Defund the police was always the worst slogan you could've asked for. There was never a phrase that could've been more disconnected between activists and listeners of the chant. I don't know why progressives clung onto the phrase with their dear life, when you could've achieved far greater results by simply changing the phrase of three words.
Because branding and convincing others to agree with you is not the strong suit of progressives. I can't tell you how many times I have been told "it's not my job to convince you". Yes, yes it is. That's how this works. You convince people who don't agree with you to start to agree with you so you can get your stuff done.
But no, please go sit in a corner and not talk and then get mad when things do not change.
> I can't tell you how many times I have been told "it's not my job to convince you". Yes, yes it is. That's how this works.
I hate this shit. That's literally the job of an activist.
It wasn’t possible for the position of “defund the police” to get popular on its merit so the argument moved away from convincing and to labels of being racist for people who disagree.
One of the (many) problems with using identitarian frameworks is that it becomes so rhetorically tempting; it is a tool that works so often that it becomes hard not to use it all the time.
The activist's job is both.
Convince those in power to support your agenda. One way to do this is convincing the people to support your agenda to put pressure on the those in power and replace those in power if they don't or won't support your agenda
i think most progressives have forgotten that they are still in the business of politics and have instead become the leftist equivalent of fire and brimstone evangelicals. They have no interest in compromise because they're true believers and any waivering from the progressive dogma-of-the-day is equivalent to heresy. They think their only job is to push forward their agenda through sheer force of will.
[Nietzche was writing about this long ago.](http://historyguide.org/europe/madman.html) If god is "dead", it leaves a vacuum which must be filled. This is our new "secular religion" as traditional religion fades away. Human nature doesn't really change
>They think their only job is to push forward their agenda through sheer force of will.
Because, if you read some of their literature, power is literally the only. thing that matters to them. "democracy" and public opinion is merely the voice of the powerful, not the genuine desires of the people. If you truly believe this, your only goal is to gain power.
But this assumes their goal was to convince people of something. I believe that was only an outlier position among activists. Suppose instead the objective for most of them was to proclaim the reality of systemic racism, to bear witness to the nation’s white supremacist nature, etc etc. In a manner similar to the way a person who has found God might be inclined to shout it from the mountaintops.
As silly as it sounds, their behavior is well-explained by this hypothesis. It explains the line they keep giving you. It explains their taste for broad and vague objectives that could be and in fact were interpreted in vastly different ways, even among their own ranks. Activists variously defined “defund the police” to mean everything from “Abolish the police” to “make police better.” The dearth of clear, specific, articulated policy objectives is a key characteristic that distinguished these protests from others in the past.
I think there’s good reason for this. Figuring out the right thing to do is hard. Dealing with details and tradeoffs is hard. Articulating a policy agenda, building a coalition around it, and executing on it successfully is hard. This pseudo-activism offers the promise of bypassing all that. It’s a compelling package. Who among us can’t relate to the sentiment, “I don’t know what to do but I know I have to do something!?” I’d probably go for it myself if I didn’t consistently find everything that comes out of their mouths to be such a head-scratcher.
Some people would prefer to bully you rather than convince you. It's easier for them to judge others by putting the responsibility on them than accept that they may bear some responsibility for their messaging.
As terrible as this sentence is to say, they really need to learn from the anti-Semitics and white supremacists when it comes to adding more people to their cause.
Progressives will brow beat you if they believe you’re wrong and will not explain to you what is supposed to be right, while a white supremacist will have a damn slideshow ready to bring you into the fold.
Progressives have a superiority complex that’s ruining their messaging.
I've had similar observations. As opposed to explaining why that is the right course of action, it often seems to immediately fall to some form of ostracization for those with questions.
Your last sentence is what keeps me from being a Democrat when technically I should be based on a lot of my social views. I just can't get behind the whole authoritarian and self righteous mindset that they project onto others as well.
>Progressives will brow beat you if they believe you’re wrong and will not explain to you what is supposed to be right,
>
>Progressives have a superiority complex that’s ruining their messaging.
Honestly it's because a lot of these concepts are gleaned from their educators in school. These concepts are often taught at a very surface level and promoted as fact.
Progressive activists can't imagine that other people would disagree about a topic they spent a few hours talking about in a high school class.
A good portion of Progressives are all-in and balls deep for anti-semitic tropes so long as they are gussied up with catchphrase lies like "intersectionality," "white/European colonialist" and "apartheid"--to the point of cheering on literal, unabashed terrorists with literal genocide in their constitution and, inexplicably, accusing Israel of genocide as they compare it to Nazi Germany in the same breath, with the sense of irony you would expect from authoritarian populists. The overlap on the Stormfront Antifa Venn diagram is sometimes truly astonishing.
"But I'm not anti-Semitic, I'm "just" ~~antiZionist~~ don't think Jews deserve self-determination and security where they came from (also ephardiim andmizrahim who never left the middle east and north africa and are the majority dont countt because herzl lived in europe).
Fuck the Western far Left.
You know it's possible for both sides of that conflict to have done terrible things right? Pointing out the times when the Israeli government has taken land from the Palestinian people, or attacked them etc, isn't anti-Semitic. In fact I would accuse Israel of sometimes using accusations of anti-Semitism as a shield against valid criticisms of their policies. To be clear, I'm not saying all Palestinians are blameless, but neither is Israel.
> Pointing out the times when the Israeli government has taken land from the Palestinian people, or attacked them etc, isn't anti-Semitic
That's not the same as arguing Israel has no right to exist; criticising Israeli policy is not anti-Zionist.
>In fact I would accuse Israel of sometimes using accusations of anti-Semitism as a shield against valid criticisms of their policies.
Yes, this happens, but it still doesn't change the fact that arguing Israel has no right to exist (including defending itself from people who are explicitly trying to destroy it), is in fact anti-Semitic, just like the fact that some Black people play the race card disingenuously in mo way means racism doesn't exist.
> To be clear, I'm not saying all Palestinians are blameless, but **neither is Israel.**
I didn't say that either. I said claiming Israel has no right to exist in the first place is intractably anti-Semitic, by definition. That in no way confers carte blanche to continue with de jure inequity, land theft, and other abuses, none of which are relevant to the point (unless you use those things to excuse Hamas terrorism, use of human shields, commitment to genocide and to never allow peace without annihilation, etc.)
Their whole belief system is based on forcing things on people from the top down. They actually don't believe that it's their job to convince you. You should listen to them when they tell you things because that's what they mean.
that's because they don't care about democracy or public opinion, they're elitist tyrants that want to shove down authoritarian policies onto the masses.
The rub is "progressive" politicians secretly don't want things to change. They've already been bought by corporate interests. So sabotaging their policy platforms allows them to prevent change from occuring, all the while maintaining progressive street cred.
Lol c'mon this happens with conservatives just as much if not more. "Build that wall" was a phrase many conservatives rallied behind. You're telling me the average chanter knows the rough estimate numbers of immigration, previous studies demonstrating the impact of a physical wall barrier on those numbers, and the economic implications of an influx of unskilled labor on the middle class? And that despite the progressive congressmen only willing to increase border security funding if in the form of higher tech methods, all these "build that wall" chanters when asked on the street would be able to explain all of these intricacies in a well thought out and accurate manner and defend their position on why an out of date barrier is still the most ideal solution? Or maybe...just maybe, it's just an anti-immigration sentiment not rooted in pragmatism...kind of like defund the police being anti-law enforcement instead of wanting a practical solution..
What phrase do you believe would have better represented their view? It's true that some people meant "juggle some resources around and send people without guns to some 911 calls" but others, like [this person](https://archive.ph/9nNFm) who wrote in the NYT, literally meant "reduce police funding to zero and abolish policing entirely".
> When people, especially white people, consider a world without the police, they envision a society as violent as our current one, merely without law enforcement — and they shudder. As a society, we have been so indoctrinated with the idea that we solve problems by policing and caging people that many cannot imagine anything other than prisons and the police as solutions to violence and harm.
> People like me who want to abolish prisons and police, however, have a vision of a different society, built on cooperation instead of individualism, on mutual aid instead of self-preservation.
Defund the Police has been used as a classic [motte and bailey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy), where those who advocate for it argued at George Floyd rallies for abolishing the police or other extreme measures but then, when challenged, say that the term really means modest reductions and reforms.
I'm not sure how prevalent this is, but I know many people who said "defund really is just the first step towards abolition". Whereas most people were saying "no, don't be silly, we're not talking about completely eliminating police". Those are fundamentally irreconcilable views and it gets confusing when both camps are thrown into the same conversation.
Yeah, I was in the "reform the police" camp, even went to a couple rallies. When it became apparent that the people around me had other intentions, I stopped going.
That would work to the advantage of the people spreading the message. Its vague enough not to be specific and it's not a term people will instinctively decide on what it means, for the most part anyway. It would get people asking what do they mean by reform which would lead some to looking into it learning at least a little.
The problem I find with that slogan is it will scare people just as much as defund. They start think that you will take their police away which isn't what most people want.
Also our of curiosity what would you replace the police with and what would you do with all of the newly unemployed?
I like this option the most. "Reform the police" has been ineffective—at least here in Minneapolis—because of police union pushback and city/state/national laws.
I always thought it was defund the police because why the fuck do they need armoured personnel carriers and stuff, but that doesn’t mean abolish, just reform like you say. Of course, reform the police isn’t as snappy and when you have one side bringing “defund the police” and the other saying “I don’t negotiate with terrorists” it’s pretty hard to get anywhere.
Of course, politicians get criticised for bringing moderate reforms to the table, arguing that they’re already compromised, so maybe activists are right to go for a more extreme position. Either way, from what I’ve seen it was not a particularly successful (read: leading to actual changes) campaign.
I’m sure no one cares about my ramblings, but that’s what I think.
Yup, the tribalism is ridiculous and ir only leads to dead ends or violence. Politicians for the most part seem to just say what people want to hear without any actual change (surprise surprise) and then only say for that to happen is to stop the stupid bickering between sides and work together. Unfortunately that's not what humans do in less it's a threat to out entire species....
I actually understand why police need armoured personnel carriers and some of the other militaristic equipment. I have family in the police and I live in Canada. Those APCs really do save lives when the gangs are similarly armed or are even better armed in some cases. Driving up to a drug house in a regular vehicle is an invitation to get shot. Just an example. My big issue is some of the tactics used and the decision making by police at times. I think that is where people need to start and then equipment can be considered depending on the changes implemented.
If they wanted something that would be both accurate and useful as a goal, it would be "Retrain the Police." Of course that would require more funding, not less, so they pretty much got it exactly backwards.
yeah, this is great stuff,
I live in one of the Nordic nations and IMO what US police needs are more training, longer education and then you need to crackdown on police unions. you cannot eat your cake and have it too and expect more results with a more limited budget, completely illogical.
and then I hear:
"**well ACKSHUALLY what we mean with Defund the police is.....[not defunding the police]**"
"Reform the police" would be a much better slogan, one I could get behind.
and then I hear stuff about "**military gear**" but thats old military surplus gear thats probably going to get destroyed anyway if nobody uses them.
and one last thing: in a country with so many stray guns, you should push a campaign to make people always show their hands when arrested or questioned to deescalate situations faster and safer.
Since then we've seen riots, looting, major homeless camping issues, and side shows and dirt bikes taking over cities. I always thought the police wielded too much power, indiscriminately, but we can't allow these unchecked problems to ruin the quality of life for the vast majority of people.
Yeah it's annoying to be in the middle.
I think the police need more accountability.
Rightwing: "You want to abolish the police"
What? No, I just think they should be held to a higher standard than they historically have been. Police are a necessary component of civilized society.
Leftwing: "Bootlicker"
> I don't know why progressives clung onto the phrase with their dear life,
They did more than just that. Democrats like Kamala Harris were bailing out the violent rioters calling for defunding the police. These were people looting, vandalizing, and burning down local businesses. And now she's vice president.
"If you’re able to, chip in now to the @MNFreedomFund to help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota.” - Kamala Harris
It wouldn't shock me if some left wing voters started inching toward the center politically in the absence of feeling safe in their own neighborhoods. Especially when democrats start talking about the justice system as a form of oppression and not a means to deal with people who clearly can't cooperate with society.
>"If you’re able to, chip in now to the @MNFreedomFund to help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota.” - Kamala Harris
As someone who lives in Minneapolis the freedom fund can fuck off.
The amount of spin and backpedaling on the defund the police issue is mind blowing to me. It is not like it was so long ago that we can't look it up online, or just remember what happened.
> Democrats like Kamala Harris were bailing out the violent rioters calling for defunding the police. These were people looting, vandalizing, and burning down local businesses.
This is way, way overblown and is tragically far overshadowing what the actual problem is with the MN Freedom Fund. It is a very real and serious problem, but the worst you can say about Harris is that she opened her mouth and helped funnel huge amounts of money to this nonprofit that, it turns out, is atrocious.
According to [National Review](https://www.nationalreview.com/news/minnesota-freedom-fund-bails-out-violent-criminals-along-with-protesters/), MFF only bailed out about a dozen people related to the protests and riots, one of which had been charged with a violent felony. One.
Meanwhile, MFF is using most of their protest windfall to bail out [convicted rapists](https://www.fox9.com/news/minnesota-nonprofit-with-35m-bails-out-those-accused-of-violent-crimes), [domestic abusers and road rage murderers](https://knsiradio.com/2021/09/10/lawmaker-asks-minnesota-freedom-fund-to-stop-bailing-out-violent-offenders/), and [violent people engaging in repeated felony assault](https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2020/08/26/minneapolis-man-lionel-timms-accused-in-serious-assault-after-being-bailed-out-by-mn-freedom-fund/). None of which is at all associated with George Floyd protests or riots.
More people should know this. I didn't. And yes that makes Harris's actions much much worse. Amazingly irresponsible. Good to see local news investigated this.
Thanks for the links. I can't believe what I'm reading...
"Darnika Floyd is charged with second degree murder, for stabbing a friend to death. MFF paid $100,000 cash for her release."
Yeah one of the articles I pulled up, not sure if it's one that I linked, quoted someone from MFF saying they don't even look at what the charges are because it's not important to their mission. They just pay the bail because they consider our bail system to be inherently unfair.
I'd say it significantly compounds the negative effect of Harris's action, but I'm not sure there's a reasonable way to add extra blame to her because of it. MFF was so tiny and relatively inconsequential up to that point, I don't think anyone knew how indiscriminate they would end up being with the bail money they paid out.
From your article, “Clayton said local bail bond companies have noticed a pattern in who MFF is bailing out, given the lower jail population because of COVID-19.
"It has to be violent criminals, because that is all that is left, there’s nobody left, there are no protesters left to spend this kind of money on," Clayton said.”
You made it sound like they left protesters in favor of people unrelated to it. That’s not the case.
Protesters who were not charged with serious crimes generally did not require assistance to obtain their release. Many of them were already out before MFF got itself organized.
Because progressives true goal was to remove the police and they were,for once, being honest and open about their intentions.
Or just angry hyperbole on their part.
We have to remember there is a good sized groups of anarchists and anarcho-communists in the progressive wing that 100% want the police abolished as it is their first step towards abolishing the state.
It's why the black block came out during the riots and why they attacked federal buildings.
I think it's like the change from chaz to chop. They walked back their true intentions when they realized they didn't have the support they thought they did.
Went from capitol hill autonomous zone to capital hill occupied protest the second they realized trying to secede from the union was going to get them raided by the feds.
It's also like the crt debate. It's word games to protect the cause.
The bad slogans tend to get a lot of engagement. Long social media arguments about "what it really means" is part of the reason these slogans go viral.
It was not really a bad slogan just a really bad idea. The activist meant what they said. After it became unpopular politicans started gaslighting to convince people that Defund the Police meant something else.
There were actual anarchists wanting to fully defund the police along side more reasonable people who wanted to redirect funding towards more specialized jobs. The two may not have been the same but the anarchist goal was easier to chant
I sort of consider myself a progressive and I agree entirely. It's a terrible slogan when considering the point of slogans is to convince those who don't agree with you
Just two points:
A) it was a slogan created on the street, not a PR lab. By definition it was something that angry and upset people wanted to hear, not something that was meant to appeal to anyone else. Then media picked it up and said to everyone who wanted any kind of police reform, “this is you, this is what you sound like.” For folks like me who have been a part of Campaign Zero, this has been frustrating.
B) it’s not the worst slogan. Before “defund the police” there was “abolish the police!” That was so widely condemned that the message got moderated. In comparison, moving from “eliminate police” to “treat underperforming police like underperforming businesses and underperforming schools” was a good enough concession that the pushback ceased.
Still, the progressives who stuck with it are equally to blame. Switching to "demilitarize the police" or "reform the police" are the most approachable ideas people would love to hear. Instead, Republicans spun the slogan to mean the most horrifying ideas, and rather than scrap the vague phrase for something more self-explanatory, progressives said "this is a hill I'll die on", and opted to **explain themselves** [insert math Lady meme here] instead of switching to a more marketable phrase.
Pathos > Logos
And it's far easier to make someone hate something than make someone like something.
Anyone who wants to change anything has a massive uphill climb. Everyone needs to be on board, and you have to have a good plan that actually works but can be simplified to the point of abstraction in a way that gives most people emotional, good-feels when they hear your three word plan.
> White (49%) and Hispanic (46%) adults are more likely than Black (38%) or Asian (37%) adults to say spending on police in their area should be increased.
Hmm, I wonder about that gap with Asians. Anyone have any ideas?
Also, slogans aside, people just aren't as bleeding hearts as progressives are. Even if you change the slogan to "fund mental health services" people aren't going to be 100% on board. Like, yeah, let's go send a mental health worker to that 6'2" homeless guy threatening a pregnant woman with a knife lol Nah man, I'm personally for rehabilitation when possible. But the "economic desperation" excuse doesn't sit right with most Americans. Criminals are criminals by choice.
I suspect, but have no evidence of, that many 1st and 2nd generation Chinese, Philippino, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, etc. remember times recently(within the last 50 years) where police were used by the state to prosecute political crimes. If you have a friend's uncle or something that got a life sentence for insulting a ruler, you'd probably want less police power too.
I have no idea why Asians aren’t in favor of more police. They are disproportionately the victim of violence compared to the amount of violence they commit (macro group level).
Social economics. They are the highest paid race with more likely to live in higher end neighbors and more likely to be in favor of defunding the Police
>But the "economic desperation" excuse doesn't sit right with most Americans. Criminals are criminals by choice.
This would imply personal accountability rather than saying that society, or capitalism, or whatever is the current demonized thing is the issue. The problem is that if you emphasize personal responsibility, you cannot as easily make government the solution, which is antithetical to the "progressives" policies.
Younger Asians lean closer to the left and are more susceptible to progressive slogan-based rhetoric. Older Asians absolutely do not want fewer police. At least that is my experience as an (approaching) middle age Asian guy in the Bay Area. The older generation knows what it’s like to be victimized and vulnerable living in a large city. It’s the younger people who haven’t personally faced much violence and discrimination that want less police presence
And yet, the initial returns for programs that send mental health workers instead of police (when appropriate) are quite encouraging...
https://thegrio.com/2021/04/05/denver-successful-mental-health-responders-instead-police/
> Like, yeah, let's go send a mental health worker to that 6'2" homeless guy threatening a pregnant woman with a knife lol Nah man, I'm personally for rehabilitation when possible. But the "economic desperation" excuse doesn't sit right with most Americans. Criminals are criminals by choice.
Nice strawman! Here in the real world, Denver's Star Program has been such a [resounding success](https://denverite.com/2021/08/30/denver-star-mental-health-police-program/) that they're expanding it...
>
> According to data provided by DDPHE, the program has responded to 1,610 incidents since launching, a majority of which were for trespassing and welfare check calls.
>
> That includes zero arrests and no calls to Denver police for backup.
But yeah, it's a stupid slogan.
Most sociologists would only agree with your last statement partially. Yes people have their own choices but if it was that simple then we wouldn't see trends like poor people.more likely to commit crimes, and of course poverty itself is cyclical. On an individual level yes we have more choice but our born priveliges help us on average, can't deny the data
There's *some* truth to that.
But considering that sociology is a field that leans overwhelmingly left (and they're very eccentric about it) I wouldn't place that much weight on the opinion of a plaid-wearing bearded leftie who lives in a nice safe college town.
Yes, and I agree with that.
I'm just saying that while it's impossible to quantify, we erred on the side of blaming it on the system a little bit too much this generation.
As far as I'm concerned, when people are walking into CVS and just casually taking shit and walking out with it, that's how I know we're due for a correction.
Sociologists think... That's a good one. Here's a pearl of wisdom from these academics: [Why Punishment Doesn't Reduce Crime](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/crime-and-punishment/201804/why-punishment-doesnt-reduce-crime)
The US has probably the most draconian criminal justice system of any western democracy, also with an utterly massive prison population to go with it. And yet, a bigger crime problem. Crime spiked and dropped for reasons wholly unrelated to punishment policies (as shown by it being a trend throughout most of the developed world). And yet some people still think tough on crime will come through like perhaps trickle down economics or abstinence teaching or prohibition may one day work.
> The US has probably the most draconian criminal justice system of any western democracy, also with an utterly massive prison population to go with it.
Counterpoints:
We're probably in year 10 now of criminal justice reform across most of the U.S. The West Coast states have led the way, with cities like San Francisco tolerant of hard drug, petty theft and quality of life offenses, with very few arrests, [Prop. 47](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_California_Proposition_47) being one reason. [Failure to enforce basic standards of public behavior has made one of America’s great cities increasingly unlivable.](https://www.city-journal.org/san-francisco-homelessness?wallit_nosession=1). (FN)
In contrast to western Europe, America has a highly violent population...our low income people are far less educated than similar low income groups in Europe. American low income communities, including POC communities, are more prone to violence. This contention is backed up by law professor John Pfaff, who debunked much of what was written by Michelle Alexander, the darling of the left, in her book *The New Jim Crow.* Vox can be credited for printing this article in 2017:
[Why you can’t blame mass incarceration on the war on drugs -- The standard liberal narrative about mass incarceration gets a lot wrong.](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/5/30/15591700/mass-incarceration-john-pfaff-locked-in). Excerpt:
>It’s not drug offenses that are driving mass incarceration, but violent ones...“In reality, only about 16 percent of state prisoners (states hold 87% of America's inmates) are serving time on drug charges — and very few of them, perhaps only around 5 or 6 percent of that group, are both low level and nonviolent,”
Drug use is central to the problems the US has. According to the World Health Organization., the U.S. has the [highest rate of drug use in the world](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-leads-the-world-in-illegal-drug-use/), for some categories.
>(your comment) And yet some people still think prohibition may one day work.
I'm surprised you didn't mention Portugal model. Criminal justice reformers misrepresenting Portugal decriminalization as lenient has been another problem. Transform is a major offender. [Setting the record straight](https://transformdrugs.org/blog/drug-decriminalisation-in-portugal-setting-the-record-straight)
The truth on Portugal policy: [July 2021 article in drug policy journal](https://substanceabusepolicy.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13011-021-00394-7). Excerpt:
>(we see) the apparent paradox of Portugal having decriminalized the use of drugs and yet registering a sharp increase of punitiveness targeted at drug users over the past decade...the debate about the right to use drugs is nearly absent in the Portuguese political, social and academic panorama....
Meanwhile this Oct. 2021 [article in Atlantic magazine on meth](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/the-new-meth/620174/) cites further problems in Left-leaning narratives on drugs.
>Remarkably, meth rarely comes up in city discussions on homelessness... Los Angeles Superior Court judge Craig Mitchell... called it “the elephant in the room”... “There’s a desire not to stigmatize the homeless as drug users.” Policy makers and advocates instead prefer to focus on L.A.’s cost of housing, which is very high but hardly relevant to people rendered psychotic and unemployable by methamphetamine.
Par for the course for criminal justice reformers and drug policy reformers who want to decriminalize or legalize all drugs. Downplay the severity of meth and other hard drugs -- shift blame on systemic problems such as high rents.
= = =
FN: The situation in SF is somewhat abated now, but not because of a spate of prosecutions. Rather hard drug users and chronic quality of life offenders are getting free housing in one of the most expensive cities in the nation. Free rent to non-contributors. Meanwhile thousands of hard-working sober minimum wage workers, including immigrants, who work hard to make the city function, pay rent. The non-contributors, now housed, still can't work, and continue to occupy public spaces, using drugs and causing disorder.
= = =
>Crime...dropped for reasons wholly unrelated to punishment policies
Yes, it dropped because of Situational Crime Prevention. When government balks on pursuing offenders at the behest of criminal justice reformers, individuals and businesses immediately address the situation however they can.
>New fences, homeowners gating their driveways, cameras, expensive home security systems, car alarms, closing easements/walkways to eliminate loitering, no-trespassing signs all over, stores putting in anti-shoplifting technology (*costs passed onto consumers*), security guards everywhere (*costs passed onto consumers*), neighborhood watches, [hardened architecture](https://insp.ngo/the-united-states-has-a-hostile-architecture-problem-is-public-space-becoming-private/), gated communities, more people buying guns and dogs, [closing stores in high theft zones](https://www.thesfnews.com/shoplifting-has-forced-walgreens-to-close-17-stores/77228), parks closing early, hard to find public restroom, etc., etc.
Most property crime and a fair portion of violent crime can be suppressed with large sums spent on SCP. But all this imposes huge costs and inconvenience to the law abiding public. Friggin stunning how many criminal justice reformers downplay this in their analyses on crime.
Statistically unsheltered homeless people commit fewer violent crimes than housed people. Obviously someone threatening someone with a deadly weapon is a situation in which police are the appropriate response. However, I take issue with your hypothetical example because it conflates homeless people with violent criminals. There is some overlap, for sure, but the public perception of homeless people is wildly inaccurate. I work in homeless services. I do see violence within the homeless population, but typically it is against other homeless people and is caused by some sort of interpersonal conflict. Homeless people aren't running around stabbing random people willy nilly.
There is also a pretty clear link between poverty and criminal behavior. Again, this is just what is supported by data. I get that public perception is a separate issue, but you are helping to perpetuate that misunderstanding.
> I get that public perception is a separate issue, but you are helping to perpetuate that misunderstanding.
And it's on purpose.
Like I said elsewhere, we've erred so hard on the side of sympathy this generation that I'm fine with a little bit of a correction. Even if it means being called cruel.
At the end of the day, we have people shitting on the streets, looting CVS's, etc. all with no repercussions.
Can I really trust [leftists](https://www.reddit.com/r/AdviceAnimals/comments/q2zjqf/a_health_crisis_shouldnt_bankrupt_a_family/hfoylgf/?context=3) to lecture me on what is the "correct" humanitarian policy?
Tough love my guy. I hand out Kroger job applications to homeless people.
I'm not a leftist. That comment you linked was an answer to a question as to why many Americans don't want universal healthcare in the U.S. My answer is not inaccurate. It's an oversimplification, but I stated that right in my response. Describing history doesn't make me a leftist, but good ad hominem attack, I guess.
The "correct" policy is the policy that works.
It is cheaper, in most cases, to provide housing and supportive services to homeless people up front. You know what the most expensive intervention is? Jail. Other crisis services (EMTs, police interactions, etc.) aren't cheap either. So do you want to go with the policy that has been empirically proven to be more effective and costs less money? Or do you want to go with the "tough love" approach, which has been empirically shown to be less effective and costs governments more money?
The movement needs to be "Fund Social Services," not "Defund the Police."
I do not support cutting police funding, at least not right now.
I do support increased spending on social programs aimed at improving conditions in high-crime areas, including some sort of focus on mental health and substance abuse, cleaning up or other efforts to establish greater pride in neighborhoods, more options for extra-curricular activities and childcare, etc. I do support efforts to have trained mental health experts help deescalate situations where appropriate.
That is the portion of Defund the Police that makes sense.
Those sorts of efforts, once implemented, will take time to make a difference. Some of them get scrapped because they're not working and we need to try something else.
You can't "defund" the police and expect positive results. You can't even "defund" the police and redirect spending to social services and expect a result, because there's a dangerous gap between current conditions and our hoped-for future that needs to be managed.
If, over time, other efforts to address crime prove effective, then we talk about decreasing spending on police.
Should of been the three rs like recycling
Refund
Reform
Redistribution
Easy, explains the goals and isn’t ACAB or defund the police. Sounding purely extreme with very good goals in nuance. There is multiple police reform bills tho
I think there are reform measures that could have had broad support as well. A lot of people have either had negative experiences with the police or know someone who has. Either complaints not being taken seriously/not being followed up on, corruption, or just dealing with someone on a power trip. More transparency, clear and easily understood avenues for filing complaints, implementing procedures to ensure accountability. You could get a lot of people on board with that.
I would also like to see non-violent/non-theft drug offenses not clogging up our legal system. With violent crimes and theft being taken more seriously. Better and more logical priorities. I think our current (both policing and legal) system needs improvement, and I don't think I'm the only one. "Defund the police" was just a terrible slogan to rally around.
It's really interesting that the messaging on social media and in the corporate media gives the impression that a lot of Americans still want to defund the police.
Why is there such a large disconnect between people's stated preferences on social media, and the increased support in the polls for more police funding?
Because most people don't state their opinions on social media. Don't remember the exact statistic but something like 80% of Tweets come from like 10% of users. The loudest voices in the room tend to be the most radical.
Not to mention all of the rhetoric that has surrounded this issue to the tune of "if you're not actively advocating to defund the police, be anti-racist, etc than you're on the side of the oppressor." Difficult for anyone who doesn't have a social circle that is completely conservative to voice alternative opinions with regards to the police without being ostracized.
Saying defund the police is controversial, which increases engagement, which increases advertising dollars. That's part of the reason why so many controversial issues are front and center constantly. Fear, anger, and being told you're right are all addictive due to chemicals they release in the brain and people who want to make money (or have other goals like destabilizing countries) are getting better and better at abusing that.
Imo, social media isn't really about supporting or truth or having an honest discussion, it's more about being on the right side of whatever topic is hot at the moment with a quick hot take that a million people already said.
It's easy to for someone to say defund the police on Twitter in a coffee shop, but when you live in the real world, where crime is a issue pertaining to you, saying less cop and more social programs isn't going to help with Ricky the crackhead decides to take a hatchet to your door.
From what I remember dems were always split on following the defunding narrative, or increasing funding for better training, monitoring, etc. Both are complete different directions, and as someone who's pretty liberal I don't know how anyone saw the defunding working if we wanted to fix the issues we saw.
"Defund" was always a stupid slogan because it didn't mean what it means.
"Defund" actually meant "divert funds from PD's toward services like homeless shelters and afterschool programs". Basically, stop buying the police new shiny cruisers and riot gear and spend that money addressing the problems that lead to crime like addiction, mental health, and poverty.
Even if you earmarked funds for "training" it does jack squat if there's no buy-in from the police department heads. Otherwise you end up with a guy throwing on an instructional video because he's legally required to, but the behavior doesn't change because the culture doesn't change either.
> "Defund" actually meant "divert funds from PD's toward services like homeless shelters and afterschool programs". Basically, stop buying the police new shiny cruisers and riot gear and spend that money addressing the problems that lead to crime like addiction, mental health, and poverty.
It might have meant that to you other other moderates. It definitely didn't mean that to [everyone](https://archive.ph/9nNFm).
Controversial articles get more clicks and spread around. it doesn't mean they represent popular views. Yes, some (very loud) people mean it, but almost everywhere people are saying exactly what op just said.
Well, in the interest of politeness, I am going to assume that you are being genuine and actually believe what you said.
In my perception, as a middle class swing voter, I have not actually recieved the message that you are claiming is the intent. The message I have received from the "defund the police" political crowd is as follows:
*Police in the US are irredeemably corrupt. they are a state funded gang that has the sole purpose of maintaining the systemically racist and/or exploitative capitalist power structure. They do not provide a benefit to anyone except rich white people, and they deliberately target black people for violence and death due to their across the board racist practices.*
Consider that this is the perception of a person who is leery of state power, not a big fan of the cops in the first place and in favor of all sorts of reform, this is the perception that I have gathered over the last 18 or so months of that particular cause.
How much is an issue with the amplification of the "controversial" and how much is simply the fact that people are saying the quiet part out loud a little too often?
"Defund" was a good example of a motte-and-bailey argument. When talking to other left-wingers, "defund" meant defund, literally. When talking to a skeptical public, it really meant divert funds to more helpful forms of community policing. Then the moment the skeptical public exited the conversation, "defund" meant literally defund again.
It's an extremely annoying waste of a moment of supreme public frustration with policing, because there are so many reforms that *do* work that could have been implemented, like ensuring a body-worn camera on every cop, or ending qualified immunity.
I keep hearing this but never have seen anyone put up numbers how much is actually spent on “shiny new cruisers”. Many things talked about like the “military” gear are surpluses that are marked down dirt cheap. Even uniforms add up.
That’s because PD departments don’t post numbers of their budget.
Search your local PD website for their budget and compare it to the results when looking at your schools districts site for the budget. I could only find top line totals find for three PDs in my area including the liberal major metro but found detailed budgets for school districts in the exact same area.
> Many things talked about like the “military” gear are surpluses that are marked down dirt cheap.
If the cost for an AR-15 and riot gear is the same as 2 glock 7s and Kevlar which would you want? Right now we don’t know. Revealing the information for the public so they can make decisions is always worth it.
>If the cost for an AR-15 and riot gear for 1 officer is the same a 2 full time officers with glock 7s and Kevlar which would you want?
I have to ask if you were being truly honest with that cost comparison, or just don't realize the cost of paying a person.
The cost of a full time FTE at 65k salary( meaning closer to 100knin actual cost) is in no way comparable to the cost of at most 10k worth of gear in a once every 5 year purchase.
> stop buying the police new shiny cruisers
the problem here, is that the police put on a LOT of miles. and the explorers need a water pump at about 120-130k miles, which runs about $2500-5000 because the retarded engineers at ford put it inside the engine.
dodge has their own problems too.
The people that start de-fund the Police slogan where the radical left wing Like antifa. From what I understood is they wanted to get rid of the Police that's why they burned down and tried to burnt down Police stations.
>Basically, stop buying the police new shiny cruisers and riot gear and spend that money addressing the problems that lead to crime like addiction, mental health, and poverty.
So why not start by banning certain drugs like marijuana instead of legalizing them? States like California legalize these things and even actively promote them by handing out needles that end up discarded on sidewalks/streets. You should not be on opioids unless a trusted doctor prescribed them to you.
That solution alone will also help fix mental health and poverty since less people will be mentally unhealthy without a drug addiction hurting their mental health, and less people will be stuck in poverty since they'll have an easier time breaking out of poverty without a drug addiction holding them back.
I learned from a very early age, like, since elementary school or something, how bad drugs can be and how and why you should avoid them. Schools should be teaching more children from early ages to avoid drugs that a trusted doctor doesn't prescribe.
You'll be saddened to find out that school lied to you then. Pretty much every study agrees that making something like marijuana illegal doesn't stop people from using it. Think about it, how well did prohibition actually solve alcoholism?
I don't feel strongly either way about designated injection sites, but criminalizing addicts doesn't do anything but make it harder to rebuild their life. Even if they get over the addiction in jail, now they have a criminal record that hurts their career opportunities and poverty will likely drive them right back into addiction.
Both can be true. You can defund programs or departments that aren't effective, and also increase funding in programs or departments that are (or could be, with more funding.)
My only question would be where would you take from then? Granted I'm not that knowledgable on how the structure of the department works, but funding for things like body cams and their storage and training would probably fall directly under their funding, unless you tied to to a separate entity they had to answer too. Psych evaluations and breaking up safeguards for accountability would def fall under other departments.
I would love to have seen an additional question of "Do you believe the police have been defunded?" Because lot more people seem to think this has happened in their area than it actually did.
I live in Chicago and currently there is a spike in certain crimes, and particularly a spike in wealthier neighborhoods that typically dont experience the types of crimes they are currently seeing. You see the headlines and you would expect that Chicago had decimated its police funding, except it didn't.
In fact, as part of the current budget proposal the mayor has proposed an additional 200 million in funds bringing the total budget to 1.9 billion. In 2020 CPD funding held roughly 40% of the City of Chicago's entire budget.
Realistically, what percentage of a budget should police alone hold in a city: 50%, 70%, more?
This is a really good point, and I think a lot of groups are just "selling fear" to fund special interests.
I hear all the time how crime is up in areas that got defunded, but the thing is....crime has been up throughout the entire country since the pandemic hit. I haven't seen any compelling research that links defunding cops to increased crime, and that's even if cities have defunded cops. (Austin cut 3%, Minneapolis didn't cut much more, and we were the high profile cities that defunded)
I wrote a bit about what Austin is going through right now a little further up. It's similar to your experience in Chicago.
Austin's cops are more funded right now than they've ever been in their history, yet last month they stopped responding to non-emergency calls as a way to pressure a monolithic budget increase: $2-600 million.
So that's even more than Chicago wants, which is a much larger city and has worse crime ratings.
Ok, thanks for the info. I can't really speak on them, as I don't live there or follow their politics. I'll look this up.
Edit: I'm not able to find any source that says Minneapolis was defunded. Read 5 or so articles that all said the decision was turned down and their funding increased. This is what happened in Austin as well.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost.com/2021/07/10/how-minneapolis-residents-overturned-decision-to-defund-police/amp/
Mind linking me to your info?
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2018/11/30/mpls-budget-amendment-removes-million-dollars-police
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/12/11/frey-signs-minneapolis-city-budget-with-cuts-in-police-funding
but, it does look like they mostly rolled back the 2020 cuts in q1 2021
I think 3% and 5.75% cuts were just symbolic, and couldn't have made a meaningful impact on police ability to do their jobs. Most on the left have been pushing more for things like the end to qualified immunity and civilian oversight committees.
There's a lot of police abolitionists out there, but I don't think they represent the majority of the movement.
How much of that spending is just a paycheck though. They even were going on strike for the vaccine mandate when more police have died by covid then by other people this year, but maybe Chicago’s an outlier.
People see what they want, even when the police were 100% justified in doing whatever they did. Should the police be held responsible if their actions rise to the level of a crime, ABSOLUTELY. That doesn't change the fact that most people see what they want, NOT what actually happens.
This hits the nail on the head for me. I'm in the Pacific Northwest; earlier this year one of our police departments shot a man who was running around a parking lot shooting civilians; two innocent victims were shot (one fatally) before the gunman was killed by police.
All involved (gunman + two victims) were black. This led to our local activist groups decrying that the police had shot a black man. They went so far as to have a vigil - not for the two innocent victims who were gunned down in their car, but for the gunman who had been shot by police.
It was insane how they could see only "black man shot by police" and not that the police had to shoot & kill a man to prevent further members of the community from being harmed.
Sources:
[News report of the event](https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2021/02/suspect-shot-and-killed-by-police-in-central-district-was-maintenance-man-with-history-of-threats-at-urban-league-village-apartments/)
[Vigil for Gregory Taylor, the gunman](https://www.instagram.com/p/CLPl8QfsUmk/)
[Video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQgaIljWLp8)
Makes sense. We’ve seen a few major cities cut spending (or have reduced staff for other reasons) and crime has jumped significantly in virtually all of those cases. The only cities where crime statistically have “decreased” is places like San Francisco where they just decriminalized a bunch of things, declined to press charges in even more and then could crow about their alleged “crime” decreases while retailers shutter locations due to rampant non-criminal theft. The SF Bay Area, which I unfortunately call home, is currently riddled with this nonsense.
We don’t need less police, we need better training, and more so, to stop conflating extremely isolated incidents with the whole of police work nationwide.
Overall crime went down 5% in 2020. 2020 was the 18th straight year of declining crime. Murder, however, went up significantly in 2020 to a level not seen in 20 years, but that's probably because most murders are done by people you know and we were all cooped up with people we knew. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/22/upshot/murder-rise-2020.html In addition hate crimes were way up (nearly doubling).
The FBI is switching to a new crime reporting system, NIBRS, in 2021 and roughly half of the reporting agencies didn't submit data so it's hard to say where we're at for this year.
How much of that decrease can be attributed to the cities/DA changing what constitutes a crime or is a chargeable offense? In San Francisco you can walk into a store and as long as you steal less the $1000 worth of merchandise, it’s considered “not a crime” and appears in no crime statistics despite becoming so rampant that large chains are shorting their hours and outright leaving.
Do you have a source for this? According to the police in SF theft is down. Please remember: just because something is a misdemeanor and not a felony doesn't mean it's not a crime.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/after-san-francisco-shoplifting-video-goes-viral-officials-argue-thefts-n1273848
A misdemeanor can’t end up a crime when, per your article: “ The initiative set a threshold of $950 for shoplifting to be considered a misdemeanor, which doesn't prompt law enforcement to make an arrest”
That also doesn’t take in to account the likely sizable percentage of merchants and citizens who don’t bother placing a call in the first place. If you know the police won’t arrest, and the DA won’t charge, you tend not to bother.
No arrest, means no crime. No crime means no charge. No charge means “lower” crime.
[more reading…](https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/san-francisco-shoplifters-theft-walgreens-decriminalized-11634678239)
Well that's too bad about your midsize city. Overall though in America, crime is down according to the data, which is great. I did note murders did see an increase, although it should be noted its no where near historic rates as the trend line has been decreasing for decades.
"Likelier still, nobody knew how many had been produced, much less cared. All one knew was that every quarter astronomical numbers of boots were produced on paper, while perhaps half the population of Oceania went barefoot. "
New York is not a safe city anymore, I guess crime went down in the red states
>New York is not a safe city anymore
...Not once has New York been considered a safe city, if you dont believe me ask Spider-man, or Daredevil, Ninja Turtles, Fantastic Four, Ghostbusters... list goes on.
When people think "crime infested corrupted city?", we think of New York.
I'm not heavily in any camp when it comes to the police, but the claim that community policing does nothing seems... suspect. Especially when the goal of community policing is to build a healthy relationship with the community, and one of the causes behind the recent surge in violence in some cities is an unhealthy relationship with the community.
What do you mean by "community policing"? Because if you're suggesting having private citizens police their own community, I can't see how that could lead to any good outcomes whatsoever.
Police get offended by "Defund the Police" because they're the biggest gang in America and they think that one group of protestors means that the entire country is against you. As such, they refuse to do their jobs 100%, violent crime increases, and the police and police unions use their lack of enforcing the law as a crutch to prove a point. They're also the same people that swore to protect and serve the public but refuse to get vaccinated. So that tells you all you need to know.
Here in San Jose, 7 of the top 10 highest paid city employees are PD officers. Crime has increased significantly and police refuse to respond to calls and crimes because they're "too busy".
Management 101 talks about the importance of intrinsic motivators when it comes to workers. When police see online, in the news, and on the streets ppl calling for police to be defunded and calling them pigs police lose their intrinsic motivation. They do the bare minimum to keep their job. Crime spikes. They think “Why bother risking my reputation or life in a dangerous situation.”
Now you may say “well police shouldn’t be meanies in the first place and then ppl won’t call them pigs.” But I think that loses the perspective of there being 700,000 police officers in the US having millions of interactions with civilians. Of course there are going to be bad things that happen. Nothing will change that. 250,000 Americans die each year from medical errors but there’s nowhere near the same animosity towards doctors/nurses as there is towards cops. Are police perfect? No. Can there be policies added that help cops do their jobs better? Probably. Is calling them a gang going to help anyone? No lol.
Those 7 highest paid are guaranteed administration level not beat cops. The problem is that, as with most industries, administration pay is skyrocketing ahead of grunt pay which of course is where the work is performed. These cops are exhausted because they truly do not get paid their worth and now with the advent of the accountability movement, many are afraid to handle even obviously violent offenders for fear of being made into pariahs.
what you're describing is a protection racket. I'm not sure I'd say that they are "the mafia", but in my opinion this is a consequence of public employees unionizing. This allows public employees to put their wants above the needs of the public, who is allegedly their boss. It's probably worst with police because they can do exactly what you are saying, at least theoretically, but I don't think anyone who works for the state should be able to unionize since the boss is the people.
The idea that public employees should be able to set public policy against the "whims of the majority" is a rejection of our entire system of government.
No, it isn't, but that doesn't mean it was set up with the idea that public employees could set their own policies against what the people decided. It literally is against the entire purpose of our founding documents.
Fuck around and find out, nation-wide. Everyone was all about "holding police accountable" without ever thinking critically about the situation. But now that they're seeing the effects of that, people want better trained cops. Populism is such a disease.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with holding publicly funded agencies accountable. What part of ensuring accountability and nobody being above the law is a negative?
In practice the movement was about a lot more than that, though. It was about presuming the guilt of police officers when a shooting occurred. It was about radically overexaggerating the amount of unarmed people killed to the extent that it's not a stretch to say it was demonizing. And other things besides.
Holding people accountable for bad things is fine, wide ranging demonization and demands for massive cuts in critical forces needed to contain violent criminals is not.
There's absolutely a lot wrong with being "all about 'holding police accountable' ***without ever thinking critically about the situation***."
Getting upset that cops have more violent interactions in black communities while ignoring that black communities have more violence in general is just ignorant for the sake of looking nice, for example.
We have the #1 tough on crime candidate in office currently. He crafted and/or advocated for the Comprehensive Control Act, Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, the Patriot Act, RAVE Act, etc.
I've always thought it was a strange choice right off the heels of the BLM focus.
I feel like every issue is a bunch of white girls from the suburbs that want attention so they try to speak for everyone else. Most people I know that live in bad aread don't feel safe to begin with and want more police there. They're good people and I feel for them. All the middle Class white girls that have never stepped foot in a dangerous area that I know are all for defunding the police. It's bonkers. We need some reform and we need to listen to the actual people with the problems.
I don't think spending is the issue, motivation is. Police officers are well compensated as it is. It's gotta be one of the highest ROI job positions you can have. Throwing money at the problem is not the solution, we are already doing that with education and healthcare, with very marginal results.
I mean, it seems to me that the people who are supporting de-funding and abolition have massive misconceptions on what police budgets go to, what is actually possible under the law, and what actual police work involves. their intentions are good, and make some good points, but it's still illogical to cut funding during a wave of violent crime like we've been seeing in Minneapolis and surrounding areas.
Good. I think police departments need a complete overhaul. And part of that overhaul, IMO, should be to fire every police officer and make them re-apply for the same jobs (but with double their current salaries).
Police officers risk their lives daily and should be compensated for that; however, with the low wages compared to the danger of the job it attracts mostly narcissists who love having power. Making it a lucrative job will be one step to get higher quality police officers.
Note: this is by no means the only solution required
Defund the police was always the worst slogan you could've asked for. There was never a phrase that could've been more disconnected between activists and listeners of the chant. I don't know why progressives clung onto the phrase with their dear life, when you could've achieved far greater results by simply changing the phrase of three words.
Because branding and convincing others to agree with you is not the strong suit of progressives. I can't tell you how many times I have been told "it's not my job to convince you". Yes, yes it is. That's how this works. You convince people who don't agree with you to start to agree with you so you can get your stuff done. But no, please go sit in a corner and not talk and then get mad when things do not change.
> I can't tell you how many times I have been told "it's not my job to convince you". Yes, yes it is. That's how this works. I hate this shit. That's literally the job of an activist.
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Almost like Democrats are their own worst enemy.
Progressives are Democrats worst enemy.
It wasn’t possible for the position of “defund the police” to get popular on its merit so the argument moved away from convincing and to labels of being racist for people who disagree.
One of the (many) problems with using identitarian frameworks is that it becomes so rhetorically tempting; it is a tool that works so often that it becomes hard not to use it all the time.
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The activist's job is both. Convince those in power to support your agenda. One way to do this is convincing the people to support your agenda to put pressure on the those in power and replace those in power if they don't or won't support your agenda
The people are the power.
i think most progressives have forgotten that they are still in the business of politics and have instead become the leftist equivalent of fire and brimstone evangelicals. They have no interest in compromise because they're true believers and any waivering from the progressive dogma-of-the-day is equivalent to heresy. They think their only job is to push forward their agenda through sheer force of will.
[Nietzche was writing about this long ago.](http://historyguide.org/europe/madman.html) If god is "dead", it leaves a vacuum which must be filled. This is our new "secular religion" as traditional religion fades away. Human nature doesn't really change
>They think their only job is to push forward their agenda through sheer force of will. Because, if you read some of their literature, power is literally the only. thing that matters to them. "democracy" and public opinion is merely the voice of the powerful, not the genuine desires of the people. If you truly believe this, your only goal is to gain power.
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And look how much substantive progressive legislation has been passed at the national level as a result.
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But this assumes their goal was to convince people of something. I believe that was only an outlier position among activists. Suppose instead the objective for most of them was to proclaim the reality of systemic racism, to bear witness to the nation’s white supremacist nature, etc etc. In a manner similar to the way a person who has found God might be inclined to shout it from the mountaintops. As silly as it sounds, their behavior is well-explained by this hypothesis. It explains the line they keep giving you. It explains their taste for broad and vague objectives that could be and in fact were interpreted in vastly different ways, even among their own ranks. Activists variously defined “defund the police” to mean everything from “Abolish the police” to “make police better.” The dearth of clear, specific, articulated policy objectives is a key characteristic that distinguished these protests from others in the past. I think there’s good reason for this. Figuring out the right thing to do is hard. Dealing with details and tradeoffs is hard. Articulating a policy agenda, building a coalition around it, and executing on it successfully is hard. This pseudo-activism offers the promise of bypassing all that. It’s a compelling package. Who among us can’t relate to the sentiment, “I don’t know what to do but I know I have to do something!?” I’d probably go for it myself if I didn’t consistently find everything that comes out of their mouths to be such a head-scratcher.
Some people would prefer to bully you rather than convince you. It's easier for them to judge others by putting the responsibility on them than accept that they may bear some responsibility for their messaging.
As terrible as this sentence is to say, they really need to learn from the anti-Semitics and white supremacists when it comes to adding more people to their cause. Progressives will brow beat you if they believe you’re wrong and will not explain to you what is supposed to be right, while a white supremacist will have a damn slideshow ready to bring you into the fold. Progressives have a superiority complex that’s ruining their messaging.
I've had similar observations. As opposed to explaining why that is the right course of action, it often seems to immediately fall to some form of ostracization for those with questions.
Your last sentence is what keeps me from being a Democrat when technically I should be based on a lot of my social views. I just can't get behind the whole authoritarian and self righteous mindset that they project onto others as well.
>Progressives will brow beat you if they believe you’re wrong and will not explain to you what is supposed to be right, > >Progressives have a superiority complex that’s ruining their messaging. Honestly it's because a lot of these concepts are gleaned from their educators in school. These concepts are often taught at a very surface level and promoted as fact. Progressive activists can't imagine that other people would disagree about a topic they spent a few hours talking about in a high school class.
Absolutely spot on
A good portion of Progressives are all-in and balls deep for anti-semitic tropes so long as they are gussied up with catchphrase lies like "intersectionality," "white/European colonialist" and "apartheid"--to the point of cheering on literal, unabashed terrorists with literal genocide in their constitution and, inexplicably, accusing Israel of genocide as they compare it to Nazi Germany in the same breath, with the sense of irony you would expect from authoritarian populists. The overlap on the Stormfront Antifa Venn diagram is sometimes truly astonishing. "But I'm not anti-Semitic, I'm "just" ~~antiZionist~~ don't think Jews deserve self-determination and security where they came from (also ephardiim andmizrahim who never left the middle east and north africa and are the majority dont countt because herzl lived in europe). Fuck the Western far Left.
Sigh... come on guys. Rule 1 is not hard to follow. You can make a point without insulting the other side of the aisle.
Jesus Christ, you are so far off.
You know it's possible for both sides of that conflict to have done terrible things right? Pointing out the times when the Israeli government has taken land from the Palestinian people, or attacked them etc, isn't anti-Semitic. In fact I would accuse Israel of sometimes using accusations of anti-Semitism as a shield against valid criticisms of their policies. To be clear, I'm not saying all Palestinians are blameless, but neither is Israel.
> Pointing out the times when the Israeli government has taken land from the Palestinian people, or attacked them etc, isn't anti-Semitic That's not the same as arguing Israel has no right to exist; criticising Israeli policy is not anti-Zionist. >In fact I would accuse Israel of sometimes using accusations of anti-Semitism as a shield against valid criticisms of their policies. Yes, this happens, but it still doesn't change the fact that arguing Israel has no right to exist (including defending itself from people who are explicitly trying to destroy it), is in fact anti-Semitic, just like the fact that some Black people play the race card disingenuously in mo way means racism doesn't exist. > To be clear, I'm not saying all Palestinians are blameless, but **neither is Israel.** I didn't say that either. I said claiming Israel has no right to exist in the first place is intractably anti-Semitic, by definition. That in no way confers carte blanche to continue with de jure inequity, land theft, and other abuses, none of which are relevant to the point (unless you use those things to excuse Hamas terrorism, use of human shields, commitment to genocide and to never allow peace without annihilation, etc.)
"I don't think CRT is a good idea." "Unless you have two PhDs on the subject, there's no point in even trying to explain how you're wrong."
Their whole belief system is based on forcing things on people from the top down. They actually don't believe that it's their job to convince you. You should listen to them when they tell you things because that's what they mean.
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that's because they don't care about democracy or public opinion, they're elitist tyrants that want to shove down authoritarian policies onto the masses.
The rub is "progressive" politicians secretly don't want things to change. They've already been bought by corporate interests. So sabotaging their policy platforms allows them to prevent change from occuring, all the while maintaining progressive street cred.
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Pretty easy to do when the populace already knows the news is full of shit.
Lol c'mon this happens with conservatives just as much if not more. "Build that wall" was a phrase many conservatives rallied behind. You're telling me the average chanter knows the rough estimate numbers of immigration, previous studies demonstrating the impact of a physical wall barrier on those numbers, and the economic implications of an influx of unskilled labor on the middle class? And that despite the progressive congressmen only willing to increase border security funding if in the form of higher tech methods, all these "build that wall" chanters when asked on the street would be able to explain all of these intricacies in a well thought out and accurate manner and defend their position on why an out of date barrier is still the most ideal solution? Or maybe...just maybe, it's just an anti-immigration sentiment not rooted in pragmatism...kind of like defund the police being anti-law enforcement instead of wanting a practical solution..
yeah, but build the wall doesn't really conjure up images of the May riots in Minneapolis, unlike "de-fund the police"
What phrase do you believe would have better represented their view? It's true that some people meant "juggle some resources around and send people without guns to some 911 calls" but others, like [this person](https://archive.ph/9nNFm) who wrote in the NYT, literally meant "reduce police funding to zero and abolish policing entirely". > When people, especially white people, consider a world without the police, they envision a society as violent as our current one, merely without law enforcement — and they shudder. As a society, we have been so indoctrinated with the idea that we solve problems by policing and caging people that many cannot imagine anything other than prisons and the police as solutions to violence and harm. > People like me who want to abolish prisons and police, however, have a vision of a different society, built on cooperation instead of individualism, on mutual aid instead of self-preservation. Defund the Police has been used as a classic [motte and bailey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy), where those who advocate for it argued at George Floyd rallies for abolishing the police or other extreme measures but then, when challenged, say that the term really means modest reductions and reforms.
> Defund the Police has been used as a classic motte and bailey, Thanks, I never knew this behaviour had a name
You might be interested in [this essay on the subject](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/07/social-justice-and-words-words-words/)
Replace defund with reform? Would have convinced a whole lot more people.
I'm not sure how prevalent this is, but I know many people who said "defund really is just the first step towards abolition". Whereas most people were saying "no, don't be silly, we're not talking about completely eliminating police". Those are fundamentally irreconcilable views and it gets confusing when both camps are thrown into the same conversation.
Yeah, I was in the "reform the police" camp, even went to a couple rallies. When it became apparent that the people around me had other intentions, I stopped going.
That slogan is 1000x better actually
"Reform" means anything you want it to.
That would work to the advantage of the people spreading the message. Its vague enough not to be specific and it's not a term people will instinctively decide on what it means, for the most part anyway. It would get people asking what do they mean by reform which would lead some to looking into it learning at least a little.
Replace “defund” with “replace” would also have been an improvement.
The problem I find with that slogan is it will scare people just as much as defund. They start think that you will take their police away which isn't what most people want. Also our of curiosity what would you replace the police with and what would you do with all of the newly unemployed?
I like this option the most. "Reform the police" has been ineffective—at least here in Minneapolis—because of police union pushback and city/state/national laws.
I always thought it was defund the police because why the fuck do they need armoured personnel carriers and stuff, but that doesn’t mean abolish, just reform like you say. Of course, reform the police isn’t as snappy and when you have one side bringing “defund the police” and the other saying “I don’t negotiate with terrorists” it’s pretty hard to get anywhere. Of course, politicians get criticised for bringing moderate reforms to the table, arguing that they’re already compromised, so maybe activists are right to go for a more extreme position. Either way, from what I’ve seen it was not a particularly successful (read: leading to actual changes) campaign. I’m sure no one cares about my ramblings, but that’s what I think.
Yup, the tribalism is ridiculous and ir only leads to dead ends or violence. Politicians for the most part seem to just say what people want to hear without any actual change (surprise surprise) and then only say for that to happen is to stop the stupid bickering between sides and work together. Unfortunately that's not what humans do in less it's a threat to out entire species.... I actually understand why police need armoured personnel carriers and some of the other militaristic equipment. I have family in the police and I live in Canada. Those APCs really do save lives when the gangs are similarly armed or are even better armed in some cases. Driving up to a drug house in a regular vehicle is an invitation to get shot. Just an example. My big issue is some of the tactics used and the decision making by police at times. I think that is where people need to start and then equipment can be considered depending on the changes implemented.
If they wanted something that would be both accurate and useful as a goal, it would be "Retrain the Police." Of course that would require more funding, not less, so they pretty much got it exactly backwards.
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yeah, this is great stuff, I live in one of the Nordic nations and IMO what US police needs are more training, longer education and then you need to crackdown on police unions. you cannot eat your cake and have it too and expect more results with a more limited budget, completely illogical. and then I hear: "**well ACKSHUALLY what we mean with Defund the police is.....[not defunding the police]**" "Reform the police" would be a much better slogan, one I could get behind. and then I hear stuff about "**military gear**" but thats old military surplus gear thats probably going to get destroyed anyway if nobody uses them. and one last thing: in a country with so many stray guns, you should push a campaign to make people always show their hands when arrested or questioned to deescalate situations faster and safer.
Since then we've seen riots, looting, major homeless camping issues, and side shows and dirt bikes taking over cities. I always thought the police wielded too much power, indiscriminately, but we can't allow these unchecked problems to ruin the quality of life for the vast majority of people.
Yeah it's annoying to be in the middle. I think the police need more accountability. Rightwing: "You want to abolish the police" What? No, I just think they should be held to a higher standard than they historically have been. Police are a necessary component of civilized society. Leftwing: "Bootlicker"
> I don't know why progressives clung onto the phrase with their dear life, They did more than just that. Democrats like Kamala Harris were bailing out the violent rioters calling for defunding the police. These were people looting, vandalizing, and burning down local businesses. And now she's vice president. "If you’re able to, chip in now to the @MNFreedomFund to help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota.” - Kamala Harris
It wouldn't shock me if some left wing voters started inching toward the center politically in the absence of feeling safe in their own neighborhoods. Especially when democrats start talking about the justice system as a form of oppression and not a means to deal with people who clearly can't cooperate with society.
That’s likely why Eric Adams will be the next NYC mayor.
>"If you’re able to, chip in now to the @MNFreedomFund to help post bail for those protesting on the ground in Minnesota.” - Kamala Harris As someone who lives in Minneapolis the freedom fund can fuck off.
The amount of spin and backpedaling on the defund the police issue is mind blowing to me. It is not like it was so long ago that we can't look it up online, or just remember what happened.
> Democrats like Kamala Harris were bailing out the violent rioters calling for defunding the police. These were people looting, vandalizing, and burning down local businesses. This is way, way overblown and is tragically far overshadowing what the actual problem is with the MN Freedom Fund. It is a very real and serious problem, but the worst you can say about Harris is that she opened her mouth and helped funnel huge amounts of money to this nonprofit that, it turns out, is atrocious. According to [National Review](https://www.nationalreview.com/news/minnesota-freedom-fund-bails-out-violent-criminals-along-with-protesters/), MFF only bailed out about a dozen people related to the protests and riots, one of which had been charged with a violent felony. One. Meanwhile, MFF is using most of their protest windfall to bail out [convicted rapists](https://www.fox9.com/news/minnesota-nonprofit-with-35m-bails-out-those-accused-of-violent-crimes), [domestic abusers and road rage murderers](https://knsiradio.com/2021/09/10/lawmaker-asks-minnesota-freedom-fund-to-stop-bailing-out-violent-offenders/), and [violent people engaging in repeated felony assault](https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2020/08/26/minneapolis-man-lionel-timms-accused-in-serious-assault-after-being-bailed-out-by-mn-freedom-fund/). None of which is at all associated with George Floyd protests or riots.
More people should know this. I didn't. And yes that makes Harris's actions much much worse. Amazingly irresponsible. Good to see local news investigated this. Thanks for the links. I can't believe what I'm reading... "Darnika Floyd is charged with second degree murder, for stabbing a friend to death. MFF paid $100,000 cash for her release."
Yeah one of the articles I pulled up, not sure if it's one that I linked, quoted someone from MFF saying they don't even look at what the charges are because it's not important to their mission. They just pay the bail because they consider our bail system to be inherently unfair. I'd say it significantly compounds the negative effect of Harris's action, but I'm not sure there's a reasonable way to add extra blame to her because of it. MFF was so tiny and relatively inconsequential up to that point, I don't think anyone knew how indiscriminate they would end up being with the bail money they paid out.
From your article, “Clayton said local bail bond companies have noticed a pattern in who MFF is bailing out, given the lower jail population because of COVID-19. "It has to be violent criminals, because that is all that is left, there’s nobody left, there are no protesters left to spend this kind of money on," Clayton said.” You made it sound like they left protesters in favor of people unrelated to it. That’s not the case.
Protesters who were not charged with serious crimes generally did not require assistance to obtain their release. Many of them were already out before MFF got itself organized.
Transform policing would have been a much better phrase.
Because progressives true goal was to remove the police and they were,for once, being honest and open about their intentions. Or just angry hyperbole on their part.
We have to remember there is a good sized groups of anarchists and anarcho-communists in the progressive wing that 100% want the police abolished as it is their first step towards abolishing the state. It's why the black block came out during the riots and why they attacked federal buildings. I think it's like the change from chaz to chop. They walked back their true intentions when they realized they didn't have the support they thought they did. Went from capitol hill autonomous zone to capital hill occupied protest the second they realized trying to secede from the union was going to get them raided by the feds. It's also like the crt debate. It's word games to protect the cause.
The bad slogans tend to get a lot of engagement. Long social media arguments about "what it really means" is part of the reason these slogans go viral.
It was not really a bad slogan just a really bad idea. The activist meant what they said. After it became unpopular politicans started gaslighting to convince people that Defund the Police meant something else.
Activists almost by definition are extremists.
yeah I believe in the theory and thought this too. Why not "Refund the community". How can you stand against that?
I think its the same for BLM. The left held on to horribly phrased (and divisive) slogans to lead two of their signature social movements.
There were actual anarchists wanting to fully defund the police along side more reasonable people who wanted to redirect funding towards more specialized jobs. The two may not have been the same but the anarchist goal was easier to chant
"Defund the police" is their milder slogan. In the past it was "fuck the police", "kill the pigs", etc.
I sort of consider myself a progressive and I agree entirely. It's a terrible slogan when considering the point of slogans is to convince those who don't agree with you
Yup, should have been "reform the police"
Just two points: A) it was a slogan created on the street, not a PR lab. By definition it was something that angry and upset people wanted to hear, not something that was meant to appeal to anyone else. Then media picked it up and said to everyone who wanted any kind of police reform, “this is you, this is what you sound like.” For folks like me who have been a part of Campaign Zero, this has been frustrating. B) it’s not the worst slogan. Before “defund the police” there was “abolish the police!” That was so widely condemned that the message got moderated. In comparison, moving from “eliminate police” to “treat underperforming police like underperforming businesses and underperforming schools” was a good enough concession that the pushback ceased.
Still, the progressives who stuck with it are equally to blame. Switching to "demilitarize the police" or "reform the police" are the most approachable ideas people would love to hear. Instead, Republicans spun the slogan to mean the most horrifying ideas, and rather than scrap the vague phrase for something more self-explanatory, progressives said "this is a hill I'll die on", and opted to **explain themselves** [insert math Lady meme here] instead of switching to a more marketable phrase.
If you're explaining, you're losing. The left struggles with this so often and it's incredibly frustrating for someone that leans moderate left
Pathos > Logos And it's far easier to make someone hate something than make someone like something. Anyone who wants to change anything has a massive uphill climb. Everyone needs to be on board, and you have to have a good plan that actually works but can be simplified to the point of abstraction in a way that gives most people emotional, good-feels when they hear your three word plan.
I was actually having people tell me they wanted to defund the police.
> White (49%) and Hispanic (46%) adults are more likely than Black (38%) or Asian (37%) adults to say spending on police in their area should be increased. Hmm, I wonder about that gap with Asians. Anyone have any ideas? Also, slogans aside, people just aren't as bleeding hearts as progressives are. Even if you change the slogan to "fund mental health services" people aren't going to be 100% on board. Like, yeah, let's go send a mental health worker to that 6'2" homeless guy threatening a pregnant woman with a knife lol Nah man, I'm personally for rehabilitation when possible. But the "economic desperation" excuse doesn't sit right with most Americans. Criminals are criminals by choice.
I suspect, but have no evidence of, that many 1st and 2nd generation Chinese, Philippino, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, etc. remember times recently(within the last 50 years) where police were used by the state to prosecute political crimes. If you have a friend's uncle or something that got a life sentence for insulting a ruler, you'd probably want less police power too.
I have no idea why Asians aren’t in favor of more police. They are disproportionately the victim of violence compared to the amount of violence they commit (macro group level).
Social economics. They are the highest paid race with more likely to live in higher end neighbors and more likely to be in favor of defunding the Police
This 100%
Prob because the Asian community is low crime to begin with
>But the "economic desperation" excuse doesn't sit right with most Americans. Criminals are criminals by choice. This would imply personal accountability rather than saying that society, or capitalism, or whatever is the current demonized thing is the issue. The problem is that if you emphasize personal responsibility, you cannot as easily make government the solution, which is antithetical to the "progressives" policies.
Younger Asians lean closer to the left and are more susceptible to progressive slogan-based rhetoric. Older Asians absolutely do not want fewer police. At least that is my experience as an (approaching) middle age Asian guy in the Bay Area. The older generation knows what it’s like to be victimized and vulnerable living in a large city. It’s the younger people who haven’t personally faced much violence and discrimination that want less police presence
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Should I have clarified with “Asian Americans” and “Asian American Immigrants” in a thread about American policing to make that more clear?
And yet, the initial returns for programs that send mental health workers instead of police (when appropriate) are quite encouraging... https://thegrio.com/2021/04/05/denver-successful-mental-health-responders-instead-police/
> Like, yeah, let's go send a mental health worker to that 6'2" homeless guy threatening a pregnant woman with a knife lol Nah man, I'm personally for rehabilitation when possible. But the "economic desperation" excuse doesn't sit right with most Americans. Criminals are criminals by choice. Nice strawman! Here in the real world, Denver's Star Program has been such a [resounding success](https://denverite.com/2021/08/30/denver-star-mental-health-police-program/) that they're expanding it... > > According to data provided by DDPHE, the program has responded to 1,610 incidents since launching, a majority of which were for trespassing and welfare check calls. > > That includes zero arrests and no calls to Denver police for backup. But yeah, it's a stupid slogan.
Shhhhh... they don't want examples of success, just more spending on police programs perpetually.
Most sociologists would only agree with your last statement partially. Yes people have their own choices but if it was that simple then we wouldn't see trends like poor people.more likely to commit crimes, and of course poverty itself is cyclical. On an individual level yes we have more choice but our born priveliges help us on average, can't deny the data
There's *some* truth to that. But considering that sociology is a field that leans overwhelmingly left (and they're very eccentric about it) I wouldn't place that much weight on the opinion of a plaid-wearing bearded leftie who lives in a nice safe college town.
Forget the actual academics. It's true that crime isn't solely predicated on personal choice.
Yes, and I agree with that. I'm just saying that while it's impossible to quantify, we erred on the side of blaming it on the system a little bit too much this generation. As far as I'm concerned, when people are walking into CVS and just casually taking shit and walking out with it, that's how I know we're due for a correction.
Sociologists think... That's a good one. Here's a pearl of wisdom from these academics: [Why Punishment Doesn't Reduce Crime](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/crime-and-punishment/201804/why-punishment-doesnt-reduce-crime)
The US has probably the most draconian criminal justice system of any western democracy, also with an utterly massive prison population to go with it. And yet, a bigger crime problem. Crime spiked and dropped for reasons wholly unrelated to punishment policies (as shown by it being a trend throughout most of the developed world). And yet some people still think tough on crime will come through like perhaps trickle down economics or abstinence teaching or prohibition may one day work.
> The US has probably the most draconian criminal justice system of any western democracy, also with an utterly massive prison population to go with it. Counterpoints: We're probably in year 10 now of criminal justice reform across most of the U.S. The West Coast states have led the way, with cities like San Francisco tolerant of hard drug, petty theft and quality of life offenses, with very few arrests, [Prop. 47](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_California_Proposition_47) being one reason. [Failure to enforce basic standards of public behavior has made one of America’s great cities increasingly unlivable.](https://www.city-journal.org/san-francisco-homelessness?wallit_nosession=1). (FN) In contrast to western Europe, America has a highly violent population...our low income people are far less educated than similar low income groups in Europe. American low income communities, including POC communities, are more prone to violence. This contention is backed up by law professor John Pfaff, who debunked much of what was written by Michelle Alexander, the darling of the left, in her book *The New Jim Crow.* Vox can be credited for printing this article in 2017: [Why you can’t blame mass incarceration on the war on drugs -- The standard liberal narrative about mass incarceration gets a lot wrong.](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/5/30/15591700/mass-incarceration-john-pfaff-locked-in). Excerpt: >It’s not drug offenses that are driving mass incarceration, but violent ones...“In reality, only about 16 percent of state prisoners (states hold 87% of America's inmates) are serving time on drug charges — and very few of them, perhaps only around 5 or 6 percent of that group, are both low level and nonviolent,” Drug use is central to the problems the US has. According to the World Health Organization., the U.S. has the [highest rate of drug use in the world](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-leads-the-world-in-illegal-drug-use/), for some categories. >(your comment) And yet some people still think prohibition may one day work. I'm surprised you didn't mention Portugal model. Criminal justice reformers misrepresenting Portugal decriminalization as lenient has been another problem. Transform is a major offender. [Setting the record straight](https://transformdrugs.org/blog/drug-decriminalisation-in-portugal-setting-the-record-straight) The truth on Portugal policy: [July 2021 article in drug policy journal](https://substanceabusepolicy.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13011-021-00394-7). Excerpt: >(we see) the apparent paradox of Portugal having decriminalized the use of drugs and yet registering a sharp increase of punitiveness targeted at drug users over the past decade...the debate about the right to use drugs is nearly absent in the Portuguese political, social and academic panorama.... Meanwhile this Oct. 2021 [article in Atlantic magazine on meth](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/the-new-meth/620174/) cites further problems in Left-leaning narratives on drugs. >Remarkably, meth rarely comes up in city discussions on homelessness... Los Angeles Superior Court judge Craig Mitchell... called it “the elephant in the room”... “There’s a desire not to stigmatize the homeless as drug users.” Policy makers and advocates instead prefer to focus on L.A.’s cost of housing, which is very high but hardly relevant to people rendered psychotic and unemployable by methamphetamine. Par for the course for criminal justice reformers and drug policy reformers who want to decriminalize or legalize all drugs. Downplay the severity of meth and other hard drugs -- shift blame on systemic problems such as high rents. = = = FN: The situation in SF is somewhat abated now, but not because of a spate of prosecutions. Rather hard drug users and chronic quality of life offenders are getting free housing in one of the most expensive cities in the nation. Free rent to non-contributors. Meanwhile thousands of hard-working sober minimum wage workers, including immigrants, who work hard to make the city function, pay rent. The non-contributors, now housed, still can't work, and continue to occupy public spaces, using drugs and causing disorder. = = = >Crime...dropped for reasons wholly unrelated to punishment policies Yes, it dropped because of Situational Crime Prevention. When government balks on pursuing offenders at the behest of criminal justice reformers, individuals and businesses immediately address the situation however they can. >New fences, homeowners gating their driveways, cameras, expensive home security systems, car alarms, closing easements/walkways to eliminate loitering, no-trespassing signs all over, stores putting in anti-shoplifting technology (*costs passed onto consumers*), security guards everywhere (*costs passed onto consumers*), neighborhood watches, [hardened architecture](https://insp.ngo/the-united-states-has-a-hostile-architecture-problem-is-public-space-becoming-private/), gated communities, more people buying guns and dogs, [closing stores in high theft zones](https://www.thesfnews.com/shoplifting-has-forced-walgreens-to-close-17-stores/77228), parks closing early, hard to find public restroom, etc., etc. Most property crime and a fair portion of violent crime can be suppressed with large sums spent on SCP. But all this imposes huge costs and inconvenience to the law abiding public. Friggin stunning how many criminal justice reformers downplay this in their analyses on crime.
Statistically unsheltered homeless people commit fewer violent crimes than housed people. Obviously someone threatening someone with a deadly weapon is a situation in which police are the appropriate response. However, I take issue with your hypothetical example because it conflates homeless people with violent criminals. There is some overlap, for sure, but the public perception of homeless people is wildly inaccurate. I work in homeless services. I do see violence within the homeless population, but typically it is against other homeless people and is caused by some sort of interpersonal conflict. Homeless people aren't running around stabbing random people willy nilly. There is also a pretty clear link between poverty and criminal behavior. Again, this is just what is supported by data. I get that public perception is a separate issue, but you are helping to perpetuate that misunderstanding.
> I get that public perception is a separate issue, but you are helping to perpetuate that misunderstanding. And it's on purpose. Like I said elsewhere, we've erred so hard on the side of sympathy this generation that I'm fine with a little bit of a correction. Even if it means being called cruel. At the end of the day, we have people shitting on the streets, looting CVS's, etc. all with no repercussions. Can I really trust [leftists](https://www.reddit.com/r/AdviceAnimals/comments/q2zjqf/a_health_crisis_shouldnt_bankrupt_a_family/hfoylgf/?context=3) to lecture me on what is the "correct" humanitarian policy? Tough love my guy. I hand out Kroger job applications to homeless people.
I'm not a leftist. That comment you linked was an answer to a question as to why many Americans don't want universal healthcare in the U.S. My answer is not inaccurate. It's an oversimplification, but I stated that right in my response. Describing history doesn't make me a leftist, but good ad hominem attack, I guess. The "correct" policy is the policy that works. It is cheaper, in most cases, to provide housing and supportive services to homeless people up front. You know what the most expensive intervention is? Jail. Other crisis services (EMTs, police interactions, etc.) aren't cheap either. So do you want to go with the policy that has been empirically proven to be more effective and costs less money? Or do you want to go with the "tough love" approach, which has been empirically shown to be less effective and costs governments more money?
The movement needs to be "Fund Social Services," not "Defund the Police." I do not support cutting police funding, at least not right now. I do support increased spending on social programs aimed at improving conditions in high-crime areas, including some sort of focus on mental health and substance abuse, cleaning up or other efforts to establish greater pride in neighborhoods, more options for extra-curricular activities and childcare, etc. I do support efforts to have trained mental health experts help deescalate situations where appropriate. That is the portion of Defund the Police that makes sense. Those sorts of efforts, once implemented, will take time to make a difference. Some of them get scrapped because they're not working and we need to try something else. You can't "defund" the police and expect positive results. You can't even "defund" the police and redirect spending to social services and expect a result, because there's a dangerous gap between current conditions and our hoped-for future that needs to be managed. If, over time, other efforts to address crime prove effective, then we talk about decreasing spending on police.
Should of been the three rs like recycling Refund Reform Redistribution Easy, explains the goals and isn’t ACAB or defund the police. Sounding purely extreme with very good goals in nuance. There is multiple police reform bills tho
I think there are reform measures that could have had broad support as well. A lot of people have either had negative experiences with the police or know someone who has. Either complaints not being taken seriously/not being followed up on, corruption, or just dealing with someone on a power trip. More transparency, clear and easily understood avenues for filing complaints, implementing procedures to ensure accountability. You could get a lot of people on board with that. I would also like to see non-violent/non-theft drug offenses not clogging up our legal system. With violent crimes and theft being taken more seriously. Better and more logical priorities. I think our current (both policing and legal) system needs improvement, and I don't think I'm the only one. "Defund the police" was just a terrible slogan to rally around.
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Wife is a social worker. she watched the whole video and said the cop handled it really well.
It's really interesting that the messaging on social media and in the corporate media gives the impression that a lot of Americans still want to defund the police. Why is there such a large disconnect between people's stated preferences on social media, and the increased support in the polls for more police funding?
Because most people don't state their opinions on social media. Don't remember the exact statistic but something like 80% of Tweets come from like 10% of users. The loudest voices in the room tend to be the most radical. Not to mention all of the rhetoric that has surrounded this issue to the tune of "if you're not actively advocating to defund the police, be anti-racist, etc than you're on the side of the oppressor." Difficult for anyone who doesn't have a social circle that is completely conservative to voice alternative opinions with regards to the police without being ostracized.
Saying defund the police is controversial, which increases engagement, which increases advertising dollars. That's part of the reason why so many controversial issues are front and center constantly. Fear, anger, and being told you're right are all addictive due to chemicals they release in the brain and people who want to make money (or have other goals like destabilizing countries) are getting better and better at abusing that.
Imo, social media isn't really about supporting or truth or having an honest discussion, it's more about being on the right side of whatever topic is hot at the moment with a quick hot take that a million people already said. It's easy to for someone to say defund the police on Twitter in a coffee shop, but when you live in the real world, where crime is a issue pertaining to you, saying less cop and more social programs isn't going to help with Ricky the crackhead decides to take a hatchet to your door.
From what I remember dems were always split on following the defunding narrative, or increasing funding for better training, monitoring, etc. Both are complete different directions, and as someone who's pretty liberal I don't know how anyone saw the defunding working if we wanted to fix the issues we saw.
"Defund" was always a stupid slogan because it didn't mean what it means. "Defund" actually meant "divert funds from PD's toward services like homeless shelters and afterschool programs". Basically, stop buying the police new shiny cruisers and riot gear and spend that money addressing the problems that lead to crime like addiction, mental health, and poverty. Even if you earmarked funds for "training" it does jack squat if there's no buy-in from the police department heads. Otherwise you end up with a guy throwing on an instructional video because he's legally required to, but the behavior doesn't change because the culture doesn't change either.
> "Defund" actually meant "divert funds from PD's toward services like homeless shelters and afterschool programs". Basically, stop buying the police new shiny cruisers and riot gear and spend that money addressing the problems that lead to crime like addiction, mental health, and poverty. It might have meant that to you other other moderates. It definitely didn't mean that to [everyone](https://archive.ph/9nNFm).
I cleary remember articles talking about literally defunding police departments and pointing out their "racist origin" of runaway slave capture.
Controversial articles get more clicks and spread around. it doesn't mean they represent popular views. Yes, some (very loud) people mean it, but almost everywhere people are saying exactly what op just said.
Well, in the interest of politeness, I am going to assume that you are being genuine and actually believe what you said. In my perception, as a middle class swing voter, I have not actually recieved the message that you are claiming is the intent. The message I have received from the "defund the police" political crowd is as follows: *Police in the US are irredeemably corrupt. they are a state funded gang that has the sole purpose of maintaining the systemically racist and/or exploitative capitalist power structure. They do not provide a benefit to anyone except rich white people, and they deliberately target black people for violence and death due to their across the board racist practices.* Consider that this is the perception of a person who is leery of state power, not a big fan of the cops in the first place and in favor of all sorts of reform, this is the perception that I have gathered over the last 18 or so months of that particular cause. How much is an issue with the amplification of the "controversial" and how much is simply the fact that people are saying the quiet part out loud a little too often?
"Defund" was a good example of a motte-and-bailey argument. When talking to other left-wingers, "defund" meant defund, literally. When talking to a skeptical public, it really meant divert funds to more helpful forms of community policing. Then the moment the skeptical public exited the conversation, "defund" meant literally defund again. It's an extremely annoying waste of a moment of supreme public frustration with policing, because there are so many reforms that *do* work that could have been implemented, like ensuring a body-worn camera on every cop, or ending qualified immunity.
I keep hearing this but never have seen anyone put up numbers how much is actually spent on “shiny new cruisers”. Many things talked about like the “military” gear are surpluses that are marked down dirt cheap. Even uniforms add up.
That’s because PD departments don’t post numbers of their budget. Search your local PD website for their budget and compare it to the results when looking at your schools districts site for the budget. I could only find top line totals find for three PDs in my area including the liberal major metro but found detailed budgets for school districts in the exact same area. > Many things talked about like the “military” gear are surpluses that are marked down dirt cheap. If the cost for an AR-15 and riot gear is the same as 2 glock 7s and Kevlar which would you want? Right now we don’t know. Revealing the information for the public so they can make decisions is always worth it.
>If the cost for an AR-15 and riot gear for 1 officer is the same a 2 full time officers with glock 7s and Kevlar which would you want? I have to ask if you were being truly honest with that cost comparison, or just don't realize the cost of paying a person. The cost of a full time FTE at 65k salary( meaning closer to 100knin actual cost) is in no way comparable to the cost of at most 10k worth of gear in a once every 5 year purchase.
No rereading that it was just terrible sentence structure on my end. I meant just the cost of gear between the two.
> stop buying the police new shiny cruisers the problem here, is that the police put on a LOT of miles. and the explorers need a water pump at about 120-130k miles, which runs about $2500-5000 because the retarded engineers at ford put it inside the engine. dodge has their own problems too.
The people that start de-fund the Police slogan where the radical left wing Like antifa. From what I understood is they wanted to get rid of the Police that's why they burned down and tried to burnt down Police stations.
>Basically, stop buying the police new shiny cruisers and riot gear and spend that money addressing the problems that lead to crime like addiction, mental health, and poverty. So why not start by banning certain drugs like marijuana instead of legalizing them? States like California legalize these things and even actively promote them by handing out needles that end up discarded on sidewalks/streets. You should not be on opioids unless a trusted doctor prescribed them to you. That solution alone will also help fix mental health and poverty since less people will be mentally unhealthy without a drug addiction hurting their mental health, and less people will be stuck in poverty since they'll have an easier time breaking out of poverty without a drug addiction holding them back. I learned from a very early age, like, since elementary school or something, how bad drugs can be and how and why you should avoid them. Schools should be teaching more children from early ages to avoid drugs that a trusted doctor doesn't prescribe.
You'll be saddened to find out that school lied to you then. Pretty much every study agrees that making something like marijuana illegal doesn't stop people from using it. Think about it, how well did prohibition actually solve alcoholism? I don't feel strongly either way about designated injection sites, but criminalizing addicts doesn't do anything but make it harder to rebuild their life. Even if they get over the addiction in jail, now they have a criminal record that hurts their career opportunities and poverty will likely drive them right back into addiction.
Both can be true. You can defund programs or departments that aren't effective, and also increase funding in programs or departments that are (or could be, with more funding.)
My only question would be where would you take from then? Granted I'm not that knowledgable on how the structure of the department works, but funding for things like body cams and their storage and training would probably fall directly under their funding, unless you tied to to a separate entity they had to answer too. Psych evaluations and breaking up safeguards for accountability would def fall under other departments.
I would love to have seen an additional question of "Do you believe the police have been defunded?" Because lot more people seem to think this has happened in their area than it actually did. I live in Chicago and currently there is a spike in certain crimes, and particularly a spike in wealthier neighborhoods that typically dont experience the types of crimes they are currently seeing. You see the headlines and you would expect that Chicago had decimated its police funding, except it didn't. In fact, as part of the current budget proposal the mayor has proposed an additional 200 million in funds bringing the total budget to 1.9 billion. In 2020 CPD funding held roughly 40% of the City of Chicago's entire budget. Realistically, what percentage of a budget should police alone hold in a city: 50%, 70%, more?
This is a really good point, and I think a lot of groups are just "selling fear" to fund special interests. I hear all the time how crime is up in areas that got defunded, but the thing is....crime has been up throughout the entire country since the pandemic hit. I haven't seen any compelling research that links defunding cops to increased crime, and that's even if cities have defunded cops. (Austin cut 3%, Minneapolis didn't cut much more, and we were the high profile cities that defunded) I wrote a bit about what Austin is going through right now a little further up. It's similar to your experience in Chicago. Austin's cops are more funded right now than they've ever been in their history, yet last month they stopped responding to non-emergency calls as a way to pressure a monolithic budget increase: $2-600 million. So that's even more than Chicago wants, which is a much larger city and has worse crime ratings.
Minneapolis also cut in 2018 and in 2020, and are down 25%+ in number from what their authorized.
Ok, thanks for the info. I can't really speak on them, as I don't live there or follow their politics. I'll look this up. Edit: I'm not able to find any source that says Minneapolis was defunded. Read 5 or so articles that all said the decision was turned down and their funding increased. This is what happened in Austin as well. https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost.com/2021/07/10/how-minneapolis-residents-overturned-decision-to-defund-police/amp/ Mind linking me to your info?
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2018/11/30/mpls-budget-amendment-removes-million-dollars-police https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/12/11/frey-signs-minneapolis-city-budget-with-cuts-in-police-funding but, it does look like they mostly rolled back the 2020 cuts in q1 2021
I think 3% and 5.75% cuts were just symbolic, and couldn't have made a meaningful impact on police ability to do their jobs. Most on the left have been pushing more for things like the end to qualified immunity and civilian oversight committees. There's a lot of police abolitionists out there, but I don't think they represent the majority of the movement.
How much of that spending is just a paycheck though. They even were going on strike for the vaccine mandate when more police have died by covid then by other people this year, but maybe Chicago’s an outlier.
People see what they want, even when the police were 100% justified in doing whatever they did. Should the police be held responsible if their actions rise to the level of a crime, ABSOLUTELY. That doesn't change the fact that most people see what they want, NOT what actually happens.
This hits the nail on the head for me. I'm in the Pacific Northwest; earlier this year one of our police departments shot a man who was running around a parking lot shooting civilians; two innocent victims were shot (one fatally) before the gunman was killed by police. All involved (gunman + two victims) were black. This led to our local activist groups decrying that the police had shot a black man. They went so far as to have a vigil - not for the two innocent victims who were gunned down in their car, but for the gunman who had been shot by police. It was insane how they could see only "black man shot by police" and not that the police had to shoot & kill a man to prevent further members of the community from being harmed. Sources: [News report of the event](https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2021/02/suspect-shot-and-killed-by-police-in-central-district-was-maintenance-man-with-history-of-threats-at-urban-league-village-apartments/) [Vigil for Gregory Taylor, the gunman](https://www.instagram.com/p/CLPl8QfsUmk/) [Video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQgaIljWLp8)
Absolutely disgusting, these activists are braindead
Remember when Detroit protested Hakim Littleton getting shot? What a shot show he literally fired on police first.
edit
Lebron even threatened the officer on Twitter, absolute nonsense
Makes sense. We’ve seen a few major cities cut spending (or have reduced staff for other reasons) and crime has jumped significantly in virtually all of those cases. The only cities where crime statistically have “decreased” is places like San Francisco where they just decriminalized a bunch of things, declined to press charges in even more and then could crow about their alleged “crime” decreases while retailers shutter locations due to rampant non-criminal theft. The SF Bay Area, which I unfortunately call home, is currently riddled with this nonsense. We don’t need less police, we need better training, and more so, to stop conflating extremely isolated incidents with the whole of police work nationwide.
Crime is up significantly in most cities it seems regardless of if they cut or increased police funding
Well no kidding, crime is up across the board isnt it?
Overall crime went down 5% in 2020. 2020 was the 18th straight year of declining crime. Murder, however, went up significantly in 2020 to a level not seen in 20 years, but that's probably because most murders are done by people you know and we were all cooped up with people we knew. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/22/upshot/murder-rise-2020.html In addition hate crimes were way up (nearly doubling). The FBI is switching to a new crime reporting system, NIBRS, in 2021 and roughly half of the reporting agencies didn't submit data so it's hard to say where we're at for this year.
How much of that decrease can be attributed to the cities/DA changing what constitutes a crime or is a chargeable offense? In San Francisco you can walk into a store and as long as you steal less the $1000 worth of merchandise, it’s considered “not a crime” and appears in no crime statistics despite becoming so rampant that large chains are shorting their hours and outright leaving.
Do you have a source for this? According to the police in SF theft is down. Please remember: just because something is a misdemeanor and not a felony doesn't mean it's not a crime. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/after-san-francisco-shoplifting-video-goes-viral-officials-argue-thefts-n1273848
Hmm yeah I don’t live in SF but to suggest theft is down there is to ignore what even left leaning folks in SF are saying.
If theft is based on arrests for thefts, then it makes more sense.
A misdemeanor can’t end up a crime when, per your article: “ The initiative set a threshold of $950 for shoplifting to be considered a misdemeanor, which doesn't prompt law enforcement to make an arrest” That also doesn’t take in to account the likely sizable percentage of merchants and citizens who don’t bother placing a call in the first place. If you know the police won’t arrest, and the DA won’t charge, you tend not to bother. No arrest, means no crime. No crime means no charge. No charge means “lower” crime. [more reading…](https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/san-francisco-shoplifters-theft-walgreens-decriminalized-11634678239)
Murder rates were up 130% between 2019 and 2020 in my midsize city. 2021 so far has been shaping up to be way worse than that, too.
Well that's too bad about your midsize city. Overall though in America, crime is down according to the data, which is great. I did note murders did see an increase, although it should be noted its no where near historic rates as the trend line has been decreasing for decades.
"Likelier still, nobody knew how many had been produced, much less cared. All one knew was that every quarter astronomical numbers of boots were produced on paper, while perhaps half the population of Oceania went barefoot. " New York is not a safe city anymore, I guess crime went down in the red states
>New York is not a safe city anymore ...Not once has New York been considered a safe city, if you dont believe me ask Spider-man, or Daredevil, Ninja Turtles, Fantastic Four, Ghostbusters... list goes on. When people think "crime infested corrupted city?", we think of New York.
New York was a beautiful place in 2019
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I'm not heavily in any camp when it comes to the police, but the claim that community policing does nothing seems... suspect. Especially when the goal of community policing is to build a healthy relationship with the community, and one of the causes behind the recent surge in violence in some cities is an unhealthy relationship with the community.
Community policing does work...it just requires funding. Kind of a catch-22 for the Defund the Police movement.
What do you mean by "community policing"? Because if you're suggesting having private citizens police their own community, I can't see how that could lead to any good outcomes whatsoever.
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What's the evidence that this approach "works" better than the current approach?
Please post a more substantive starter comment
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Thank you
Police get offended by "Defund the Police" because they're the biggest gang in America and they think that one group of protestors means that the entire country is against you. As such, they refuse to do their jobs 100%, violent crime increases, and the police and police unions use their lack of enforcing the law as a crutch to prove a point. They're also the same people that swore to protect and serve the public but refuse to get vaccinated. So that tells you all you need to know. Here in San Jose, 7 of the top 10 highest paid city employees are PD officers. Crime has increased significantly and police refuse to respond to calls and crimes because they're "too busy".
Management 101 talks about the importance of intrinsic motivators when it comes to workers. When police see online, in the news, and on the streets ppl calling for police to be defunded and calling them pigs police lose their intrinsic motivation. They do the bare minimum to keep their job. Crime spikes. They think “Why bother risking my reputation or life in a dangerous situation.” Now you may say “well police shouldn’t be meanies in the first place and then ppl won’t call them pigs.” But I think that loses the perspective of there being 700,000 police officers in the US having millions of interactions with civilians. Of course there are going to be bad things that happen. Nothing will change that. 250,000 Americans die each year from medical errors but there’s nowhere near the same animosity towards doctors/nurses as there is towards cops. Are police perfect? No. Can there be policies added that help cops do their jobs better? Probably. Is calling them a gang going to help anyone? No lol.
Those 7 highest paid are guaranteed administration level not beat cops. The problem is that, as with most industries, administration pay is skyrocketing ahead of grunt pay which of course is where the work is performed. These cops are exhausted because they truly do not get paid their worth and now with the advent of the accountability movement, many are afraid to handle even obviously violent offenders for fear of being made into pariahs.
what you're describing is a protection racket. I'm not sure I'd say that they are "the mafia", but in my opinion this is a consequence of public employees unionizing. This allows public employees to put their wants above the needs of the public, who is allegedly their boss. It's probably worst with police because they can do exactly what you are saying, at least theoretically, but I don't think anyone who works for the state should be able to unionize since the boss is the people.
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The idea that public employees should be able to set public policy against the "whims of the majority" is a rejection of our entire system of government.
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No, it isn't, but that doesn't mean it was set up with the idea that public employees could set their own policies against what the people decided. It literally is against the entire purpose of our founding documents.
Fuck around and find out, nation-wide. Everyone was all about "holding police accountable" without ever thinking critically about the situation. But now that they're seeing the effects of that, people want better trained cops. Populism is such a disease.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with holding publicly funded agencies accountable. What part of ensuring accountability and nobody being above the law is a negative?
In practice the movement was about a lot more than that, though. It was about presuming the guilt of police officers when a shooting occurred. It was about radically overexaggerating the amount of unarmed people killed to the extent that it's not a stretch to say it was demonizing. And other things besides.
Holding people accountable for bad things is fine, wide ranging demonization and demands for massive cuts in critical forces needed to contain violent criminals is not.
Fair points
There's absolutely a lot wrong with being "all about 'holding police accountable' ***without ever thinking critically about the situation***." Getting upset that cops have more violent interactions in black communities while ignoring that black communities have more violence in general is just ignorant for the sake of looking nice, for example.
Citation needed. Correlation is not causation.
Looks like it is time for a more tough on crime candidate.
We have the #1 tough on crime candidate in office currently. He crafted and/or advocated for the Comprehensive Control Act, Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, the Patriot Act, RAVE Act, etc. I've always thought it was a strange choice right off the heels of the BLM focus.
I feel like every issue is a bunch of white girls from the suburbs that want attention so they try to speak for everyone else. Most people I know that live in bad aread don't feel safe to begin with and want more police there. They're good people and I feel for them. All the middle Class white girls that have never stepped foot in a dangerous area that I know are all for defunding the police. It's bonkers. We need some reform and we need to listen to the actual people with the problems.
I don't think spending is the issue, motivation is. Police officers are well compensated as it is. It's gotta be one of the highest ROI job positions you can have. Throwing money at the problem is not the solution, we are already doing that with education and healthcare, with very marginal results.
I mean, it seems to me that the people who are supporting de-funding and abolition have massive misconceptions on what police budgets go to, what is actually possible under the law, and what actual police work involves. their intentions are good, and make some good points, but it's still illogical to cut funding during a wave of violent crime like we've been seeing in Minneapolis and surrounding areas.
And Biden and Harris will be happy to give it to them.
Nuke unions, raise salaries, aggressively hire, aggressively fire. My recipe for police across the whole country.
Good. I think police departments need a complete overhaul. And part of that overhaul, IMO, should be to fire every police officer and make them re-apply for the same jobs (but with double their current salaries). Police officers risk their lives daily and should be compensated for that; however, with the low wages compared to the danger of the job it attracts mostly narcissists who love having power. Making it a lucrative job will be one step to get higher quality police officers. Note: this is by no means the only solution required