Unbundling and Systemic Racism Removal
By Ben Calica
Ready, set, change! When it is time to change the world, it is the results that are non-negotiable, not the catchphrases. An approach to get everything that needs to be changed, without intentionally walking into another trap.
Quick Version: We need to be careful with finding the path between letting the wave for change smash and dissipate on the rocks of toothless reform,or overloading it with the weight of solving all related societal ills that leads down to the fields of furious but untended intentions. We need to be concrete about:
- Unbundling the police — taking away the non-criminal things that they are not trained or suited for and using those funds to hire a new set of first responders that are.
- Systemic Racism removal: Remove the things that have stood in the way of true police reform (unions, lack of transparency/accountability, culture of silence, etc.). For those that can’t/won’t, remove and rebuild something from a less rotting core.
Last night I had an eerie sense that we were about to be in the process of trying to snatch victory out of the jaws of victory. The Alameda City Council voted to put off approving the mid term budget with very clear signs they were hearing not only the voice of the crowds, but the voice inside them that said that change had to happen. But what was equally clear was that the were on the edge of many possible “solutions” to the issue, many of which if one listened closely,can still hear as a lonely echo bouncing off the empty canyons of time. The calls for change are strong, but speak in a potentially destructive cacophony of voices and directions.
When you look at the most basic shared vision, it falls into two categories, stop having the police do things that they just shouldn’t be doing, and utterly and systemically remove racism from any institutions that are paid by us to protect and serve. The former seems to be universal but the latter splits between those that think redemption with enough bright light is actually possible, and those who believe that the self defense mechanisms and core beliefs of the institutions are so deep that there is nothing for it but to dissolve and rebuild.
Unbundling the Police: I heard this term in one of the online discussions last night and it rang like a huge bell for me. It is a much more clear definition of the first part of Defunding, the shifting of the responsibility of police for non-crime stuff, like mental health calls, homelessness, conflict reduction/mediation, etc., to a new set of people who are trained specifically to deal with such things. The image it brings to me is the creation of a new first responder group that consists of teams of people with expertise in each of those areas, with just enough strength to handle non-lethal conflicts. This is something that seemed at first to be a longer term part of the solution, but as police forces like the Alameda PD seem to be instructing their dispatches that they don’t deal with that stuff anymore, the need to create these responders in a temp quick way while thinking about the long term approach is becoming unavoidable.
Systemic Racism Removal: The second part of this is that we need the policing function, but the racism and its effects have got to go. That either means reform that actually changes it now and forever which implies a level of sunlight, accountability and ability to enforce change that hasn’t really happened despite decades of efforts, or if that can’t happen, the dismantling and rebuilding of that policing function on top of less self-protective, rotting timbers. For many on the Defund side, this is a forgone conclusion. They point to the history of “reform” and how the systemic racism has outlasted and shaken off most attempts to change it. How the reformers have continually run up against a culture of internal silence and self protection and how the unions and police protection laws have made removal or even discipline of the officers who do wrong virtually impossible. And how the word of the police is always taken over the word of the person being hassled, and that it is only the group-sourced videos showing exactly what really happened in those few cases that is responsible for the collective understanding of what people of color have known and been telling the rest of us for years
Defunding supporters frequently point to the very beginnings of policing as being based on hunting slaves as the source of the rot. (This isn’t entirely true, btw. It was true that the southern police have their roots their, but in the north, it came from businesses trying to protect their goods, and as the political system went through one of its bouts of corruptions, as a way of protecting the wealthy from the underclass and enforcing against unions, etc. These was also the city watch and the constabulary as part of its beginning. ) What is absolutely undeniable is that like most of the institutions in America, it was built on the core of racism and sexism that we have been trying to slowly weed out of everything from our businesses to our schools.
So why is it so hard to change the Police: Most of the reformer who have tried to chance the police point to a number of very specific things (as well as some obvious ones).
- Can’t see inside: Most police departments do not share complaint or incident report information. Unlike most other branches of government where sunshine laws make most communication public unless it can be proven that there is compelling reason not to, police departments share only what they chose to and have a history of covering up or minimizing incidents.
- No Snitches: There is a deeply ingrained culture of silence and mutual protection among police officers. It is them against a frequently hostile world, and though we are not inside to see it, it is pretty clear that those who speak out are ostracized by their fellow officers.
- The importance of Police testimony credibility: The assumption is that a policeman will be truthful in their reports of what happened, despite more and more frequent evidence to the contrary. The more that gets contricited, the less ability they have to be believed when they testify against actual criminals. So admitting falsehoods or contradicting other officers reports goes against their interests.
- Police unions and police protection laws: These make it virtually impossible to discipline, fire or prosecute police on anything but extremely and publicly shared proof, and even their handicap true reform.
- Racism/intimidation are effective crime reduction techniques: Alameda has a reputation as being a place where black drivers will get hassled. Horrible as that is, it can be viewed internally as an effective technique for reducing crime in the city. I would not be surprised to find that many of these hassling techniques were viewed internally as a way to reduce crime, and that for years, many people turned their heads to what was going on, what was happening to waves of innocent people because they believed that made them safer. BTW, in my view, it is the same false logic as treating all muslims as terrorists, rather than focusing on the actually terrorists and understanding that for most muslims, whatever they may think about the reasoning behind those acts, that they felt how against the Koran such actions were and wanted to stop those extreme as much as the rest. Most people in any community want crime stopped, and if the police as an institution treated people with color as people, and focused instead on the actual criminal activity and separated those who needed help/treatment form those who were harming their community, they would have that communities support and the true function of policing would be easier.
- The need to actually want to change: No real change gets 100% forced in from outside. Police need to be able to reclaim the honor of what made them want to be police while understanding and transforming the assumptions they made.
Police as an institution need to systemically have racism excised. Most likely the only way that happens is if the following are true:
- Transparency and Accountability: This sounds simple, but needs to be real. The police and police management have lost their “we’ll take care of it” chits and need to act in a way that it would be ok if anyone looked in at any time. This means treating them as other branches of government, with all communications kept, done on official communications means that are archived and accessible for review. Complaints should be made public as are their resolution, but that shouldn’t be a problem because all officers on duty should have their camera’s on and will need to act like they know “all calls will be recorded for quality assurance”. This will help separate the “oh man, I’m pissed I got arrested” complaints from those with real grounds. If officers are worried that their actions might be misinterpreted, then that is a pretty good indication that maybe they are in the wrong profession, because if an observer was confused, what was the person being arrested, detained thinking?
- Clear rules and spirit of conduct: If a department can’t articulate what the right way to deal with the public and potential suspects, then they shouldn’t exist. Any code of ethics and conduct that has enough grey area to allow a fraction of the behavior that we’ve been seeing is unacceptable. The simplest part is treating everyone with dignity, even potential criminals. An officer should be strong enough in his self knowledge that he understands that harsh words are not physically threatening, and that they do not have the need or right to force someone to treat them with what they think is the necessary respect.
- The ability to enforce change and deal with inappropriate conduct: Any department that wants to reform instead of being dissolved and replaced needs to get the agreement from the unions to allow the discipline and removal of officers who act in ways that violate the rights and dignity of others. This may be the biggest one. If the union is unable to agree to the code of conduct and what happens when that broken, up to and including officers being fired and potentially charged, and is unwilling to sign onto the concept of purging their ranks of racists,abusive behavior, then it is clear that there is no way for that particular department to reform and full defunding may be the only option.
- Removal of race based intimidation as a law enforcement tactic: Shift traffic stops to be just about traffic issues, not to be used as a way to check for warrants or suspicious behavior. Use cameras to confirm that their is not race based selective enforcement.
- Create engagement between the department and individual officers with the community. Do what is needed to get both sides to see each other as people, not the “other”. One idea with this is to have families of color who have experienced systematic racism at the hands of the police to “adopt” a police officer and have a virtual dinner with them once a week for long enough that both sides need to get to know each other enough to see them as individuals.
If these things can not happen, then it is clear that reform will not go deep enough to make the changes that are no longer an option to be made, and at that time, the necessity to dissolve the existing department and rebuild something from the ground up without the core self repair of the racism is a painful but necessary choice.