Defunding the Police?

[ZiprHead]

This city disbanded its police department 7 years ago. Here's what happened next

Last week, Minneapolis officials confirmed they were considering a fairly rare course of action: disbanding the city police department.

It's not the first locale to break up a department, but no cities as populous have ever attempted it. Minneapolis City Council members haven't specified what or who will replace it if the department disbands.

Camden, New Jersey, may be the closest thing to a case study they can get.

The city, home to a population about 17% of Minneapolis' size, dissolved its police department in 2012 and replaced it with an entirely new one after corruption rendered the existing agency unfixable.

Woops, I see Worldtraveller beat me to it.

 

[Horatio Parker]

It's an interesting notion. Surely there are many ways to skin that cat. Let's see what Minneapolis comes up with.

I always quote Bukowski wrt police: asked if he didn't hate cops, he said, "No, but I feel better when they're not around".

 

[ZiprHead]

[YOUTUBE]https://youtu.be/jgjEbKc6jXk[/YOUTUBE]

Armed, black business owner mistaken for robber, punched by white Alabama cop

A black business owner armed with a gun was mistaken for a robbery suspect when a police officer punched him in the face, Decatur police Chief Nate Allen said today.

The situation happened nearly three months ago on March 15 but has become public now because of a surveillance video clip released on social media over the weekend. The video shows a police officer walk into Star Spirits & Beverages, a liquor store on Sixth Avenue in Decatur in north Alabama, and immediately punch the owner, 47-year-old Kevin Penn.

Penn says he called police that day to report his store had been robbed and that he was holding the suspect at gunpoint.

 

[Trausti]

This city disbanded its police department 7 years ago. Here's what happened next

Last week, Minneapolis officials confirmed they were considering a fairly rare course of action: disbanding the city police department.

It's not the first locale to break up a department, but no cities as populous have ever attempted it. Minneapolis City Council members haven't specified what or who will replace it if the department disbands.

Camden, New Jersey, may be the closest thing to a case study they can get.

The city, home to a population about 17% of Minneapolis' size, dissolved its police department in 2012 and replaced it with an entirely new one after corruption rendered the existing agency unfixable.

Woops, I see Worldtraveller beat me to it.

Of note, the new police department hired many more officers. Camden has the largest police presence of any big size city in the US on a per capita basis. Public safety benefited from more police, not less.

 

[fromderinside]

Not your typical police department.  Camden County Police Department

Actually its policy rather than number of persons acting in support of policing that accounts for Camden PD success.

Check out their Ambassadors program.

 

[ZiprHead]

This city disbanded its police department 7 years ago. Here's what happened next

Last week, Minneapolis officials confirmed they were considering a fairly rare course of action: disbanding the city police department.

It's not the first locale to break up a department, but no cities as populous have ever attempted it. Minneapolis City Council members haven't specified what or who will replace it if the department disbands.

Camden, New Jersey, may be the closest thing to a case study they can get.

The city, home to a population about 17% of Minneapolis' size, dissolved its police department in 2012 and replaced it with an entirely new one after corruption rendered the existing agency unfixable.

Woops, I see Worldtraveller beat me to it.

Of note, the new police department hired many more officers. Camden has the largest police presence of any big size city in the US on a per capita basis. Public safety benefited from more police, not less.

Citation?

 

[Trausti]

Of note, the new police department hired many more officers. Camden has the largest police presence of any big size city in the US on a per capita basis. Public safety benefited from more police, not less.

Citation?

Source

Union busting likely helped, too.

 

[laughing dog]

According to this Wiki article -  Camden_County_Police_Department - the police force doubled in size under the new plan. The new police force had its incentives changed,

officers would no longer be judged on how many tickets they wrote or arrests they made but on relationships they developed in the community and whether citizens felt safe enough to sit on their front steps or allow their children to ride their bikes in the street.[17] Thomson told the New York Times in 2017 that "aggressive ticket writing" was a sign that officers weren't understanding the new department, saying "handing a $250 ticket to someone who is making $13,000 a year can be life altering."[20] On new recruits' first day, they knock on doors in the neighborhood they're assigned to and introduce themselves.[3]

The initial strategy was to have as many officers walking and biking the streets as possible to discourage drug traffickers; as citizens felt safer and began occupying public spaces again, a critical mass of well-intentioned citizens was sufficient to keep the drug traffickers away and police pulled back on their presence.[17] Thomson also adopted new policies on use-of-force[9] and "scoop and go", which instructs officers to load injured people into their cruisers to take them to the hospital if calling for an ambulance would cause a delay.[20] The use-of-force policy, which the department had drafted with help from New York University Law School’s Policing Project and which was supported by the New Jersey ACLU and the Fraternal Order of Police, was called by experts the "most progressive" such policy to date, according to the Washington Post in 2019.[

As a result,

After the implementations both complaints of excessive force and violent crimes decreased.[17] In 2019 Bloomberg reported that excessive force complaints had dropped by 95%.[9] In 2020 CNN reported the violent crime rate had dropped by 42%.[

So public safety benefited from more officers acting less violently.

 

[lpetrich]

Is 'Defund the Police' a massive political mistake? - CNNPolitics

The political problem for Democrats is this: They are now being backed into a corner by activists who are demanding radical change. But it's not at all clear that a majority of the country supports a policy that would defund the police. Democratic leaders need to change the conversation to be about reforming police departments and re-allocating some resources for more community building and less militarization.
If they can't, the call to "Defund the Police" will continue to be music to Trump's ears.

Trump's latest attempt to tag Biden as a radical flops - POLITICO

Trump lit into Biden on Twitter, painting him as the leader of the “radical left” and responsible for a movement that celebrates anarchy, coddles “antifa” and demonizes law enforcement.

...
“No, I don't support defunding the police,” Biden told CBS’ Norah O’Donnell. “I support conditioning federal aid to police based on whether or not they meet certain basic standards of decency and honorableness and, in fact, are able to demonstrate, they can protect the community and everybody in the community.”

...
While progressives weren’t in an uproar over Biden’s stance, some were unhappy, calling his reaction rash, shortsighted, and saying he needed to spend more time listening.

Anarchy? That's the ultimate in less government -- zero government.

 

[Trausti]

Is 'Defund the Police' a massive political mistake? - CNNPolitics

The political problem for Democrats is this: They are now being backed into a corner by activists who are demanding radical change. But it's not at all clear that a majority of the country supports a policy that would defund the police. Democratic leaders need to change the conversation to be about reforming police departments and re-allocating some resources for more community building and less militarization.
If they can't, the call to "Defund the Police" will continue to be music to Trump's ears.

Trump's latest attempt to tag Biden as a radical flops - POLITICO

Trump lit into Biden on Twitter, painting him as the leader of the “radical left” and responsible for a movement that celebrates anarchy, coddles “antifa” and demonizes law enforcement.

...
“No, I don't support defunding the police,” Biden told CBS’ Norah O’Donnell. “I support conditioning federal aid to police based on whether or not they meet certain basic standards of decency and honorableness and, in fact, are able to demonstrate, they can protect the community and everybody in the community.”

...
While progressives weren’t in an uproar over Biden’s stance, some were unhappy, calling his reaction rash, shortsighted, and saying he needed to spend more time listening.

Anarchy? That's the ultimate in less government -- zero government.

I wouldn't think that many old-school Democrats support defunding the police; but I suspect the new crop that do will make the Dem Convention very interesting.

 

[lpetrich]

Hill Democrats quash liberal push to ‘defund the police’ - POLITICO

“I think it can be used as a distraction and that’s my concern,” Rep. Karen Bass, chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, told reporters on Monday. “I think the intent behind it is something that I support — the idea that communities need investments.”

...
“We’re keeping our eyes on the prize, and that needs to be the story. State and local will do what state and local needs to do,” Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), a member of the CBC, said Monday when asked about the defunding movement. “We are the Congress. What we’re doing here today is our role.”

...
“You can’t defund the police, that’s stupid, it’s crazy and anyone who talks about that is nuts,” said moderate Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.). “You have to have the police.”

...
“This movement today, some people tried to hijack it,” House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) told Democrats on the call, according to multiple sources. “Don’t let yourselves be drawn into the debate about defunding police forces.”

...
Other Democrats also weighed in, with House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) saying the idea is “easily caricatured by demagogues and Republicans,” and Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.) calling the defunding push “divisive and distracting.”

...
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said defunding is “not the term I would use” but emphasized the need to “listen to the pain and the lived experiences of the people who are protesting.” Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine predicted that Congress would not defund the police.

And the campaign for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Monday also said the former vice president “does not believe that police should be defunded.”

They rejected defunding, though broadly agreeing with its supporters.

The Democrats' police-reform bill has already provoked some police unions, but to some Democrats, it does not go far enough.

Ocasio-Cortez praised Democrats’ bill on the caucus call Monday and said she understands the “profound discomfort” around the defunding discussion. But the New York Democrat also implored her colleagues “not to dismiss or mock” activists’ calls for defunding police departments, saying it’s important they don’t “demoralize or undercut” grassroots leaders.

“It is not crazy for black and brown communities to want what white people have already given themselves and that is funding your schools more than you fund criminalizing your own kids,” Ocasio-Cortez said, according to Democrats on the call.

AOC has elsewhere mentioned what upper-middle-class neighborhoods already have. She has direct experience of one, having grown up in one.

Many Democrats prefer for this issue to be handled on a state and local level.

“I was really proud of what Minneapolis unanimously decided. But it’s up to each community,” added Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), a senior member of the CBC, in an interview.

 

[lpetrich]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "“Defund” means that Black & Brown communities are asking for the same budget priorities that White communities have already created for themselves: schooling > police,etc.
People asked in other ways, but were always told “No, how do you pay for it?”
So they found the line item." / Twitter
then
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Lots of DC insiders are criticizing frontline activists over political feasibility and saying they need a new slogan.
But poll-tested slogans and electoral feasibility is not the activists’ job. Their job is to organize support and transform public opinion, which they are doing." / Twitter
then
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Our job as policymakers is to take the public’s mandate and find + create pockets to advance as much progress as possible.
Progress takes a team of different roles. You don’t criticize a pitcher for not being a catcher.
We can respond in ways that don’t undercut impt work" / Twitter
then
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "And by the way, the fact that ppl are scrambling to repackage this whole conversation to make it palatable for largely affluent, white suburban “swing” voters again points to how much more electoral & structural power these communities have relative to others
Just for awareness!" / Twitter

Chris O'Brien on Twitter: "@AOC I agree with the goal. But "defund" is still a bad choice. It doesn't accurately convey the concept in a way that builds support. To people outside the movement, it sounds like supporters want to shut down the police entirely. It will limit the appeal of the idea." / Twitter
then
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "@obrien Perhaps a bad choice to your aims & focus
It’s been an excellent choice for the organizers who have been trying to prompt a national convo for years about multibillion-dollar police depts.
“Refund” or “reallocate” didn’t do that. “Defund” did. BLM had similar early resistance." / Twitter

So it's for pushing the Overton window, by advocating something that seems extreme for providing cover for self-styled moderates to support much of it. That's evident from her own description, doing less policing and more of other things. Like what she experienced when growing up in Jackson Heights in Westchester County.

 

[lpetrich]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Not long ago, “Black Lives Matter” was *also* a rallying cry for justice that politicians worried polled too poorly, was too “divisive” & required “too much explanation.”
Now Mitt Romney is saying it.
Progress is a process. It’s normal to work through discomfort along the way." / Twitter

"Black lives matter" is a good slogan - short, catchy - and it isn't as horrible as "Abolish ICE" or "Defund the police". About both of those two, I ask what must replace them, and how to keep them from doing the same troublesome things.

 

[lpetrich]

ABC News on Twitter: "NEW: District attorneys for Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx issue joint statement "in support of proposed city and state legislation that would criminalize the use of chokeholds and similar restraints by law enforcement officers." https://t.co/hovBbv49VJ" / Twitter
then
Julián Castro on Twitter: "District attorneys are on notice: if you don’t have the courage to support change and to hold police officers accountable for misconduct, voters will find someone who will." / Twitter

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter: "Any New Yorker can tell you that this group does not look representative of the NYPD at all.
Most NYPD patrol officers are Black, Latino, or Asian American - and the overall force is about 1/5 women.
So what’s going on here? " / Twitter
August Takala on Twitter: "WATCH New York police boss Mike O'Meara went off on the media today:
"Stop treating us like animals and thugs and start treating us with some respect ... Our legislators abandoned us. The press is vilifying us. It's disgusting." https://t.co/CXOPARKff7" / Twitter

That cop boss's statement provoked this response:
Spry Guy* on Twitter: "@AugustTakala The lack of self-awareness is kinda jaw-dropping.
What he's saying IS PRECISELY WHAT BLACK PEOPLE ARE SAYING TO THEM.
Jesus. WTF is wrong with these people??" / Twitter

In response to AOC, someone else claimed this:
Robert Swartz on Twitter: "@JoshuaPotash @AOC I in another thread most of these big city "police" unions - including NYC's - are really "white police" unions that neither welcome or have many, if any POC members. And the clear majority of their members live out of town. Why recognize them as speakers for their departments." / Twitter
That is consistent with what we see in that video -- mostly honkies.

 

[lpetrich]

NY Working Families Party on Twitter: "This moment was made possible by the Black organizers and allies who spent decades organizing to end police secrecy and violence, and pushed our elected officials to enact this long-overdue change." / Twitter
noting
Zach Williams on Twitter: "BREAKING: The NYS Senate has just PASSED a repeal of 50a
This allows for the public disclosure of NYPD disciplinary records after recent protests created an opportunity to pass the bill after years of effort.
Gov. Cuomo has said he will sign the bill." / Twitter

Janet on Twitter: "@NYWFP @AOC Amazing what happens in NYC when you don't have state Democrats voting with Republicans." / Twitter


With these activism efforts and successes, I'm coming to think that Gilded Age II may be coming to an end and that we will see a new era of progressive change here in the US. It won't happen instantaneously, of course, and it will have plenty of troubles. At least if the earlier eras of progressive change are any guide.


Ayanna Pressley on Twitter: "Yes, it’s possible to legislate justice & accountability and write budgets that actually value Black lives. If it feels unfamiliar, that’s because we’re trying to do something that’s never been done in America." / Twitter


Ilhan Omar on Twitter: "In 2016 when I ran against a 44yr incumbent, people told me saying #BlackLivesMattters was wrong messaging and I would lose.
Today, not only did I win that race but everyone is falling over themselves to say #BlackLivesMattters.
We speak to our values, not their messaging." / Twitter

 

[Jarhyn]

I posted this in my own thread on Minneapolis rioters, bit I think this belongs here, too:

John Oliver discusses The Police

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

According to this Wiki article -  Camden_County_Police_Department - the police force doubled in size under the new plan. The new police force had its incentives changed,

officers would no longer be judged on how many tickets they wrote or arrests they made but on relationships they developed in the community and whether citizens felt safe enough to sit on their front steps or allow their children to ride their bikes in the street.[17] Thomson told the New York Times in 2017 that "aggressive ticket writing" was a sign that officers weren't understanding the new department, saying "handing a $250 ticket to someone who is making $13,000 a year can be life altering."[20] On new recruits' first day, they knock on doors in the neighborhood they're assigned to and introduce themselves.[3]

The initial strategy was to have as many officers walking and biking the streets as possible to discourage drug traffickers; as citizens felt safer and began occupying public spaces again, a critical mass of well-intentioned citizens was sufficient to keep the drug traffickers away and police pulled back on their presence.[17] Thomson also adopted new policies on use-of-force[9] and "scoop and go", which instructs officers to load injured people into their cruisers to take them to the hospital if calling for an ambulance would cause a delay.[20] The use-of-force policy, which the department had drafted with help from New York University Law School’s Policing Project and which was supported by the New Jersey ACLU and the Fraternal Order of Police, was called by experts the "most progressive" such policy to date, according to the Washington Post in 2019.[

As a result,

After the implementations both complaints of excessive force and violent crimes decreased.[17] In 2019 Bloomberg reported that excessive force complaints had dropped by 95%.[9] In 2020 CNN reported the violent crime rate had dropped by 42%.[

So public safety benefited from more officers acting less violently.

So community life got safer by having police presence increased in the form of officers becoming part of the community. I would have thought that buying the police a few armored Bradley fighting vehicles with quad 50s mounted on the turret, flame throwers and miniguns would have worked a lot better.

Learn something every day.

 

[Worldtraveller]

Of note, the new police department hired many more officers. Camden has the largest police presence of any big size city in the US on a per capita basis. Public safety benefited from more police, not less.

Citation?

As usual, trausti misses the point. It's not about the number of officers, it's about how they act.

I would totally be ok with doubling the number of officers on a police force. As a matter of fact, once you get rid of the tanks and excessive riot gear, I imagine you can afford more officers to actually be (and this part's important) peace officers. You know, serving and protecting instead of beating and framing.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Is 'Defund the Police' a massive political mistake? - CNNPolitics


Trump's latest attempt to tag Biden as a radical flops - POLITICO

Anarchy? That's the ultimate in less government -- zero government.

I wouldn't think that many old-school Democrats support defunding the police; but I suspect the new crop that do will make the Dem Convention very interesting.

Translation: The Russians and Trump's dirty ops team will use it for continued clandestine information warfare by weaponizing Sanders supporters again, among others.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Of note, the new police department hired many more officers. Camden has the largest police presence of any big size city in the US on a per capita basis. Public safety benefited from more police, not less.

Citation?

As usual, trausti misses the point. It's not about the number of officers, it's about how they act.

I would totally be ok with doubling the number of officers on a police force. As a matter of fact, once you get rid of the tanks and excessive riot gear, I imagine you can afford more officers to actually be (and this part's important) peace officers. You know, serving and protecting instead of beating and framing.

Riot gear is cheap compared to an officer's salary, it's not going to make a meaningful difference in the size of the police force. I don't know what the cost of the big stuff is.