What "Defund (and Abolish) The Police" Really Means (Politically, And Financially).

    Since the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, the people of America have been debating ways to reform the police, such as ending qualified immunity, ending no knock warrants, etc. Some have taken to arguing for defunding the police, or even outright abolishing the police. Some of those calling for reform are concerned that this issue is a third rail, (65% of Americans oppose defunding the police, and 16% support it), which could get President Donald Trump re-elected. Here's my answer to the concerns about defunding -or outright abolishing- the police.

Defund. 

    When we hear "defund the police", we may think that money will be withheld from law enforcement, and that's just it. Except that's absolutely false, since it's a budget cut, not elimination. According to Forbes, the U.S collectively spends approximately $80 billion on incarceration, and $100 billion on policing. That's more than double what is spent on line items such as most social programs.

The reason I used this image as the first one you see, is so I could have a thumbnail when I shamelessly shill this.

    Despite crime levels decreasing over the last several decades, City budgets for law enforcement have continued to skyrocket. The top ten Cities in America spend $10,259,100,000 (give or take) on law eenforcement, and New York City makes up 47.66% of that money.

    Just as the U.S Military infrastructure didn't rollback after the Coldwar, the expansion of police has not been reversed. One reason for defunding the police isn't necessarily having to do with any reforms to police being demanded, sometimes... the Cities just cannot afford them, which caused Alito, Texas to dismantle their police force in 2011. When a City budget is spending almost 10% -to almost 1/3 of their revenue toward law enforcement, that will put a squeeze on the remaining 2/3 of the budget. Chicago currently suffers a pension crisis, and they have the third largest expenditure on law enforcement (39.6% overall). Oaklund, California spends approximately 41.2% of their budget on law enforcement. 

    Due to the fact that law enforcement rarely requests budget cuts, and most Cities are required by law to balance the budget, it becomes increasingly difficult to do so without budget cuts in other areas, and/or tax increases, both of which aren't a long term solution. The revenue from law enforcement can help Chicago with reversing it's pension crisis. And with the current local debt sitting at $2.0 trillion (as of writing this piece), we have to do something to resolve that. As criminal law professor (from the Univerity of Colorado) Aya Gruber points out:

"The idea of defunding police is not abolishing any sort of security services, services to people in need or enforcing laws for the public good. Rather, the idea is to shrink portions of the department over time, shifting cash to other methods of keeping the city safe."

    A lot of issues that are unresolved are things such as infrastructure, debt, or properly funding existing programs, can finally see some resolution by defunding the police. Currently, Chicago has $137.3 billion in unfunded liabilities, and the $1.5 billion they spend on law enforcement could be a way to reverse that. Keep in mind that while reducing that unfunded liability to $135.8 billion may not seem like a lot, but it is progress to helping Chicago's fiscal health improve. Let's also remember, that most Cities are reigning in police budgets, not completly vetoing them, which is a smarter method, considering that it will shrink the jurisdiction of the police, as they will have to prioritze what they respond to. Another important thing to remember, is that police currently are tasked with too much.

    "Some 'defund the police' proponents argue the U.S. relies on police to do too much; they envision mental health workers and nurses responding to drug overdoses, instead of police officers." Let's be clear: more often than not, police are wholly unqualified to handle mental health situations, sometimes with suicide by cop being the end consequence. The proper jurisdiction for mental health problems are nurses, and other workers, the same can be said for drug overdoses. Even police magazines state that officers need more medical training than they currently have. That's showing that it's not just the "far left" that calls for change, as President Donald Trump has said in a retweet.

    In case anything happens to the tweet:

    What is quite hilarious, is that he may unintentionally defund the police, depending on how he funds the local/state government's response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Abolish.

    There are those of us who have seen the writing on the wall for quite a long time, there is a growing call to bypass reform, and get to the root of the problem, the police structure. There are many who see it as impossible to reform the system, as those who support the status quo will muddy the waters, and make McCarthyite smears, rendering it impossible to reach out to those who would otherwise be inclined to help. Reforms, such as banning neck restraints, stop and frisk, using tear gas (which is a war crime, by the way), among other violent actions police take against the American people, are a must. But if it is going to be blocked by politicians (let's be real, this is more than likely going to be by Republicans), then the next recourse is to extinguish the problem at it's roots. Police officers are not Constitutionally required to provide protection, as the U.S Supreme Court -and various federal judges- have ruled.

    Since that's the case, the point of having the police is moot. If they aren't required to do their job, then they don't need to exist. Many opponents of abolish the police have suggested overturning the SCOTUS ruling, but the last Constitutional amendment to be ratified was in 1992 (27th Amendment under President George H.W. Bush), and the Supreme Court has overturned 300 of it's own decisions, and it's pretty rare, with 578 volumes of cases, making those 300 pretty infrequent, and pretty small. And with the current polarization of the Country making it all but impossible to pass a Constitutional amendment (290/435 in the House, 67/100 in the Senate, and 38/50 state Legislatures), and the Supreme Court very rarely contradicting it's previous rulings, we must take matters into our own hands. The most common recommendation to an alternative to the police is community led policing.

  "The point of the community-led safety initiatives is to help ensure that people's everyday behaviors and struggles aren't unnecessarily criminalized and instead people can get the help they need to improve their lives and the overall community -- which will arguably result in a reduction of crime."

    There are some points from the Seattle Times I must rebut during this piece:

    -Yes, reform is coming, but it is too slow. We have waited too long, and too many lives have been lost, for anyone to drag their feet on the issue. Yes, it's important to find and repeal all conflicting laws, and understand how to implement and enforce the reforms, but other than that, there is no reason to wait. 

    -Yes. Police culture is changing, and it's taken too much time to start that. We have seen too many people who defend the status quo who say "it's just a few bad apples" to get reformists to shut up to remind us that it's not all cops. But in the meantime, people died because of inaction.

    -No, we do not need the police. They have made themselves a nuisance to our lives:

  

  

    If they are not required to protect us, then we should not be required to have our tax dollars be sent to them. Imagine what we could do with that $180 billion dollars that we spend on incarceration and law enforcement? We could begin to pay our bills as a nation if we did that. Considering the money spent on the drug war ($51 billion), we could (with the other $180 billion) begin to cut away at our $3 trillion dollar budget deficit. Police officers have gotten away with killing people, causing miscarriages, macing children, all because they weren't willing to prosecute the four men responsible with George Floyd's death.

    And whenever a cop does something to prevent another cop from abusing a suspect (or committing some type of corruption), they are marginalized, and they are at risk of losing their pension, or their job entirely. So if the federal government cannot even be capable of protecting whistleblowers, then police departments will fail to do the same. Remember, various U.S Senators wanted to out a whistleblower who eventually caused President Trump's impeachment, most notably during President Trump's impeachment trial in early 2020. If lawmakers are willing to expose whistleblowers, law enforcement is, too. There is no way to expect a change if we don't force the matter into the mainstream.

    And, if you are afraid of a potential crime increase, here's an idea... buy a gun. Law enforcement isn't trusted to do their job, and when people have called the police asking for help, sometimes they get killed by the police. And when a wellness check is done on someone, they sometimes get shot instead of checked on. If we cannot rely on the police, we must defend ourselves.

The Politics.

    As someone who has read up about Presidential elections, various political factions, and has tried to understand what made people vote in the way they did, I have been seeing people argue that the way the protests (or riots) have been conducted, have made it easier for President Trump to be re-elected. Conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro tweeted out:

    Now, as someone who has read up extensively about the years of 1968-1980, this has made me ask a few questions:

1. The party that held the White House in 1968 (the Democrats) lost it in the election held that year. So if we are to repeat that period, does that mean the Republicans will lose the White House for eight years, regain it for four, and lose it again in 2032? Because that's what happened for the elections of 1968, 1972, 1976, and 1980.
2. How do you know that we are having that happen? We had riots in 1992 from police brutality being unaddressed, and the 1968-80 period was not repeated.

    My historical trivia aside, many have argued that a "Republican (red) wave" will happen because of efforts to defend (or abolish) the police. So far, the evidence is not there.

    So far, the Democratic Party (led by former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.) leads the Republican party (led by incumbent President Donald J. Trump) by a very comfortable 8.1%. Of course, polls fluctuate, but so far, the public is not clamoring to bring Republicans back to power in the House of Representatives, and so far, the U.S Senate is looking to be very close, with states with Democratic or Republican incumbents facing tough re-election bids.

    So far, President Trump trails Vice President Biden by 8.1%, and if Biden continues to hold that lead, it could prove to be fatal for Trump. If being impeached hasn't helped Trump's approval rating or his standing in the polls, then it's unclear as to what will.

    So far, everytime the President's approval rating goes up, it goes down hard. If Joe Biden's scandal with Ukraine couldn't help the President, nor the allegations of misconduct, then it's likely nothing will. It may be very unpopular to defund the police, but that doesn't mean it always will be. For example, the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) was rather unpopular for most of Barack Obama's Presidency, but during Donald Trump's, it enjoy's majority support. 

    And ideas that seem RaDiCaL, will not seem that way if the ideas espoused by the police reform movement remain discussed, and become mainstream over a longer period of time. After all, same sex marriage was extremely unpopular during the 1990's, but eventually it would gain mainstream acceptance. In the end, institutions that do more harm than good, and get away with their misdeeds, must be reined in, and ultimately, dismantled.  

Preceded by: "The 'Spoiler' Argument."

Succeeded by: "The Racist Lie Cherrypicked Crime Stats Provide."

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