Haven't seen it yet, but John Oliver apparently did a good job with this last night
https://youtu.be/Wf4cea5oObY
dammit kosmo, i was about to post that... made it to the last reply thinking "oh good, no one has mentioned john oliver yet"... and there you are. THANKS.
anyhoo, oliver does talk about this some at the end of yesterday's show (a good investment of 33 minutes). the part that brought it home for me was a press conference with a police chief where he made the following point: police have become society's default means for dealing with problems that are self-imposed: lack of funding for rehab = drug problem = call the police. lack of resources for victims of domestic abuse = domestic violence = call the police. lack of mental health care = all sorts of problems = call the police. etc. and the police are, in almost all cases, the wrong people to be dealing with these problems - but we send them anyways, because there is no one else to take care of the problem.
so the thinking behind "defund the police" is to take budget away, but also responsibilities. take some of that police money and put it towards affordable housing, expanded healthcare, more social intervention specialists, etc., so that you don't need as many police officers.
for a really eloquent take on "defund the police", give a listen to
yesterday's editions of The Daily DC podcast. a city councilor from Minneapolis clearly outlines why he's pushing for it:
- police are being sent to places they don't belong (why is an armed police officer called when you get into a fender-bender? that's an insurance function, not a public safety function). give those non-safety jobs to folks who specialize in them.
- they got suggestions from around the country about how to solve their policing problem: body cameras, new training, community policing, etc. the problem is that they are already doing all those things and it wasn't working.
- the police union has been a brick wall against reform. even the smallest, most token efforts at reform were consistently crushed by the union. the city can't fire bad cops, like the one that killed george floyd (who has a record of excessive force complaints).
- the public fears the current police force, viewing it as an occupying force. even if the police was reformed, public perception will ensure that relations would stay tense for a long time.
his conclusion was that the Minn police force is so broken that it can't be fixed. they need to tear it down and restart, not unlike
what Camden has successfully done.
