3 ms·

There's a good case for defunding the police in parts of the country where crime has gone down, but my impression is the worse police-citizen interactions happe

There's a good case for defunding the police in parts of the country where crime has gone down, but my impression is the worse police-citizen interactions happen in areas where the police are stretched thin (maybe I'm wrong about this), moreover, when you are trying to reform a provider of an essential service, it is typically better to provide a carrot and a stick (see education reform for instance), otherwise not only do you get organized resistance to the reforms but you also reduce morale. Good morale is important, not only for good performance, but for reducing the siege mentality among the police. Requiring people to make an extra effort to do their job better (even if the level of better is still below average), while cutting their pay (even if their pay probably should not be as high as it is), seems like setting yourself up for failure.

shirakawasuna 6y ago
Defunding is a two-part task: 1. Balkanize police into distinct departments with different training and oversight. The police are tasked with far too many jobs at once and don't do a very good job at any of them. 2. Redirect some portion of funding to community development and fighting poverty, i.e. crime prevention. Instead of buying military surplus equipment, create after-school programs, ensure that kids get fed, etc. If a police department is stretched thin, balkanizing should help with that. Having police doing too many things is a big part of the problem. The police resist reforms constantly. They protect themselves and lie brazenly with little consequence. While morale is certainly something to consider, it's not the elephant in the room. There must be real consequences, and for that there must be real mechanisms of oversight, firing, and prosecution of cops and those who act in bad faith to protect fellow cops.
- athms 6y ago
  Police don't buy surplus military equipment. The equipment is free, the police only pay for shipping.
  - shirakawasuna 6y ago
    The police often pay for shipping, maintenance, and kitting out the equipment. They might receive a free stripped-down M16, but they still use their own budgets to make it tacticool. Just an optic and light run $1k or so.
Sohcahtoa82 6y ago
The call for defunding the police isn't meant to cut their pay, or even to eliminate the police. It's to stop sending police armed with lethal weaponry to scenarios that don't require it. Homelessness, poverty, drug abuse, and mental disorders are things that cops are not equipped to deal with, yet we send cops to deal with them. Defunding the police means to stop sending cops to those instances and instead funnel the money into social programs to deal with them.

shirakawasuna 6y ago

Defunding is a two-part task: 1. Balkanize police into distinct departments with different training and oversight. The police are tasked with far too many jobs at once and don't do a very good job at any of them. 2. Redirect some portion of funding to community development and fighting poverty, i.e. crime prevention. Instead of buying military surplus equipment, create after-school programs, ensure that kids get fed, etc. If a police department is stretched thin, balkanizing should help with that. Having police doing too many things is a big part of the problem. The police resist reforms constantly. They protect themselves and lie brazenly with little consequence. While morale is certainly something to consider, it's not the elephant in the room. There must be real consequences, and for that there must be real mechanisms of oversight, firing, and prosecution of cops and those who act in bad faith to protect fellow cops.

athms 6y ago
Police don't buy surplus military equipment. The equipment is free, the police only pay for shipping.
- shirakawasuna 6y ago
  The police often pay for shipping, maintenance, and kitting out the equipment. They might receive a free stripped-down M16, but they still use their own budgets to make it tacticool. Just an optic and light run $1k or so.

Sohcahtoa82 6y ago

The call for defunding the police isn't meant to cut their pay, or even to eliminate the police. It's to stop sending police armed with lethal weaponry to scenarios that don't require it. Homelessness, poverty, drug abuse, and mental disorders are things that cops are not equipped to deal with, yet we send cops to deal with them. Defunding the police means to stop sending cops to those instances and instead funnel the money into social programs to deal with them.