| Ka-pi96 said: As for defunding the police, I assume the idea is that police shouldn't be rewarded for being shit at their job. If they want to earn decent money then they need to actually do a good job. But I don't really see how that would help. Plus it has the potential of backfiring. I mean, police with less money will have less to spend on properly vetting/training their new recruits and not having as good equipment or back up as readily available may also make police more "jumpy" and willing to act violently rather than to wait or to try and take control of a situation in a peaceful manner. |
Thats generally not what defunding the police is about. Basically the idea is that police budgets are absurd. Here is an image out of Denver that I think illustrates this point:
We know that there are a lot of risk factors which lead to crime. If we shift the budgets to other priorities such as education and housing, you can tackle crime issues in a way which actually benefits the community. While we shouldn't abolish the police, we do have to understand that our current justice system increases recidivism. That means if you are arrested, you are more likely to commit additional crimes. This is obviously not beneficial for the very bottom line of preventative policing. The justice system is failing in many ways.
Now, how do we "defund" the police in beneficial ways? Well, there are a few solid ideas that I've seen thrown around. One is changing what we are asking police to do. Many of the things that police get sent out for don't really need an armed response. One example is rape cases. The vast majority of the time, when victims contact police, they are not in any current pressing danger, so sending someone who fulfills more of a social worker/mental health expert role could make reporting easier for the victims while alleviating some of the pressure on our policing system. Overall, we need to ask as a society "how often do we really need an armed response?" Doing so can allow us to downsize police departments while improving interactions with victims. This obviously extends far beyond this one example, but this comment isn't meant to be comprehensive.
A second way to reduce funding for police is by reducing the militarization of police. Across the country, police own almost $600million worth of Mine Resistant vehicles. Why exactly is this necessary? Police departments don't need to be outfitted to fight in Afghanistan, they should be outfitted to interact with the community, not go to war. How much money do you think was wasted on the excessive police response we've seen with these protests over the last few weeks? How much was wasted on those inhumane LRADs we've seen around the country?
It goes far beyond these two examples, but police in this country have become extremely bloated, taking on tasks that they don't need to do and operating in ways which don't provide benefit, while other avenues of spending have been neglected or cut.
