Defund the police. What does that mean?

[Ken-1122]

There is a lot going around where people are calling to defund the police; but whenever I ask about details, nobody seems to be able to give me a straight answer.

Some say defund meaning no more law enforcement; but does that mean if I am bigger and stronger than you, I can go over to your house and take what I want without consequence?

Others say cut 50% from the police budget. But why 50%? Where did they get that number from? Do they know the police budget? Do they see waste where the same thing can be done half the money? Some say use mental health professionals for some jobs the police are tasked to do, thus cutting back on police; but how does that result in less funds? The money saved by police will be used in the increased funds of mental health professionals; thus no money is saved. So what does this mean? If anybody understands this idea I would appreciate your input

 

[Jonathan Walkerin]

The idea is to cut some of the police budget and allocate more money to stuff like preventive social and mental health projects.

For practical way to do that instead of just shouting slogans probably lots of research is needed and there certainly won’t be one size fits all solution.

 

[Ken-1122]

The idea is to cut some of the police budget and allocate more money to stuff like preventive social and mental health projects..

There is already money spent on preventive social and health projects. How much money should be spent in these areas and how much is currently being spent? Why cut the police budget instead of another budgt in order to make up the difference?

 

[hedrick]

It depends upon who you're talking to. Some people may want to abolish police. But that's not going to happen. The situation is different in different cities. In some places police are being sent on calls that have nothing to do with crime, and could better be dealt with by someone else. But there are some police departments that have issues that may be unsolvable, in part because of the influence of unions, but there are other reasons as well. They may have to be abolished and recreated. The example usually cited is Camden, NJ, which did that.

There are people who think Minneapolis is in a similar situation. You need lots of information to know whether that's true. I don't have it, so I won't express an opinion on the right thing to do in Minneapolis. But it's plausible that there are places that need a major shakeup.

 

[Daniel Marsh]

The idea is to cut some of the police budget and allocate more money to stuff like preventive social and mental health projects.

For practical way to do that instead of just shouting slogans probably lots of research is needed and there certainly won’t be one size fits all solution.

In 2015 in sweden, How much money specifically was cut from Police budgets? How much more money was given to mentally ill professionals?

Now, what is the budget of both groups?

 

[Daniel Marsh]

Why not train the Police on how to handle the mentally ill???

 

[hedrick]

Why not train the Police on how to handle the mentally ill???

Why, when there are professional counsellors around?

 

[Ken-1122]

It depends upon who you're talking to. Some people may want to abolish police. But that's not going to happen.

In Seattle the city council are working to make that happen
Seattle city council moves to replace police with civilian-led 'violence prevention' group

The situation is different in different cities. In some places police are being sent on calls that have nothing to do with crime, and could better be dealt with by someone else.

But that would be a case of taking away some jobs of Police and giving them to someone else, and the funding cuts would go to this new department who is taking on the job previously done by police. This doesn't seem to be what the defund the police crowd is calling for.

But there are some police departments that have issues that may be unsolvable, in part because of the influence of unions, but there are other reasons as well. They may have to be abolished and recreated. The example usually cited is Camden, NJ, which did that.

What happened in Camden NJ was replacing a unionized police force with a non-union police force, and the non union force required more spending, not less. And if I recall correctly, that non-union force has since become unionized, so they’re kinda right back where they started. This doesn’t seem to be what the “defund the police” crowd is calling for either

 

[Ken-1122]

Why, when there are professional counsellors around?

I doubt they are going to have professional counsellors approach the violent mentally ill without police back up; so now you have to increase funds not defund because you require counsellors AND police, where as before you only had police.

 

[Jonathan Walkerin]

In 2015 in sweden, How much money specifically was cut from Police budgets? How much more money was given to mentally ill professionals?

Now, what is the budget of both groups?

That whole question is so ridiculous it looks like it has been already defunded and saved money used could be used for mental healthcare of certain people.

 

[Jonathan Walkerin]

There is already money spent on preventive social and health projects. How much money should be spent in these areas and how much is currently being spent? Why cut the police budget instead of another budgt in order to make up the difference?

The idea probably being that those funds would in long run decrease activities police need to react to and thus smaller resources would be needed for the police.

As mentioned it is a very abstract concept. In some places under some smart people it would probably work, on others probably not so much.

Also one goal is to get police to shake up things like their training and equipment. No idea what level of wrong kind of or wasteful training police go through every year.

The interesting question will be who is going to determine that.

The police has shown that their self regulating has been less than stellar.

 

[Radagast]

Why, when there are professional counsellors around?

Because most professional counsellors are not equipped to handle an armed mentally ill person without police backup, particularly when that armed mentally ill person is in the process of carrying out a felony.

They may have to be abolished and recreated. The example usually cited is Camden, NJ, which did that.

Camden did not "defund" their police, that's wildly inaccurate.

Instead, Camden increased the size of their force and instituted more aggressive police procedures. “A lot of the old officers, all they did was ride around and not do anything,” said one resident, approvingly, “These are soldiers we have here now.”

See Criminal Justice in Action

 

[hedrick]

Camden did not "defund" their police, that's wildly inaccurate.

Instead, Camden increased the size of their force and instituted more aggressive police procedures. “A lot of the old officers, all they did was ride around and not do anything,” said one resident, approvingly, “These are soldiers we have here now.”

See Criminal Justice in Action

The OP asked what defund the police meant. I said it meant one of two things, transferring *some* things done by police to non-police units, and in extreme cases completely recreating the police dept. Camden followed the second model. I'm not aware of anyone simply abolishing police, even though that's what "defund" might sound like. There have been threats, but so far it doesn't appear any will actually happen.

Yes, the Camden police are unionized. After all, it's NJ. Unions aren't necessarily bad. If I were a policeman I'd want one. Unions in some places have been a problem, because of specifics about those situations. In fact Camden police have the same union as before, though with different leadership.

Did Camden get what they wanted? I'm not making any judgement. The issue is sufficiently political that I haven't found a clear answer. There may not be any. It may be that there were lots of different results and different people will evaluate them differently.

I can't even find what the current median salary is. I've found everything from $50K to $93K. This is relevant because one reason Camden did what they did is that they couldn't afford the police. Members of the new force seem to be paid a lot less, which is why they could afford more. I'm not convinced that this is in general a good idea. Indeed the current (Democratic) NJ attorney general wants to make sure cops are paid well. (In NJ, the attorney general sets the direction for the administration on matters related to police.) His priority is training and professionalism. He is not in favor of defunding police. It would be interesting to see what he would have done had the Camden change happened when he was around.

 

[Radagast]

Camden followed the second model.

Well, no, they did not. Camden did not reduce the funds allocated to police.

 

[RDKirk]

In 2015 in sweden, How much money specifically was cut from Police budgets? How much more money was given to mentally ill professionals?

Now, what is the budget of both groups?

You brought up Sweden, so you must have an idea.

Stop being coy and present it.

 

[RDKirk]

Why not train the Police on how to handle the mentally ill???

It's an opposing skill set.

 

[Radagast]

It's an opposing skill set.

Not really.

There is a successful system in some US cities and in Australia, the Crisis Intervention Team model (I believe it originated in Memphis). It involves special police training (4 or 5 days) to give police some tools for (1) identifying mental health as the core issue and (2) managing the mental health crisis situation.

This has to be teamed with streamlined medical processes, so that police have a designated place to take people with identified mental health problems, at which medical staff will see them promptly (a hospital ER does not always satisfy those criteria).

An alternate system is to have "mental health paramedics" that deploy with police to mental health crisis situations. That would be a high-risk job, and it's not always easy to get people to volunteer for it.

 

[hedrick]

Well, no, they did not. Camden did not reduce the funds allocated to police.

"Defund the police" was said by lots of people with lots of ideas. The common one was dissatisfaction with the police they currently had. Killing the police department is one implementation of defunding them. Yes, they were replaced by a different one, but the original police were still defunded.

There actually have been proposals to have no police at all, but some kind of civilian public safety organization. I think by the time such an organization is created, if it ever is, it will end up being police, or at least having police as a major component.

Camden's change came out of a situation somewhat different from the current one. They had to cut salaries in order to get sufficient police. I've seen varying accounts of the specifics. Camden is subsidized by the state. Depending upon who you believe, it appears that Gov Christie forced the change. In the process they also made changes in how police were managed and their relationship with the community. But the overall process isn't one I'd like to see duplicated. It does get cited as an example of recreating a police force, and some people think it got good results, but there are parts of the process I wouldn't want to see used as a model.

However no matter how it sounds, I don't think "defund the police" will typically result in a lowering of the overall public safety budget. Maybe some functions will be moved out of the police dept. Maybe the police dept will be killed and replaced by something else that looks remarkably like a police department.

 

[hedrick]

I agree that it's possible in principle to train police to be social workers, and have them respond to all urgent calls. In some places this might work.

But police aren't always ideal, and community attitudes aren't always ideal. Moving interactions that don't actually require police to other units could help. I see it as a stop-gap, but sometimes stop-gaps can be useful.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

I think the call to defund police is being taken way too seriously.