Defunding the Police: Pros and Cons
This article was written by Debate Agents.
INTRO
The murder of George Floyd in late May has sparked a nationwide reckoning in race-based violence and police brutality. Record numbers of Americans have marched in protests to demand accountability and justice, and public opinion polls have radically shifted in favor of organizations such as Black Lives Matter. However, Americans remain unsure on the exact scope of the issue and the most viable solution, with some attributing police violence to a general abuse of government power, others citing police reform as the best way forward, and others yet pointing to systemic flaws in policing. One of the most prominent (and most controversial) racial justice movements has been to defund the police, and it has garnered national attention from the general public and politicians alike. This article will present a few arguments for and against defunding the police.
PRO
by Varshitha Krishnan, Christopher Lorde, and Patrick Lu
“Defund the police” is a slogan that has been widely adopted by activists all over the country, but its true meaning is often misconstrued. Defunding the police is not police abolition; rather, advocates of the movement propose diverting community resources from police departments towards areas of social development, such as mental health services, youth programs, and education. We are too often told that the existence of police is inherently good — that these programs effectively protect people. In reality, the truth could not be any further. Police officers rarely deal with situations that protect civilians from harm, often engaging in handing out traffic ticket violations instead of controlling crime, with officers even describing their own days as “99% boredom.” Data show that 9 out of 10 calls for service are for nonviolent encounters, a reality distanced entirely from police training. There is a reason that significant attempts at police reform and training have failed to accommodate the issue — and it is built into policing itself. Most law enforcement relies on a style of policing referred to as “broken windows” policing, which effectively targets minor infractions, and meets them with invasive and aggressive responses. The history behind these attempts at policing reside primarily in a larger arc of neoconservative thinking — that insists there is no help for the poorest in our nation, and that any attempt to improve living standards has to come from significant and aggressive pressure. These beliefs not only reside in economic theories, but have origins hailed in racism and phrenology. James Q. Wilson, one of the founding figures behind this school of thought, insisted that criminality was inherently tied to blackness — through factors such as body type, IQ, and other determining factors. Since the beginning of policing itself, these forces have not served in ideals of public safety. The London Metropolitan Police, often hailed as the “original police force,” drew inspiration from colonial occupation of Ireland, and a search for increased social control. In the Northern states of the U.S., policing emerged as a response to labour riots and workers’ movements, while in the South, it emerged as an evolution of slave controls. Policing has effectively always served as a tool of social control, one that is used to suppress, manage, and control the behavior of poor and non-white people. It takes its roots in settler-colonial attitudes that cannot simply be solved by reform. We need to reconsider the role of police in our society — not as arbiters of safety, but instead as a system that serves to aid communities — rather than surveil them.
However, skeptics remain unconvinced by policing’s racist history and its current implications, and continue to dismiss defunding the police. In doing so, they fail to realize that policing is not a viable solution to crime in the status quo. In general, crime is not an indication of moral depravity; rather, it is the product of a lack of social services and limited economic mobility in an area. Attempting to reduce crime by patrolling high-crime neighborhoods is, simply put, a futile endeavor. Unfortunately, city officials too often adopt that mindset with disastrous results, which can be seen in police department spending increases across the nation. From 1977 to 2017, state and local police spending ballooned from $42 billion to $115 billion (adjusted for inflation), and it continues to rise today. That money frequently goes towards increasing the police presence in certain neighborhoods and arming the officers who patrol there. That’s problematic, because they are often overtrained in use-of-force tactics and undereducated in deescalation techniques. Despite this, the police are treated as a catch-all solution to social issues, in addition to criminal ones. They are asked to respond to welfare checks, disorderly conduct, and noise complaints. Perhaps most problematically, the police are the first to be asked to respond to mental health crises, and they too often turn to violence to do so. The Treatment Advocacy Center reports that those with untreated mental illnesses are a shocking sixteen times more likely to be killed by the police than the average civilian, and they are involved in at least one out of four fatal police shootings, despite rarely being violent. Therefore, calling the police to deal with a nonviolent encounter frequently escalates the situation and results in civilian deaths, corroborating the need for social issues to be dealt with by trained social workers. Defunding the police would siphon money from the police department to these social services, who would in turn bear a significant amount of the police departments’ caseloads. In 2016, the Phoenix Police Department partnered with the city’s Parks and Recreation Department to create a new social program for youth in low-income areas. Students in these neighborhoods now found themselves with a place to receive tutoring, help with schoolwork, and to receive the needs they may not have been able to afford — including healthy eating. These programs led to a significant decrease in juvenile crime — showing how exactly a shift away from carceral interactions with police can show a significantly positive impact. By giving those most impacted other options, we effectively deincentivize crime, as well as the need for large-scale policing.
CON
by Kyan Howe and Amy He
While many contend that defunding the police could potentially decrease crime, the empirics dissolve this argument. Due to a decrease in tax revenue from the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, police forces naturally received less funding. As a result, violence spread in areas such as Milwaukee, where homicides have increased by 37% this year, an all-time high. This is attributed to the lack of police presence to deter crime. In simplest terms, allocating more significant funds to a police force allows for more people to serve. That translates into a higher density of police officers throughout communities, increasing the chances that one who acts illegally is apprehended. Defunding the police would only strain police forces’ budgets, even more, decreasing the police’s ability to remain active and vigilant in protecting communities.
Throughout the summer, protests Black Lives Matter and police brutality have proliferated throughout the country and world. These protestors want change, reform, and a defunding of the police. They fail to realize that defunding the police hurts minorities, especially blacks, which they would like to help most. Though many racial minorities and white ‘allies’ voiced their concerns through protests, polls show that these complaints run contradictory to the majority opinion. Although blacks may encounter police more frequently in negative ways, they still support retaining the police force. This comes as many Blacks realize how they would suffer violence throughout their communities should the police force be shrunken or abolished. Defunding the police would not help minorities; at best, the situation stays the same, but violence is more likely to increase. Besides, defunding the police would start with limiting the number of resources the police allocate to beneficial community activities, such as youth engagement programs. Cutting these programs cuts opportunities for youth community engagement and development, which serve to prepare the next generation for a community-oriented, crime-free future.
Works Cited
PRO
Kim Parker, Juliana Menasce Horowitz and Monica Anderson. “Majorities Across Racial, Ethnic Groups Express Support for the Black Lives Matter Movement.” Pew Research Center’s Social & Demographic Trends Project, 20 Aug. 2020, www.pewsocialtrends.org/2020/06/12/amid-protests-majorities-across-racial-and-ethnic-groups-express-support-for-the-black-lives-matter-movement/.
Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta, and Alexis Okeowo. “We Should Still Defund the Police.” The New Yorker, 14 Aug. 2020, www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/defund-the-police.
Saleh, Amam Z., et al. “Deaths of People with Mental Illness during Interactions with Law Enforcement.” International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, vol. 58, 2018, pp. 110–116., doi:10.1016/j.ijlp.2018.03.003.
Adamczyk, Alicia. “What It Actually Means to ‘Defund the Police’.” CNBC, CNBC, 15 June 2020, www.cnbc.com/2020/06/15/what-it-actually-means-to-defund-the-police.html.
Ray, Rashawn. “What Does ‘Defund the Police’ Mean and Does It Have Merit?” Brookings, Brookings, 19 June 2020, www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2020/06/19/what-does-defund-the-police-mean-and-does-it-have-merit/.
Terrill, Marshall. “Is Defunding the Police a Good Idea?” ASU Now: Access, Excellence, Impact,
ASU News, 9 June 2020, asunow.asu.edu/20200608-discoveries-defunding-police-good-idea.
Auxier, Richard C. “What Police Spending Data Can (and Cannot) Explain amid Calls to Defund the Police.” Urban Institute, 9 June 2020, www.urban.org/urban-wire/what-police-spending-data-can-and-cannot-explain-amid-calls-defund-police.
Vitale, Alex S. The End of Policing. Verso, 2018.
CON
Gershon, Livia. “Do Police Deter Crime?” JSTOR, ITAHKA, 10 Apr, 2016, https://daily.jstor.org/do-police-deter-crime/
Ross Coleman, Erin. “How black people really feel about the police, explained” Vox, Vox Media, 17 Jun. 2020, https://www.vox.com/2020/6/17/21292046/black-people-abolish-defund-dismantle-police-george-floyd-breonna-taylor-black-lives-matter-protest
Southers, Erroll G. “African American ex-cop: I understand the anger but don’t defund police. It could make things worse.” Panama City News Herald, 15 Jun, 2020, https://www.newsherald.com/story/opinion/columns/guest/2020/06/15/african-american-ex-cop-i-understand-anger-but-dont-defund-police-it-could-make-things-worse/11253342/
Wernau, Julie. “Police Wrestle With Surge in Crime in U.S. Cities Amid Defunding Efforts” Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones and Company, 11 July 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/police-wrestle-with-surge-in-crime-in-u-s-cities-amid-defunding-efforts-11594472400
