Defund, Reform, or Abolish
By: Davin Hall
Tags: Police, Crime, Policing, Defundthepolice, BlackLivesMatter

Defund, Reform, or Abolish

Original photo by Erick Zajac on Unsplash

In the middle of all the protests in 2020, there was a lot of energy devoted to analyzing the messages of the protestors.

Defund the police. Reform the police. Abolish the police. Fuck the police.

The most popular, and therefore the most criticized, was “Defund the Police”. Even President Obama attacked it, saying that activists lost their audience when they used the term. He suggested focusing on reform.

Now, I am not a political strategist, but it is difficult to listen earnestly to people complaining about how a message is delivered when that message has been delivered in countless ways, and is always ignored by the same people. Silently kneeling at a sports game? Attacked for being anti-American. Peacefully marching in protest? Blamed for rioters. Progressive messages are criticized for how they are delivered, with the implicit promise being that if the delivery was just slightly different, then everyone would take the message to heart and change would occur.

Call me cynical, but at this point if someone is complaining about phrasing, then I no longer believe they actually want meaningful change to occur. People attack the phrase “Defund the police” because they don’t want significant changes to the status quo (but they want to be able to appear as if they do).

It’s also a distraction tactic that is useful to promote in-fighting among progressives. Do not be misled. There is nothing wrong with saying, “Defund the police.”

People (who have absolutely no interest in any kind of policing reform) twist the meaning to make it sound as though progressives want to do away with all policing and have no public safety of any kind. This is purely a bad faith argument, as no one is suggesting that. Even the people who say they want to abolish the police are not suggesting that. No one is saying they don’t want public safety. They are saying they want a different form of public safety.

The problem with abolishing the police and starting over is that it would be a massive undertaking, a total overhaul of the criminal justice system, and would have a high risk of failure. I don’t agree that we should abolish the police and start over from scratch.

With that being said, I can’t overstate how important it is to listen to people who think we should. We have to listen to people who are so disillusioned with policing that they want to wipe it out entirely and start over. They are clearly not being served, and that has to be corrected.

The problem with the phrase “Reform the police” is that it is meaningless. The only thing it really hints at is giving the police more resources, which is traditionally what “reform” has meant for policing. More resources for training or technology that will ostensibly help out the public.

In reality, training that officers receive on discrimination or social justice can’t make a dent in the culture of policing that reinforces the behaviors that are currently causing harm to communities. And new technologies have served to only heighten disparities in over-policed areas.

“Defund the police” is promoting a specific action that will produce meaningful results. (This is probably why it is being attacked so much.)

We need to decrease the number of police-citizen interactions by changing what it is that police actually respond to. We do not need a government employee in full police gear responding to traffic accidents, or delivering a warrant to a non-violent offender, or checking a burglar alarm, or taking a report for a car getting broken into.

A single police officer is a huge taxpayer cost. There’s a very steep initial training cost. After that, the amount of gear they have is a massive cost. Firearm (with magazines), taser, pepper spray, handcuffs, radio, body-worn camera, mobile computer, and that police car.

These things aren’t cheap, and they are constantly being updated and replaced.

If you step outside tomorrow morning and find that someone has gone through your car and stolen a backpack, there is no need for an armed government agent with hundreds of hours of combat training to respond to your home.

If we reduce the number of calls that police officers are responding to, then we can reduce the number of police officers. If we reduce the number of police officers, then we can reduce the amount of funding that police departments receive. That money can then be channeled toward social services that can help improve public safety from other directions. (Education, mental health support, after-school programs, affordable housing, jobs training.)

“Defund the police” means that we take money that is being wasted in policing and redirect it in ways that help improve public safety.

It’s not a complicated message.