If redirecting money stops brutality, embrace reform
So, now, this is happening.
After seeing former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin knee the life out of George Floyd in full view of pleading, horrified onlookers, some cities are now considering what amounts to the fiscal equivalent of taking the car keys from a teenager who, after racking up numerous speeding tickets, finally hit someone.
That equivalent? Defunding the police.
To those who think this means no one will be around to respond to shootings, burglaries and other emergencies, relax. It doesn’t mean shuttering police departments.
What it means, though, is redirecting much of the tax money that funds law enforcement into community investments that could, well, make the police less necessary.
Some cities, such as Austin, Texas, are showing the way.
Last year, it reformed its emergency response system so that operators who answer 911 calls ask callers whether they need police, fire or mental health services. That move helps avoid sending police into situations that don’t require a law enforcement response. It was able to do that by adding millions to its budget for mental health services.
Floyd’s slaying has brought a new urgency to that idea.
As it should have.
According to a 2017 report by the Center for Popular Democracy, the U.S. spends more than $100 billion each year on policing. In most cities, police spending devours much of the budget.
One example: The 2019 Memphis fiscal budget included more than $260 million in expenditures for police services.
But housing? Only $4.4 million. Putting more money toward eliminating blighted housing alone would make neighborhoods safer by giving thieves, rapists and muggers fewer places to flop.
More money towards certain types of housing like, say, for homeless people, would also lessen the chances of police officers dealing with people who have mental health issues and other problems that they aren’t trained to manage.
But there’s a larger reason why defunding — or reform, as it should be called so that people focus on the cause and not the slogan — must happen.
If heftier investments in housing, education and jobs lead to less crime, it can render tough-on-crime fear-mongering from politicians useless.
If that happens, then those politicians, or at least the ones who aren’t lazy thinkers and who care more about improving conditions for their constituents than their campaign coffers, will stop pandering to police and public safety unions for support.
That could make it tougher for those unions to impede reforms designed to make officers accountable when they do what Chauvin did to Floyd.
But Mark Lowe, president of the Shelby County Sheriff’s Deputy Association, told The Commercial Appeal that defunding the police was a dangerous notion that would deprive officers of equipment to protect the public.
And Mike Williams, president of the Memphis Police Association, also op
poses defunding the police. He said he believes money to combat social problems that fuel crime should come from other areas, and not from a police force in a city as violent as Memphis.
He also said it’s painful for him to see the anger directed at police officers because of Chauvin’s crime.
“I’m a black man, and I get it,” Williams said. “What happened to George Floyd was atrocious and it makes it harder for us good officers to do our jobs ... being a black police officer who really wants to help the community, it hurts...
“But considering the level of crime in Memphis, we can’t defund the police.”
A better approach, he said, would be to get back to community policing — which focuses more on respecting than controlling people, and has shown some success in Camden, N.J.
Yet better policing is only one part of the solution, and it doesn’t come close to having the same impact as hefty investments in building jobs and social capital to blunt the despair that often leads people to commit crimes.
Another problem: Unions have fought reforms over the years, which makes it easier for problem officers to remain on the force, and they often use their political and fundraising clout to target politicians who try to institute changes.
This state of affairs helps to explain why Chauvin had 18 prior complaints against him before he killed Floyd, as well as the look of defiance on his face, and his sense of infallibility, as he knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes.
It explains why, as the deaths of unarmed African-americans at the hands of police over the past five years have shown, too many police officers are acting on stereotypes and presumptions of danger.
Floyd’s slaying has forced the Minneapolis City Council to finally take the car keys away from the police department, whose union has resisted change over the years, by voting to disband it.
If activists around the nation can channel their anger over Floyd’s killing into organization, they can overcome resistance to reforms.
They can pressure their elected representatives to do what should have been done ages ago: Redirect a chunk of that police funding to reduce poverty, build stable housing and create economic and social conditions that will reduce people’s interactions with law enforcement.
As well as their chances of being brutalized or killed by them.