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When you give a cop a hammer and only a hammer they will view every problem as a nail. This is what Defund the Police is about. Its not about getting rid of co

When you give a cop a hammer and only a hammer they will view every problem as a nail. This is what Defund the Police is about. Its not about getting rid of cops, its about providing the right resources and tools and staff for the type of job they have.

bitwize 6y ago
Again, "defund the police" is a motte and bailey argument: its activists will claim it's all about reform, but once they have your attention and know they won't be substantively debated, watch that word "defund" turn quickly to "abolish". And no solutions will be forthcoming about how to deal with criminals.
giantg2 6y ago
Funny enough, training is expensive and most of the issues are from a lack of training. I think removing funding will only make things worse.
- lazyasciiart 6y ago
  It's not necessarily a 'lack of training' so much as 'money spent on irrelevant training instead of what they need'. Either police departments can agree that not all members of the police need to carry guns and be trained to shoot, and redirect training funds from weapons to de-escalation and assistance - or we must move the funding away from the police department to a different department that will do so.
  - giantg2 6y ago
    "...or we must move the funding away from the police department to a different department that will do so." And then you still have armed police without training.
    - rsynnott 6y ago
      There seems to be a weird attitude in the US that the police are some sort of independent entity, and the most the state can do is reduce its tribute to them. This is a really odd approach, and doesn’t really have a parallel elsewhere; successful police reform had generally involved changes of leadership, independent misconduct commissions, and increased consequences.
      - giantg2 6y ago
        They are usually unionized. This mandates that many changes opposed by the union (misconduct commissions and increased consequences) would have to be approved/negotiated by them or else risk a strike. Those negotiations tend to cut out any meaningful changes that threaten their autonomy/privileges.
- MereInterest 6y ago
  Remove funding for military equipment, restrict gun carrying by police to special teams, stop using militarized police as a response to nonviolent crime. These are all necessary changes that are part of defunding the police.
  - giantg2 6y ago
    The military equipment is free under the federal grants.
    - MereInterest 6y ago
      Military equipment is provided under the federal grants. It is only "free" in the sense that it isn't being paid for by local taxes. That means that local police need to be defunded of federal funds as well as local funds.
      - giantg2 6y ago
        It's not really federal funds either. It's surplus equiptment. Perhaps there's a more accurate term rather than defund.
        MereInterest 6y ago
        Sounds like it would be more socially responsible to decommission it properly, rather than using untrained, irresponsible, and reckless police as a dumping ground for surplus equipment.
        giantg2 6y ago
        What peices of this surplus equiptment are socially irresponsible? This equipment is defensive, administrative, or less lethal. If anything, it should provide more options before things turn lethal.
        6y ago
- 35fbe7d3d5b9 6y ago
  Evidence doesn't seem to indicate that, given funding, the police will turn it into meaningful training: it seems to go elsewhere. From [1], a sample: > We found that, in a two week period at the beginning of June, when the anti-racism protests began, New York City spent $115 million on police overtime, which was over four times what the city spent in the same period last year. > $14 million went to new locker rooms. $64 million went to motor vehicles and $104 million was planned for police training. During that training, 60 hours are spent on firearm skills while just eight hours are spent on conflict management. So the training given to police is a fraction of money spent on annual overtime, and the training that is received goes towards increasing violence. [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/the-real-cost-of-police-nypd-actually-10-billion-year-2020-8?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/the-real-cost-of-police-nypd...
  - giantg2 6y ago
    Yeah, the biggest cost by far in any department is personnel, especially unionized personnel.
  - jonathankoren 6y ago
    In 2019, the NYPD spent $230 million on lawsuit settlements, including $95 million on police misconduct alone. https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/annual-claims-report/ https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/annual-claims-report/.
- scrose 6y ago
  Training and equipping peace officers to de-escalate situations is far cheaper and better for the general population than the hundreds of millions in excessive force and wrongful death lawsuits that are paid out of our taxes. NYC alone has dropped over $300M on settling lawsuits due to their poor training over the last 5 years[0] I know a couple current and former NYPD officers and the amount of times I’ve been told of how a routine mental health check up turned into 4+ cops beating the crap out of an unarmed person in their own home would likely surprise most people who aren’t familiar with how brutal the police in the USA are. [0] https://nypost.com/2020/01/31/city-payouts-in-nypd-misconduct-cases-up-by-nearly-30m/ https://nypost.com/2020/01/31/city-payouts-in-nypd-misconduc...
- rsfern 6y ago
  I think it’s more misallocation of training than lack of training per se. Not enough emphasis on deescalation training.
netsharc 6y ago
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/04/barack-obama-lesson-british-left-words-matter-defund-the-police-us https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/04/barack... I suspect your comment is greyed out because of this term. Such a fucking stupid slogan, when you turn off people and then try to clarify "It means..." to an audience that's mostly stopped listening.
souprock 6y ago
Defunding means that they have to rely more on civil asset forfeiture. This is probably not the result you intended.
- the_why_of_y 6y ago
  The first step of defunding should be that police doesn't get to keep the spoils of civil asset forfeiture.

bitwize 6y ago

Again, "defund the police" is a motte and bailey argument: its activists will claim it's all about reform, but once they have your attention and know they won't be substantively debated, watch that word "defund" turn quickly to "abolish". And no solutions will be forthcoming about how to deal with criminals.

giantg2 6y ago

Funny enough, training is expensive and most of the issues are from a lack of training. I think removing funding will only make things worse.

lazyasciiart 6y ago
It's not necessarily a 'lack of training' so much as 'money spent on irrelevant training instead of what they need'. Either police departments can agree that not all members of the police need to carry guns and be trained to shoot, and redirect training funds from weapons to de-escalation and assistance - or we must move the funding away from the police department to a different department that will do so.
- giantg2 6y ago
  "...or we must move the funding away from the police department to a different department that will do so." And then you still have armed police without training.
  - rsynnott 6y ago
    There seems to be a weird attitude in the US that the police are some sort of independent entity, and the most the state can do is reduce its tribute to them. This is a really odd approach, and doesn’t really have a parallel elsewhere; successful police reform had generally involved changes of leadership, independent misconduct commissions, and increased consequences.
    - giantg2 6y ago
      They are usually unionized. This mandates that many changes opposed by the union (misconduct commissions and increased consequences) would have to be approved/negotiated by them or else risk a strike. Those negotiations tend to cut out any meaningful changes that threaten their autonomy/privileges.
MereInterest 6y ago
Remove funding for military equipment, restrict gun carrying by police to special teams, stop using militarized police as a response to nonviolent crime. These are all necessary changes that are part of defunding the police.
- giantg2 6y ago
  The military equipment is free under the federal grants.
  - MereInterest 6y ago
    Military equipment is provided under the federal grants. It is only "free" in the sense that it isn't being paid for by local taxes. That means that local police need to be defunded of federal funds as well as local funds.
    - giantg2 6y ago
      It's not really federal funds either. It's surplus equiptment. Perhaps there's a more accurate term rather than defund.
      - MereInterest 6y ago
        Sounds like it would be more socially responsible to decommission it properly, rather than using untrained, irresponsible, and reckless police as a dumping ground for surplus equipment.
        giantg2 6y ago
        What peices of this surplus equiptment are socially irresponsible? This equipment is defensive, administrative, or less lethal. If anything, it should provide more options before things turn lethal.
        6y ago
35fbe7d3d5b9 6y ago
Evidence doesn't seem to indicate that, given funding, the police will turn it into meaningful training: it seems to go elsewhere. From [1], a sample: > We found that, in a two week period at the beginning of June, when the anti-racism protests began, New York City spent $115 million on police overtime, which was over four times what the city spent in the same period last year. > $14 million went to new locker rooms. $64 million went to motor vehicles and $104 million was planned for police training. During that training, 60 hours are spent on firearm skills while just eight hours are spent on conflict management. So the training given to police is a fraction of money spent on annual overtime, and the training that is received goes towards increasing violence. [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/the-real-cost-of-police-nypd-actually-10-billion-year-2020-8?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/the-real-cost-of-police-nypd...
- giantg2 6y ago
  Yeah, the biggest cost by far in any department is personnel, especially unionized personnel.
- jonathankoren 6y ago
  In 2019, the NYPD spent $230 million on lawsuit settlements, including $95 million on police misconduct alone. https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/annual-claims-report/ https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/annual-claims-report/.
scrose 6y ago
Training and equipping peace officers to de-escalate situations is far cheaper and better for the general population than the hundreds of millions in excessive force and wrongful death lawsuits that are paid out of our taxes. NYC alone has dropped over $300M on settling lawsuits due to their poor training over the last 5 years[0] I know a couple current and former NYPD officers and the amount of times I’ve been told of how a routine mental health check up turned into 4+ cops beating the crap out of an unarmed person in their own home would likely surprise most people who aren’t familiar with how brutal the police in the USA are. [0] https://nypost.com/2020/01/31/city-payouts-in-nypd-misconduct-cases-up-by-nearly-30m/ https://nypost.com/2020/01/31/city-payouts-in-nypd-misconduc...
rsfern 6y ago
I think it’s more misallocation of training than lack of training per se. Not enough emphasis on deescalation training.

netsharc 6y ago

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/04/barack-obama-lesson-british-left-words-matter-defund-the-police-us https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/04/barack... I suspect your comment is greyed out because of this term. Such a fucking stupid slogan, when you turn off people and then try to clarify "It means..." to an audience that's mostly stopped listening.

souprock 6y ago

Defunding means that they have to rely more on civil asset forfeiture. This is probably not the result you intended.

the_why_of_y 6y ago
The first step of defunding should be that police doesn't get to keep the spoils of civil asset forfeiture.