The last few weeks, a lot of friends and colleagues have been lining up around the demand, “Defund the Police.” Yes, I agree, things have to change and they have to change fast. Policing as it exists in this country is deeply flawed. But let me suggest a different alternative (and explain why).
The Issue
Policing has not been working for many people of color their whole lives. In the recent past, it didn’t work for anti-war protestors, environmental activists, and the Water Protectors at Standing Rock expressing their First Amendment rights of free speech and assembly. In the slightly more distant past, it didn’t work for the labor movement. Or the suffragettes, for that matter.
And now that as a country, we’re in an epic battle between democracy and something that creeps ever-closer to fascism, we need to figure it out pronto.
And it’s not as simple as it might seem.
What Colors My Perspective
I’ve known a lot of cops in my time. In the resume part of my business, I’ve had a few dozen cops as clients. In the part of my business that helps get authors get their books published and marketed, I’ve had a few ex-cops as clients. Ditto with military veterans.
I’ve lived in big cities, where I definitely did not see police as my allies. And for 39 years, I’ve lived in Western Massachusetts small towns with populations ranging from 5000 to 29,000, where I do.
As a lifelong activist, I’ve dealt with cops at countless demonstrations–and relied on them for both traffic control and protection from potentially violent counterdemonstrators. And…
Side note: Protection was a particular issue in the early days of the Northampton (MA) Pride March. The first year, 1982, only 500 people showed up to march, many wearing paper bags over heads to protect their identity, and there were at least 50 counterprotestors. Last year, more than 40,000 marched, including contingents from most area churches and schools, including elementary and daycare, with speakers including several elected officials. This growth indicates the power of protest to actually change the culture. I was at that 1982 march (without a bag) and on the organizing committee for the next three years, and have attended more than 30 of these events.
…I also served for several years as one of the activist members of our local District Attorney’s Civil Rights Board, which interfaced with law enforcement agencies across a 60-mile-long, 60-mile-wide, two-county territory.
And I was arrested once, at the 1977 Seabrook Occupation, and was a “guest” of the state of New Hampshire for the next eight days.
We’ve also had a few meetings with our town police chief and senior officers over issues that arose in town or positions we wanted them to take. And when my wife got a threatening phone call after she was falsely labeled as an anti-police activist on a right-wing hate side, she called the chief and received good advice. And he was on a town anti-racism call with us and other activists just last week.
Why Do Cops Become Cops?
In this admittedly small sample, the constant thread I’ve heard from police and from military people across many states and many decades is this:
- They went into this line of work out of a desire to make the world better (safer)
This is not to say there aren’t cops who joined the force because it’s a way to legally get out your aggressions beating other people up. Of course there are. But I’m convinced they’re a tiny percentage. We have to acknowledge and respect that most police went into that work with good intentions. In fact, we need to honor it, even in situations where that intention has gone awry. If we address them as people who want to do the right thing, our conversations will be much more productive and our outcomes will be much better. That means NOT saying things like “all cops are racist” or worse, the 1960s slogan, “off the pigs” (off means kill in this context), which I’ve heard far too frequently lately.
And cops these days are tasked with a lot of social work interventions, and they get a lot of training on de-escalation, on diversity, on race and gender issues…
But we also have to recognize that the culture of policing–the focus on what’s bad in the world and who is making that happen–encourages the bully and the sadist in every one of us. It encourages the police to use violence because they see the suspects as bad apples–and when your tools are guns, Tasers, and chokeholds, you tend to focus on how to solve your immediate problem with those tools. And that encourages progressives to see the cops as “enemy,” as “other,” and as monolithically bad. And that in turn makes it more likely for protestors to engage in destructive behavior, which in turn generates a hostile response from the police, and an escalating downward cycle. All parties are dehumanizing the other, the discourse disintegrates, and violence increases.
And just because you’ve received mandatory training that you may or may not have paid attention to, doesn’t mean you really have those skills. Cops practice the traditional police skills a whole lot. They get many hours at the police academy on how to use a firearm, handcuffs, etc. They don’t get that kind of active reinforcement in a talking-heads diversity training, or even in a fishbowl role-play.
So Why Not Defund?
Three reasons:
- There’s no replacement. Police perform critical functions to protect public safety. They are often the first to respond to an accident. They intervene in domestic violence situations. They apprehend suspects and preserve evidence after a crime. They provide immediate counseling to people threatening suicide. And yes, they protect our free speech and free assembly rights, at least most of the time. Without some other body to take on these role, I don’t think we can eliminate the police. And let’s be frank: the demand to defund is a demand to eliminate. Defunding means eliminate the money they use to operate. Calling to close down policing with no replacement is not really any different, in my eyes, than the right-wing drive to eliminate the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and replace it with…nothing. I have zero patience for activists who claim that defunding doesn’t really mean defunding. Either they are naive or disingenuous, or if they are sincere, they need to come up with a differnt phrase.
- Nobody is talking about what happens to tens of thousands of working-class police families if police as an institution goes away. Who will help those folks get other jobs, what sort will they be, and will they be at least comparable economically?
- Strageically in this election year, I worry that a demand to eliminate police departments will push swing voters in the wrong direction. As Charlie Weaver, Executive Director of the (Minneapolis-area) Minnesota Business Partnership, put it, “Getting rid of crime fighters won’t eliminate crime.” Some people will be so afraid that police elimination will leave them vulnerable to crime that they could flock to vote for the criminal in the White House who talks so strongly about law and order (it worked for Nixon). Yes, this response partially stems from “white fragility” and other currents of long-term systemic racism, and those are issues we have to address. But we also need to make sure that if policing is eliminated, that this demographic still feels comfortable and safe and willing to vote that skunk out of office.
What Could Reinventing Police Look Like?
The other day, I listened to environmental business strategist Gil Friend present one scenario with three different outcomes. A beligerant young man of color is a suspect in a crime and is facing down a group of police. If this is in the US, he is likely on the ground, fatally wounded, before too long. If it’s in Switzerland, nonlethal force policies might mean he is shot in the and then taken into custody. But in the UK, the police, using full-body protective shields, would surround him, gradually tighten the circle, and eventually arrest him with no use of violence, not even Tasers or pepper spray.
Nonlethal force (including Tasers, even though there are occasional fatalities) is a huge improvement over firearms. But it’s only the first step. De-escalation and negotiation have to be seen as crucial police skills, and police need to be well-grounded in the context of that community, including any history of being “otherized,” especially by police but also by the wider culture.
Cynthia Lum and Daniel S. Nagin have been talking about the need to reinvent poicing in the US for years. Here’s the one-paragraph abstract of their 2016 article, “reinventing American Policing” (emphasis added):
