‘8 Can’t Wait’ reforms don’t go far enough
Recent protests demand cities and counties rethink public safety and reckon with a long-held inability to recognize Black humanity. In response to the upswell of these demands around the nation and here in Santa Fe, Mayor Alan Webber stated in an early June news briefing that he plans to review the city’s useof-force policies in alignment with “8 Can’t Wait,” a set of recommendations geared at shifting police behaviors and reducing police killings through more restrictive use of force.
These recommendations seem to offer an appealing set of solutions to the complex problems at hand — concrete, feasible and purportedly data-driven. However, as pointed out by educators and researchers Cherrell Brown, Philip V. McHarris, Emma Gleason and others, the analyses supporting this policy platform draw on questionable assumptions.
The study on which the 8 Can’t Wait assumptions are built relies on data from only 91 police departments across only 18 months, a limited set of control variables and a total absence of state-level variables. It also includes an assumption that implementing each additional policy would compound the reduction in police killings. The conclusion that adopting all eight of these policies would result in a 72 percent reduction in police killings is not well substantiated. That suggests a need for more research, not a ready-made set of policy recommendations.
Another indicator that these reforms are not the answer is made clear by this fact: Many of the recommended policies already are widespread in cities still experiencing police brutality. The New York Police Department already had banned chokeholds in 2014 when an officer used one to kill Eric Garner. Minneapolis had implemented a duty-to-intervene policy in 2016; as we all know, this did not result in any of the three officers intervening to stop the murder of George Floyd. As the Minneapolis City Council announced its rationale for dismantling the police, councilors noted they had tried and failed to stop police killings through reform.
The 8 Can’t Wait recommendations dilute and distract from efforts to envision and enact more fundamental changes — banning highly problematic behaviors and sending officers to jail is not the solution. Thankfully, we can turn to many activist visionaries for guidance on how to envision and transition to an abolitionist future. Abolition is not simply a matter of defunding and cutting budgets, nor of dismantling police and prisons. The focus of abolition is on building up life-sustaining systems that reduce, prevent and better address harm.
In keeping with an abolitionist perspective, the Movement for Black Lives has a multifaceted policy platform that includes divestment from police and investment in community. #8toAbolition champions policies such as demilitarization, removal of police from schools and providing safe housing for everyone. Minneapolis is now moving toward a holistic, social services-based approach to public safety. Here at home, Santa Fe While Black, #FreeThemAll, Building Power for Black New Mexico and Red Nation are envisioning trajectories toward transformative justice.
It can be hard to imagine what a world without police looks like; it is the water we swim in and the air we breathe. But the ongoing protests have created an opportunity for mayors to lead responsively and to take seriously when people say enough is enough. 8 Can’t Wait is a paltry symbol of “solidarity” that narrows the political possibilities of this moment, wasting the efforts of the citizens fighting for meaningful change. To mistake insignificant baby steps for the kind of action we now need is to fall into a political trap that destines Santa Fe to repeat the failures that have led us here in the first place.
Alexandra and Davielle Lakind were born and raised in Santa Fe. Alexandra Lakind is a doctoral candidate in education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and aspiring sheri≠. Davielle Lakind is an assistant professor of clinical psychology at Mercer University. Over the last decade, Robert Lundberg, lawyer and artist, has come to call Santa Fe a home.