Take away some burdens placed on police

Defunding doesn’t mean disbanding, it means refocussing priorities on core duties

This is in response to letters to the editor that appeared June 12.

These letters included some passionate arguments against defunding the police. I take issue with some of the points and wish to add my own opinions in support.

First off, it is important to clear up a misconception about what “defunding” police means. The Hamilton Police Service currently consumes more of the city budget than any other department or service (City of Hamilton, 2020). I agree, we absolutely need police officers authorized to use force to keep us safe from violent criminals. However, in addition to their role of crime deterrence and punishment, we expect them to do too many jobs for which they are neither trained nor equipped. Most days police do not deal with any violent crime but are instead expected to be mental health crisis professionals, conflict negotiators, social workers, sexual assault specialists and marriage, addiction or grief counsellors. One former police officer wrote for Medium (2020), “when I was doing my best work as a police officer, I was doing mediocre work as a therapist or a social worker.” Should one profession be responsible for every problem in our community? No. We should take away some of the burdens we have put on the police, enabling them to focus on protecting our society from violent crime, which makes up only 20 per cent of police-reported crime in Canada (The Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, 2018). Defunding the police does not mean ignoring the other 80 per cent of problems in our community, it means reallocating police funding to hire and train unarmed professionals to address these problems.

One writer wrote that police should not be defunded due to the danger they face in their profession. The list of deadliest jobs in Canada (rate of traumatic injury and fatalities per 100,000 from 20112015) includes loggers (81.7), fishing deckhands (77), roofers (24.8), farmers (23.9), electrical line workers (16.9), and other manufacturing labourers (16.5) (Grant, 2017). This list does not include police (5), whose greatest workplace danger is driving a car. There are many unsafe jobs in Canada where we, as a society, need to focus our efforts.

This writer added his belief that crime would increase if police funding were reduced, with a focus on drugs and guns. The purpose of defunding the police is not to ignore crime, but to address crime prevention in a different way. Our society has tried for over a half century to reduce drug use by police deterrence and harsh punishment through prisons. It is time to decriminalize drug use and treat it like a health care issue. Our city should place a greater budget priority on programs for prevention, harm reduction, and treatment of drug addiction. Perhaps if we can support people suffering from addiction, we could also reduce the organized crime fuelled by the illegal drug trade, which would justify a smaller police department. As for guns, only three per cent of violent crime in Canada was firearm related (The Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, 2018). With a greater focus on this issue, police would be better able to address violent crime.

I agree with another writer who wrote money saved from having school liaison officers could be better spent providing mental health or addiction support to students.

I can understand the desire to maintain the police as an institution that helps people feel safe in their community. However, we should listen to marginalized communities when they say the police not only fail to keep them safe but are the reason they feel unsafe. When an institution acts in opposition to its main purpose, it needs to be rebuilt.

We need to change our view on police being the heroes protecting us from lawless chaos. Fear of the police does not keep people from committing crimes. People commit crimes because of poverty, homelessness, mental health and addiction. It is time our society addressed some of these real reasons directly.