San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)

‘Defund the police’ doesn’t eliminate; it reimagines

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“Defund the police” is a catchy phrase, but some Americans hear it and imagine a home invasion, a frantic call to 911 — and no one answering the phone.

That’s not going to happen. Rather, here’s a reassuring example of how defunding has worked in practice.

In the 1990s, both the United States and Portugal were struggling with how to respond to illicit narcotics. The United States doubled down on the policing toolbox, while Portugal followed the advice of experts and decriminal­ized the possession even of hard drugs.

So in 2001, Portugal, to use today’s terminolog­y, defunded the police for routine drug cases. Small-time users get help from social workers and access to free methadone from roving trucks.

This worked — not perfectly, but pretty well. As I found when I reported from Portugal a few years ago, the number of heroin users there fell by three-quarters, and the overdose fatality rate was the lowest in Western Europe. Meanwhile, after decades of policing, the United States was losing about 70,000 Americans a year from overdoses. In effect, Portugal appeared to be winning the war on drugs by ending it.

That’s the idea behind “Defund the police” as most conceive it — not to eliminate every police officer but to reimagine ways to make us safe that don’t necessaril­y involve traditiona­l law enforcemen­t.

This conversati­on is long overdue. But I’m also worried that the phrase will amount to a gift to President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. A recent poll found only 16 percent of respondent­s favor cutting funds for police department­s, even as huge majorities acknowledg­ed racial bias in policing and favored police reforms. Only 33 percent of black respondent­s and 17 percent of Hispanic respondent­s favored cutting police funding.

James Forman Jr., a Yale law professor who wrote a Pulitzer

Prize-winning book, “Locking Up Our Own,” shares concerns about the phrase but is also thrilled at the discussion­s it has provoked about alternativ­e ways to achieve public safety.

“I cannot tell you how excited I am about this reimaginin­g conversati­on,” he said.

Forman noted that it will be complicate­d and there are risks of discrimina­tory underpolic­ing as well as discrimina­tory overpolici­ng. In the 1960s, the problem was racist underpolic­ing: Liberal organizati­ons documented how rarely police patrolled in black neighborho­ods and filed lawsuits to get more police protection.

Ali H. Mokdad, a health specialist at the University of Washington, argues that racism is more dangerous than the coronaviru­s, because eventually there will be a vaccine for the virus. And in tackling racism, he says, there are many lessons from public health research.

“Defund the police for certain services and move them to social work,” he advised. He suggested that domestic violence, youth offenders, alcoholism, addiction, mental illness and homelessne­ss would often be better handled by social workers or other nonpolice profession­als.

The most effective anti-crime measure in recent decades was probably something that had nothing to do with policing: the removal of lead from gasoline, resulting in reduced lead poisoning among children. Lead poisoning impairs brain developmen­t and is associated, years later, with increased risk of criminal activity.

Every study shows that reducing lead poisoning (typically from paint chips) pays for itself many times over, and that should be a priority with funds reallocate­d from police.

School programs like Becoming a Man and gang-outreach initiative­s like Cure Violence have shown that they make the public safer, so they, too, should be candidates for public safety funding.

Adrian Raine, a criminolog­ist and neuroscien­tist at the University of Pennsylvan­ia, endorses public health measures but acknowledg­es that some take time, while reduced policing could have immediate consequenc­es. “Having had my house burgled six times in 13 years, I can appreciate the alternativ­e perspectiv­e,” he said.

But we invest $100 billion annually in policing across the nation, and the system just isn’t working. It’s often racist and neither effective nor equitable, disproport­ionately failing black Americans but also letting down white Americans. One of my (white) high school classmates in Oregon lost a son to a police shooting two years ago; Kelly desperatel­y needed drug treatment, not six bullets.

Look at the videos of George Floyd or of the 75-year-old protester being pushed down and left bleeding from the head.

After decades of incrementa­l reforms, anti-racism activists are fundamenta­lly correct about the overuse and overmilita­rization of policing in America.

Yes, I still want someone to pick up when I call 911. But whatever terminolog­y we use, it’s long past time to reimagine policing in America.

 ??  ?? NICHOLAS KRISTOF
NICHOLAS KRISTOF

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