demilitarizing)

Redefining words in order to win arguments. Nice. Defunding means exactly that. I know this because that is what happened to the police forces that were defunded. Not entirely defunded, but they ended up with less money in their budget.

> the typical day-to-day work for a police officer doesn't require violence or the threat of violence

Says who? Are you a cop? Do you have cops in the family? Are you a law enforcement expert? Do you have any source or statistic whatsoever to back that up?

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> Redefining words in order to win arguments. Nice. Defunding means exactly

> that. I know this because that is what happened to the police forces that

> were defunded. Not entirely defunded, but they ended up with less money

> in their budget.

The poster is not redefining the term.

The "Defund The Police" movement has very specific and very well documented goals: Use police only for law-enforcement, and use specialized responders for non-law enforcement interactions. For example, you send mental health specialists when someone is threatening suicide. This will reduce funding for the police, but it also reduces the police's workload.

Is the movement poorly named? Yes. Is their goal to eliminate police? Absolutely not.

There's a person waving a knife or gun around in public threatening to commit suicide. Now what?

There's a person threatening suicide in public and then pulling out a knife or gun when the authorities show up. Now what?

It's easy to be an armchair law enforcement expert and dream up scenarios where the good guys always wins. But reality doesn't conform to your utopian ideas.

The movement existed for five seconds, had a really bad idea as their name, and now you're saying it was all a misunderstanding and they are really moderates?

Just take the L. The movement messed up.

The "defund the police" movement was not that well organized but I agree, they do have very specific and very well documented goals: the end of policing. They went hand-in-hand with the prison abolitionist movement.

I get that you may not want to eliminate police, but I assure you, a large number of the people at the center of these movements do want that.

The claim that the "defund the police" movement had any goal other than defunding the police is an example of "sanewashing":

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sanewashing

Yes, reduce funding so police departments don't turn paramilitary.

In the UK for instance most officers don't even carry guns.

Great.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/288256/violent-crimes-in...

UK police didn't have guns in the early 2000s either. The rise in recorded violent crime can't be explained by something that hasn't changed. You're just trolling now.

https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/trends-in-violent-crime/#....

I'm not trolling. Violent crime necessitates armed law enforcement.

While the rise in violent crime isn't caused by unarmed police officers the fact that they are unarmed didn't prohibit the rise in violent crime.

Did you even look at the link I included that disputes that violent crime is trending up at all? Your chart shows that digital cameras have gotten cheap. Not that violent crime has actually gone up.

> The ONS reported that victimisation rates shown by the CSEW have been decreasing in the long term. They peaked in the year ending December 1995, when 4.7% of adults were a victim of violent crime. Rates have remained below 2% since the year ending March 2014.

> In contrast to the downward trend shown by the CSEW, the ONS highlighted that police recorded violent crime increased between the years ending March 2013 and March 2022. The ONS explained that these increases are thought to be driven by improvements in police recording practices

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