Back when Black Lives Mattered, there was talk about defunding the police. While nothing significant seems to have come of this, it did create controversy at the time. Some took issue with the choice of the word “defund” since it allowed the right to easily create a straw person to attack. A straw person is a fallacy in which a distorted or exaggerated version is put in place of the actual claim, argument, or position. The straw version is attacked, thus “refuting” the real version. The most common straw person was that “defunding the police” meant the complete abolition of law enforcement. This was not true. While there was disagreement, the general view is that the police should have their funding reduced to fund chronically underfunded community services, such as mental health care. Some people did (and do) think that the current system of policing should be abolished in favor of a better system.
The straw person often guided the right into a slippery slope fallacy. This is a fallacy in which it is claimed that something (usually terrible) will inevitably follow from something else. The fallacy occurs when the connection between the two is not adequately supported. Slippery slope fallacies often involve hyperbole in the form of an extravagant exaggeration of the alleged consequences. In the case of defunding the police, the straw person slippery slope used by some on the right is that defunding the police would lead to utter chaos.
This also involved the use of scare tactics, a fallacy in which the “support” offered for the claim is something intended to frighten the target. As would also be expected, there are often racist dog-whistles (or open racism) employed to craft these nightmare scenarios.
It can be argued that that there are radical anarchists who want to get rid of the state and there are people who want a world free of police so they can commit violence, assault and theft. But taking these people to define what it means to defund the police is like using the Westboro Baptist Church to define all Christians. Using the most extreme members of the group to define the entire group, be they on the left or the right, is the fallacy of nut picking. While there are many excellent moral arguments for defunding the police, I will focus on a very practical moral argument involving effective use of community resources. As “defunding the police” seems forever tainted, I prefer the phrase “rethinking the police.”
For a variety of reasons, the United States saw a marked militarization of the police. Police training has also shifted, with a very lucrative industry arising that trains police to be warriors. This would make sense if there had been a significant rise in violent crime and criminals were regularly using military weapons. However, violent crime has been consistently decreasing over time. While criminals do use assault rifles and some have used body armor, most crimes are not committed with guns and the most common guns used in crimes are handguns. While there is value in having superior firepower, the militarization of the police vastly exceeds the threat to a degree that is almost ludicrous. Also, SWAT teams exist for a reason, which is to handle the rare cases in which they are needed. But it doesn’t make sense to have most police armed to SWAT levels.
One problem with the combination of militarization and warrior training is a bias towards the use of force. One aspect of rethinking the police involves demilitarizing to make them less threatening to the public and, some hope, reducing the bias towards violence. There is also an image problem: militarized police marching the streets of America, violently attacking protestors makes us look like a repressive authoritarian state. To be fair, and balanced, this might soon be an accurate image. Another problem with a militarized warrior police is that they are equipped and trained for violence but dealing with violent crime is a small fraction of their job.
While cities vary in the time officers spend on activities, addressing violent crime takes up about 4% of a typical shift. Over 30% of an officer’s time is spent responding to non-criminal calls. The rest of the time is spent on traffic, other crimes, property crimes and proactive activity. Between 6 and 9% are medical calls. Even it is incorrectly assumed that violent crimes always call for a militarized warrior response, that means that only 4% of police activity is responsible for the cost of militarizing the police and maintaining a warrior force. As numerous incidents involving people with mental health issues, autism, and other medical issues have shown, warrior police are poorly equipped and trained to address these situations, even if they have the best intentions.
From a utilitarian standpoint, the right thing to do is to use the community resources to produce the best results. From a practical standpoint, the right thing to do is to use community resources in a way that matches the needs of the community and to use the most effective methods, equipment, and training to meet these needs. Since violent crime makes up such a tiny fraction of police work, it makes moral and practical sense to shift funding and change the way policing works in the United States to make it both more ethical and more rational in terms of resource use.
While this might seem like a crazy notion or a utopian dream, some American communities have implemented these changes. An excellent example is the CAHOOTS program in Eugene, Oregon. The gist of this program is that medics and mental health counselors are sent to respond to appropriate 911 calls. Because the United States has an ever-growing problem with homelessness, drug addiction and mental illness there is a corresponding need for professional response. Starting with Reagan, the United States decided to dump many social and health issues onto the police, and this has worked out as expected. Programs like CAHOOTS aim at reversing this. This program has proven successful and other cities are adopting similar programs. Rethinking the police has been going on for 30 years in Oregon and was spreading. This was a good thing.
While having medical professionals respond to relevant calls would be a major improvement, this does not address the underlying problems. In many ways, it is rather like policing: controlling the symptoms of social ills while leaving the causes in place. Ethically and effectively rethinking the police would require using resources to fix the social ills that require policing in all its forms. It would also, obviously, require meaningful political and economic changes to address poverty, homelessness, and such ills as the opioid epidemic inflicted by the pharmaceutical companies. Rethinking the police in an ethical and rational manner would make for a better America for most people and is the right thing to do.