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Most people using the word "defund" mean to reduce the level of funding for police and spend more on other social services. One argument is that police are not
by Zak 6y ago
Most people using the word "defund" mean to reduce the level of funding for police and spend more on other social services. One argument is that police are not well equipped to provide services to people who are having a mental health, relationship, or substance abuse crisis and not actively doing violence. A mental health nurse or social worker might be a more appropriate first responder in situations that are not primarily characterized by violence.
There are a small but significant number of people in the current protests calling for policing as we know it to be abolished; they don't beat around the bush about it. The phrase "abolish the police" has 2.5 million google hits, a NYT op-ed, and a Wikipedia article.
- zaroth 6y agoMaybe they should carry signs that read “Fund social services” instead. The entire country has been through a traumatic event, coming at the heals of a massive opioid epidemic, I’m pretty sure it would be a unifying message that every American would support unequivocally. Notably these funds don’t need to come at the expense of police funding. We just dumped something like $5 trillion into a fire pit called COVID. There’s no lack of emergency funding for these programs if people demanded it.
- shirakawasuna 6y agoDefund also means balkanization of police duties. The police spend about 5% of their time on violent crime. They're also highly resistant to reforms and oversight. If we reduced police budgets by 80%, restricting their duties to those we consider necessary police work, they would be much smaller and easier to manage. The excess budget could go both to funding social services and to paying social workers, etc to do the other jobs that police currently do (and do badly).