Virginia needs progress on COVID-19, police reform

Last month, there was a virtual roundtable conversation between U.S. Rep. Robert “Bobby” Scott and the members of Virginia Organizing’s Hampton Roads chapters, which I attended. There were three major topics discussed during this session: COVID-19 and other health concerns, reopening of schools and discipline methods, and criminal justice reform.

Scott summarized the current COVID-19 situation within Virginia, the federal government’s response to it, and he supports our cause for more relief funds for communities. However, I have concerns about many of the things he said.

First, as far as I can see, there are no regulations on medical facilities in their response tactics, and no economic plan for how funding will be distributed, nor an oversight process. There are no patient discharge protocols for COVID-19 patients upon leaving the hospital, especially those with other health conditions. There are no transportation and other services so COVID-19 patients can safely isolate themselves and still take care of their daily living needs.

For example, a relative of mine with COVID-19 needs dialysis treatment, but was sent home without any discharge instructions, other than isolation, and no transportation plan for treatment, or delivery services for survival needs. It’s very difficult to figure out how to care for him or get him to a dialysis facility that will accept COVID-19 patients. The only transportation company willing to deal with patients is centralized in New York, which means they have to drive to Virginia to render services. It’s overwhelming.

Scott seemed to have a good grasp of the importance of reopening schools safely but also acknowledged that state and local governments are ill equipped to handle safely reopening schools due to the lack of sufficient state funding and no federal assistance for sanitation.

My concerns: Most school districts don’t have an educational framework for teaching students safely under COVID-19 within the classroom. Some schools are of poor structural quality and lack sufficient ventilation to conduct classes using appropriate social distancing measures. There is no school disciplinary structure to handle students who won’t comply with wearing masks and/or other COVID-19 precaution methods. How will local schools sanitize appropriately without funding?

Scott spoke on criminal justice reform legislation such as his direct involvement with the

Youth Promise Act and his opposition to “defunding the police.” He said that defunding the police wasn’t the solution as “it would be too controversial and divisive.” He suggested that the Appropriations Committee should seek alternatives when distributing annual funding such as crime prevention measures, rehabilitation programs with researched-based accountability matrices showing effectiveness in reducing crime.

Scott does not seem to understand why defunding the police, especially community policing, is being proposed. In1994, the Violent Crime Control Act created the Community Oriented Policing Services program (COPS). Billions have been spent on this program even though it has never shown any empirical evidence to prevent crime, create cohesiveness between the local community and the police, and/or anything else it was championed to be able to accomplish.

We want to defund community policing programs because the research shows they were a waste of money that could be used by other effective programs. See the 2007 study in Criminology, for example. The Washington Post published a column by Terrell Jermaine Starr in 2015 summing up the research on how community policing makes crime worse.

The COPS program gave grants until 2005 to create school resource officers and saturated police into public schools, treating students like criminals instead of developing children. So, I’m very dismayed that he wouldn’t be for defunding community policing programs at the very least.

I would like for him to view the proposals made by the Durham Beyond Policing Coalition, which gives several research-based alternatives proven to be effective instead of supporting ineffective policing programs.

LaChere A. Denton is a member of Virginia Organizing-Newport News/Hampton Chapter.