Most catchy phrases can’t acutely articulate the meaning behind the message. People who argue to “defund the police” also mean use the funds meant to be distributed to the police force to other services that serve the same role, in a less harmful manner. But that messaging doesn’t stick as easily.

I think you'll find a lot of people who say "defund the police" quite literally mean it. Why do you need armed individuals with qualified immunity out there performing wellness checks, guiding traffic, taking statements, and doing investigative work? Why should these roles continue to fall under "the police"? And especially why should they continue to be done by an organization that continues to show just how disastrously poor they are at such things, when at least any other organization would at least start at zero, not negative?

The funds should quite literally be taken from the police and given to other organizations, even newly-created ones, that do not suffer from the baggage and the history of the police.

I'm "convinced" that the "defund the police" was planted to discredit the movement to reform the police. Ugh, what shitty messaging.

My understanding is that police reform is impossible because the system is so corrupt there's no way to make it happen. I've seen many accounts of the good cops quitting because they got harassed out.

Perhaps we should instead focus on messaging for "are the police above the law?" and if not what does that look like? And "why should taxpayers pay for police fuck ups?"

I dunno, just tossing stuff out there. But it's clear that policing is broken and needs fixing, and that won't happen until there's enough unity in wanting to see it happen.

> police reform is impossible because the system is so corrupt there's no way to make it happen

There are examples of successful police reforms [1]. In egregious cases, forces have been entirely disbanded and rebuilt [2].

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/05/briefing/george-floyd-buf...

[2] https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/how-defunding-the-poli...

> I'm "convinced" that the "defund the police" was planted to discredit the movement to reform the police.

"Reform"? You mean spend billions more on training so they can ignore all the criticisms levied at the institution? By any metric defund" is bad, reform is worse.

Well, no one remembers the names of the other efforts. So they used resources and went nowhere.

At least in my experience, most of the 'defund the police' people I've talked to wanted the money to instead be given to social services that the police were ill-equipped and ill-trained to perform. If anything, they were the biggest proponents of letting police get back to policing, and wanting to move the 'softer' social services aspect to other organizations better trained to handle those kinds of situations without resorting to their service weapon.

Alas, "Defund the Police" is a much catchier headline than "Redistribute funding to better provide for necessary social services"

> Alas, "Defund the Police" is a much catchier headline than "Redistribute funding to better provide for necessary social services"

Catchier but also misleading. It's allowed certain media to push the narrative that everyone supporting "Defund the Police" wants to eliminate police entirely and that lie resonates very strongly with the fearful people being manipulated.

As a slogan, it's probably done more harm than good to its cause.

> As a slogan, it's probably done more harm than good to its cause.

It's a constant problem for libs. What's the last liberal slogan you can remember that was catchy and that didn't completely backfire or get twisted?

That doesn't happen to conservative slogans.

I don't have a dog in that fight. I'm just an observer. It's "funny" like a dad joke to me by now, though.

> It's a constant problem for libs.

No, its not. Its a problem for progressives. But mostly that's because, in the US, progressives are stuck (to have any meaningful impact at all) in a big-tent party with liberals, who actually oppose most progressive policy goals and methods, and align with conservatives in undermining them most of the time, except when they decide to tolerate them to get support for a liberal goal against conservative opposition.

It's a fairly big practical difference between the right-to-further-right coalition in the GOP vs. the center-right-to-center-left coalition in the Democratic Party that the main factional differences in the former coalition are matters of degree and those in the latter are of opposing ideological principles.

> That doesn't happen to conservative slogans.

Because it has nothing to do with slogans themselves. It has to do with double standards whereas whatever conservatives do is always interpreted in the most favorable way and what libs do in the least favorable way.

> That doesn't happen to conservative slogans.

They've had their moments too. "Read my lips: no new taxes","Whip inflation now","Lock Her Up","Strong and stable","In your heart, you know he's right", "Drill, baby, drill"

From my understanding that's a core goal of the "defund the police" movement. The police as it exists in this country right now is a state militia. We need more 911 respondents that are not armed to the teeth, to join the corpus of medics and firefighters, replacing the police in 80% of use cases. Noise complaint? Homeless person shooting up? Car accident? Cops are over-equipped and undertrained in most of these cases. They respectively need negotiation, compassion and first-aid, and a logistics/insurance official.

Cops don't necessarily need to be trained in all these things, because cops suck up so much funding to deal with the few cases they might actually be necessary (gang shootout, protest security, armed robbery, etc), and one official can only be reliably trained in so many things. They just need to not be sent for these non-violent cases in favor of specialized unarmed social workers.

In the UK the police are generally armed only with a lightweight baton and cs spray. That forces you to deescalate.

There are specialist armed officers to respond to serious incidents, terrorism, guarding public buildings etc. In my view these are becoming far too common and visible.

Yes even in the West Country tasers are routinely carried and in cities firearms are very visibly carried. Seems like quite a change in the last ten/fifteen years.

Indeed there has been.

Tasers were brought in with the excuse that they would replace the need for guns and reduce how many officers would carry guns. Tasers would, as argued when they were introduced, only be used by specialists in cases where previously they would have to use lethal force.

And yet here we are ~20 years later and tasers have started to become part of a routine carry.

In Q2 2018, Avon and Somerset police record 1 use of taser for the whole quarter.

In 2022, they recorded between 80 and 120 uses of taser per month. Although I suspect "use" in the 2023 report may be drawn not fired, the Q2 2021 reports 230 uses of taser with 51 firings, so applying a similar ratio is still an escalation of 100x over a few years.

Statistics from their "use of force" reports: https://www.avonandsomerset.police.uk/about/our-priorities/u...

Tasers are interesting one, I’m not a huge fan of them myself.

But I did have a very interesting conversation with a Met Police Officer while he was escorting me to hospital. He pointed out that without the Taser, his only other option was his baton. He frequently used the threat of the Taser to deal with situations where he would be forced to use a baton instead, and noted most of the simply the threat of a Taser was enough to get people to reconsider their actions, and accept arrest more peacefully.

Obviously there are places where the presence of Tasers have resulting an increase an escalation which wouldn’t have otherwise, and no doubt there are some officers that abuse their Tasers, but I don’t removing Tasers would be a clear cut improvement. But I would be in favour of more technical controls (automatic logging of a Taser being upholstered, automatic trigging of body-worn cameras, simple method for the public to request footage etc) to prevent abuses.

Edit:

> In Q2 2018, Avon and Somerset police record 1 use of taser for the whole quarter.

I would be very careful reading this data. Looking through what’s available it’s clear to me something significant changed in either police behaviour or, more likely, data collection.

According to the data, Tasers were used only 15 times in 2018/2019 Q4, but in 2019/2020 Q1 usage shot up to 201. They were fired 0 times in 2018/2019 Q4 and fired 30 times in 2019/2020 Q1.

Additionally “tactical communication” was used 1,865 times in 2018/2019 Q4, but only 515 times in 2019/2020 Q1.

So either the Avon and Somerset Police got a lot less talkative, and lot more trigger happy after the 2019 easter holiday, or the 2018/2019 data was collected using a different methodology, and appears to be wildly inaccurate. If we exclude the 2018/2019 data, the increase in Taser usage is still there, but it’s not a 100X increase, more like a 10X increase. Not great I agree, but still an order of magnitude lower than your original analysis.

I’m pretty sure their body-worn cameras are automatically enabled (or tag the current time window to be retained?) when the officer’s taser is activated in at least some constabularies.

Unfortunately the best source I have is a vague memory of some tv documentary. Some light searching didn’t come up with much[1] but digging a little deeper I found mentions of a few external sources than can enable the BWCs in the Axon documentation[2].

[1] https://touch.policeoracle.com/news/article.cfm?id=88715 [2] https://my.axon.com/s/article/Signal-Configuration

While in Germany police are routinely armed with pistols, heavier weapons like MPs are used for serious incidents only, usually. This includes soccer games, and transport to/from those (my main encounters with MP-wielding police officers is when I happen to go to the train station while there’s a local soccer game where others arrive, or one where the fans go to via train)

MP= machine-pistole = German word for submachine gun (SMG).

And apparently through us, to English:

> The term can also be used to describe a stockless handgun-style submachine gun. The term is a calque of Maschinenpistole, the German word for submachine guns.

-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_pistol

Didn’t realize it wasn’t as widespread as SMG.

In the U.K., they’re a regular fixture (cops with SMGs) - train stations, street corners, shopping centres, supermarkets, the beach, you name it, they’re there, and armed to the teeth. Football match, you’ll have hundreds of them, often pre-emptively in riot gear.

The football always annoyed me. The riot great I can understand, the SMGs are inexcusable. I always felt it was an excuse for the police to bill the club for their most expensive personnel.

AFAIK the club only pay for the police inside the stadium.

Can find anything completely declarative on this subject, but everything I’m seeing suggests you’re right. Football clubs only pay for officers within the stadium, and it’s seems UK case law prevents the police for charging stadiums for officers one public grounds in the surrounding area [1].

There is also an ongoing debate about how policing costs of football matches are funded, given all police forces have seen huge cuts in budgets over the past few years. But equally football matches are much less violent than they used to be, and some question if the police tactics used today are the right approach (police seem to expect the worst, despite evidence suggesting their own tactics might be enabling bad behaviour).

[1] https://www.squirepattonboggs.com/en/insights/publications/2...

Yes same thing in Germany and france especially. I See cops way more armed than bevor. In south France you see the “gendarmerie” everywhere with heavy weapons. It wasn’t the case 10 years ago. Sad to see this. One of the downside of this is a little story of a friend. He was a year in ,i think Mexico, and there were military people with arms everywhere. At first he kind of freaked out but after beeing back to Germany he said he feel less safe hier because of the lack of weapons. He knew there was no rationally to it but still he felt this way

In Japan, police carry pistols, as well as other things (baton etc.). They're trained in de-escalation from what I've read, and it's extremely rare that they ever use their guns. When they do, it's apparently a huge paperwork headache, and every round absolutely must be accounted for, so police avoid it if at all possible.

You don't need to disarm cops to keep them from escalating unnecessarily; you just to have proper procedures and training.

Perhaps it also helps that cops here are dressed as professionals, with shirts and ties, rather than as paramilitary troopers.

>Perhaps it also helps that cops here are dressed as professionals, with shirts and ties, rather than as paramilitary troopers.

100% it helps! That is how police were dressed in the UK when I was young. They were known as the 'boys in blue'. Now it is all swat team black. If you dress someone as a soldier and equip them as a soldier, we shouldn't be suprised if they act like one.

Oh? 50 years ago, the Lakewood, Colorado, police were called the "blue blazers" because they dressed with jacket and tie. I never heard they were better thought of locally.

I believe this was tried somewhere in California, too

Menlo Park, green blazers, I believe. I recall a 99% Invisible episode about them.

I'm only 42.... police in the UK got their perpetual guns and SWAT outfits post 'war on terror' iirc. I remember clearly seeing the first 'bobby on the beat' in my home town wearing a stab vest over his white shirt and tie. He had traditional dark blue trousers and shoes (rather than combat boots). It is a rural town. I never heard of a knife crime. We thought it was health and safety nonsense. This would be mid 2000s.

I told a policemen friend (non uniform) that i didn't like that they moved someone after to black polo shirts. He said it was because sweat made the colour run from the stab vests into their white shirts...

Given the off-duty soldiers and off-duty police I've interacted with, I'd prefer a soldier over a police officer any day. I know you mean 'a soldier in enemy territory' but it's worth highlighting.

Hah, here the cops get a choice of that black, or a camo-green style uniform that is very Army-eque (not full blown camo, but from not much of a distance you'd assume they were military, not LE).

> we shouldn't be suprised if they act like one

I'd love it if cops were held to the same rules of engagement as the military.

You, as a civilian, are expected to remain calm while LE is aggressive and shouting at you.

You're expected to remain unafraid with guns pointing at you, but a cop can "fear for his life"...

The situation on the ground is very different in Japan. Rarely do you have mass shootings or gang and drug violence. Those problems are a daily reality in the U.S.

American police officers would never wear a tie. They’d (rightly) fear that someone would try to strangle them with it.

> The situation on the ground is very different in Japan. Rarely do you have mass shootings or gang and drug violence. Those problems are a daily reality in the U.S.

The vast majority to US police offers will never encounter these situations in their careers. There’s no reason to have every officer armed to teeth just in case they’re blind sided gang violence, or a mass shooting. Besides we also know that most U.S. officers have no interest in responding to types of incidents, preferring to sit it out until someone else comes a deals with their mess.

> American police officers would never wear a tie. They’d (rightly) fear that someone would try to strangle them with it.

That’s why police officers in other countries wear clip-on ties that are specifically designed to breakaway if yanked on. Nobody wears a real tie.

Japan does have drug violence. Also, being a cop in an America is fairly safe occupation. And most deaths are from traffic accidents - cops mortality is mostly because they are a lot on the streets and get killed by cars.

To play Devil’s Advocate here, could it be safe because they’re able to defend themselves against grievous injury and death?

Instead of looking at death, we should look at overall incidents of violence for an honest measure of the danger involved. There are somewhat controversial figures in the civilian world around “Defensive Gun Use,” including non-lethal acts ending possible or would-be violent encounters that, if true, speak to guns leading to less death and injury than the current ~10,000 number we suffer as a nation.

I’ve heard a similar argument that we shouldn’t look at the murder rate as a measure of inner city violence, but attempted murder type charges for the fact that casualty care in hospitals is so much better these days that would-have-been murders are now only attempts.

An interesting stats rabbit hole I have, sadly, not the time to explore.

I've never even heard of drug violence here. Where did you see it?

I used to do volunteer ambulance work - all our ties were clip-on. No risk of getting strangled with a clip-on tie.

I do want to add, I know Newton, Iowa--the town this article takes place in--and they do not have any mass shooting or gang violence. There is drug use, but barely any drug-related violence (unless you count alcohol, I guess).

I know you are talking about police in general, not this specific town, but I wanted to make clear that none of those are a daily reality in Newton.

I still think it would be a totally different story if it were Newton, Japan rather than Newton, Iowa. Police culture doesn't stop at city limits. It permeates a society. The police in Newton, Iowa likely have the same warrior mindset as the ones in Baltimore, they just don't see nearly as much action.

But every police officer in Newton knows that there's nothing stopping a criminal from another state just showing up in town, heavily armed, and robbing a liquor store. Whereas doing that in Japan would be far more difficult.

Heck, when the former president of Japan (Shinzo Abe) was assassinated the shooter used a home-made gun.

> Heck, when the former president of Japan (Shinzo Abe) was assassinated the shooter used a home-made gun.

Which does nothing at all to imply guns are hard to come by in Japan. I'm sure there are plenty of preppers in the US who make their own firearms.

> Whereas doing that in Japan would be far more difficult.

Why? It looks pretty easy to move around Japan?

According to Wikipedia, the US has an estimated 120 civilian firearms (registered and unregistered) per 100 people. In Japan, that number is 0.3 [1].

There are literally 400 times as many guns per capita in the US compared to Japan.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_g...

You think a lot of people can figure out how to build their own guns and ammunition from raw materials? The shooter in this case used some metal pipes from a hardware store, a piece of wood, some duct tape, and an electrical igniter he made himself. He had to make his own ammunition and gunpowder from raw materials too. Moreover, the guy wasn't some random idiot; he was in the army before and had some kind of technical job there.

As for "moving around Japan", in case you've never looked at a map, Japan is an island (or more properly, an archipelago). You can't just import guns there. And buying a gun is very difficult and will put you on a first-name basis with the local cops, and even here all you can buy is a hunting rifle or shotgun, and you better have a good reason to own it. Handguns are completely prohibited. The idea that some criminal could just show up in town, heavily armed, is utter fantasy.

A costume and it's accessories do not make someone a professional.

A costume absolutely can affect the attitude and behavior of the person wearing it. You should try an experiment yourself: go to work one day in your usual outfit. Then, the next day, dress up in drag (assuming you're male) or a furry costume and see if you behave the same.

The costume changes how people perceive you, the assumptions they make about you, and by extension the way you interact with those people.

Nearly all UK uniform cops also carry tasers.

And I've seen cops in my local shop wandering up and down the sandwich aisle, packing pistols. Really, if they're on lunch-break, they could just leave the ratchet in their desk (this shop is literally across the road from the station).

Basically, if there are cops with pistols in my local shop, it should be safe to assume they're chasing an armed criminal, and that therefore I should leave not just the shop, but the the whole area.

I complained; complaint rejected without investigation by the Chief Constable (and he was pretty rude about it).

Carrying pistols in the UK? I didn’t think firearms offices carried pistols at all in the UK, I’m also surprised they’re carrying any firearm when they’re off duty.

Northern Ireland but thats a whole can of worms as to whether the poster meant UK or GB.

It was GB. They were in uniform, and with all the macho shit - cuffs, collapsible nightsticks, tasers, flak jackets. I said it was "lunch-break", because they were clearly shopping for sandwiches. But that doesn't mean they were off-duty.

Yeah, I'm not used to seeing coppers packing pistols. I think there was some political march that day, but in this town marches and protests don't turn into riots. And I don't think it's appropriate for gunmen to serve as march stewards.

Authorised firearms officers will generally carry some form of rifle (or submachine gun?) as their primary firearm but will also carry a sidearm, most commonly a Glock 17 I think but I do know my local constabulary issue a SIG Sauer P320 (and a SIG Sauer MCX as their primary, but again this varies by constabulary).

De-escalation is entirely possible without guns.

You can crack a skull with armoured gloves or steel-toed boots until resistance ceases.

You can use any of several body holds like "the sleeper" until resistance ceases.

You can kneel on a neck until resistance ceases.

Plenty of police actions have successfully "de-escalated" and "brought the situation under control" without resort to firearms, even in the USA.

This is not what people mean by de-escalation

There is no such thing as "the police" in the USA. In my immediate area there are (the ones I see regularly): City police (the major presence), Public school police, Transit System police, State Patrol, and County police.

Every department will have different policies, leadership, departments (like SWAT), etc.

> That forces you to deescalate.

I work as a paramedic-firefighter. I've had multiple instances where police "are not our friends". There's far more egregious examples, but even smaller things.

Get called to an obviously mentally disturbed person who is agitated and such. Successfully talk to him over a period of time, calm him down, start a plan for getting him some assistance. There's a couple of police on scene, but they're hanging back. No crime has been committed and this is a medical issue, not a law enforcement issue. Really just there "for our safety". So far so good.

Until along comes another cop, who sees a broken glass in the gutter nearby our patient (who has a couple of minor lacerations on his hand), and comes barreling over to us and shouting and gesticulating at him for breaking the glass, littering, danger to people and potential damage to cars driving/parking there, etc., and asks "why shouldn't I take you to jail after they're done with you?"

Thanks, cop, now my patient is all agitated again and you've undone 20 minutes of my effort trying to help him.

And while the cops hanging back aren't contributing (directly) to the situation, they're obviously visible to said patient, and they definitely have no intention of trying to shut down their fellow officer.

And this is very far from an uncommon occurrence.

I want the police to be equipped for the situations they might or will encounter, and that includes surplus military gear sold down to them. What they need is better training, discipline, and accountability and for that we absolutely should not be "defunding" them.

Most G20 countries have front line first responding police that can handle most calls without resorting to military gear, and call on specialised SWAT teams for ecounters that escalate.

Having every officer primed to be a para military kill machine is exactly the wrong approach.

You're in agreement with the original core "defund the police" groups when you want first responders to be trained to de-escalate mental health crisis situations, they want the same if not more money in public facing response, but a whole lot less going to the haress the public we view as bad divisions.

Sadly the people they confront in those european countries are significantly less armed than your average american.

To be pedantic, the median American does not own a firearm. There's a steel-manned version of your point which is valid, however.

44% of households have a firearm. That is pretty close to median and will probably have regional distribution differences.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/264932/percentage-americans-own...

Literally the first sentence of your article: “32% of U.S. adults say they personally own a gun”.

I agree there’s a steel-manned version of the original statement which is valid. You’re definitely getting a lot closer to it.

I just thought it was important to clarify to the audience that the “average” american is not, in fact, armed with a firearm.

Not sure your point. The very first sentence says both:

> Thirty-two percent of U.S. adults say they personally own a gun, while a larger percentage, 44%, report living in a gun household

If my wife owns a gun and I "don't," we both still have access to firearms. 44% of households have a similar dynamic. The American population is more armed than Europe. And it is close to half the population. I'm not making a value judgement. I own guns. Multiple of them. I guess I'm not sure what your point was. Mine is saying that nearly half of all households have a firearm.

The comment we are responding to:

> Sadly the people they confront in those european countries are significantly less armed than your average american.

Assuming that some reasonable percentage of "confrontations" occur outside the home, if you're being confronted while commuting to work, it's not always relevant that your wife owns a gun. It only matters whether you personally own & carry.

> Not sure your point. > I guess I'm not sure what your point was.

I've honestly been doing a pretty solid job being intentional and respectful to all views here. I don't think it's much intellectual work to try to do the best you can at imagining some reasonable point that can be made with the "32%" statistic and acknowledging some of those likely "points" in your post. It would feel much less dismissive, and show that you at least tried to figure out some points that I might be making while maybe still asking for clarification or confirmation. It demonstrates intellectual honesty.

Not about median. About absolute probability. In europe whats the probability as a policeman to run into someone who is armed with a handgun. I imagine it's very low. In american is still might be under 50% but even if it's 15-25% that's a lot of cops that are 'caught bringing pepper spray to a gunfight'.

Do you seriously think that 25% of the people police interact with in the US are armed? Really?

The actual percentage doesnt really matter for a steel-manned version of then original statement:

> Sadly the people they confront in those european countries are significantly less armed than your average american.

Basically, we can all readily accept that police are definitely more likely to interact with an armed citizen in the USA vs. the EU.

Yeah but most situations where cops are called don’t need guns but still they are trained to use them and more or less nothing else. Yea the should wear guns. But wearing gun is not the solution to most problem they need more of a skillset

I sincerely believe that the police officers who carry a gun must demonstrate fitness -- physical, mental, psychologically, target practice, gun safety, etc at least once a month from an independent third party.

There is no way all these police officers are all fit to carry a gun.

> I sincerely believe that the police officers who carry a gun must demonstrate fitness -- physical, mental, psychologically, target practice, gun safety, etc at least once a month from an independent third party.

I work for a Fire Department. Have seen first-hand the vehement push back both fire and police unions have had when departments/cities have suggested that the CPAT (candidate physical ability test) used at hiring time become an annual requirement.

I know of two firefighters who were rejected from multiple police departments, with at least one being explicitly because they failed the psych assessment...

>Most G20 countries have front line first responding police that can handle most calls without resorting to military gear, and call on specialised SWAT teams for ecounters that escalate.

Yes, but most G20 countries also don't have a population armed to the teeth with military-grade weaponry, and who believe in insane conspiracy theories about Bill Gates microchips in vaccines and Jewish space lasers.

The US is unique, however, in that the police receive generally much less training than in other G20 countries.

Which raises the question why the US doesn't arm its EMT and firefighters.

The bit that many seem to overlook is that the US police are being called out for all manner of first response calls and traffic management that are essentially equivilant to fire and ambulance calls, the strategy should be to investigate the issue and then bring in the heavy handed response if required.

There seems to be a very general blinkered view that is unable to break out of the "this is how we've always done it, there is no better way".

As "the police" are so strongly identified with violence the best interpretation of "defund the police" is to break out "incidence response | community assistance" away from "armed thuggery" and work to get some respect back from the broader public.

> Which raises the question why the US doesn't arm its EMT and firefighters.

As a firefighter, please, no. And as someone who educates future EMTs and paramedics, I've taken to telling students that if you think you need to be armed to do this job or to "deal" with some of your patients, it may be a clue that you may be dealing with compassion fatigue, burnout or PTSD. Certainly not the only reason, to be clear - we are often in less than ideal situations with less than ideal patients, but that's what you sign up for.

In our county (not known for high crime) we are issued ballistic vests but they're not worn on every call (and when we expect to have to wear them for a call, there's additional resources sent), and there are other "rules" - we have to wear our bunker (structural firefighting) pants, and our helmets, and our vests have "FIRE" printed in large white letters, because our management is adamant about doing everything possible from differentiating Fire/EMS on a scene like that from being confused with LE, for all manner of reasons.

You want rural towns to have APCs?

Disagree on the surplus military gear point. Are they fighting a war? No, they are serving a community. I think they would do well to split the police and tactical response forces into different concepts entirely.

Citizens are armed and that complicates things. But there are still two different tasks being done, one is supporting the community on a local level, and the other is exceptional uses of force to apply law. You shouldn't have the same forces doing both, which is more like how police were prior 9/11, if I had to put a date on it.

What I want is for the "we just need better training" folks to define some sort of end point where they will admit that they've failed. Otherwise, we can keep shouting "we just need better training" until the end of time while cops regularly violate people's rights.

There's zero practical means to hold police accountable.

The reality is that we managed to create a social mechanism that's beyond our ability to control and that alone means we aren't ready to employ it. We have to understand our natural limits as a species and come to terms that having police is beyond them. There's no shame in that. In fact, that's the most mature outcome.

I fully agree with what you've said, but it's worth pointing out that there are a bunch of different movements all using the "defund the police" moniker. That leads to a lot of disagreement about what it means, and the most extreme types (who really mean eliminate the police) use it too. I stopped using it to avoid confusion after the anarchists adopted it, and would encourage others to do so as well.

> there are a bunch of different movements all using the "defund the police" moniker. That leads to a lot of disagreement about what it means, and the most extreme types (who really mean eliminate the police) use it too.

It might be worth checking the history there. I read that the anarchists who want to eliminate the police are the origin of the specific phrase "defund the police", and the less "extreme" types are the ones who attempted to expand/dilute the meaning. Saying that the anarchists "use it too" and "adopted it" is, I think, a little unfair.

See also the discussions around r/antiwork a couple of years ago, where the subreddit had been pretty anarchist since its inception, before it suddenly got popular and watered down, and suddenly the original regulars who'd been there for years were being labelled as extremists who didn't fit in and shouldn't even be there.

lol, I checked out r/antiwork and nobody there seems to be rooting to abolish wage work altogether. Most are just complaining about their job and commenters tell them to fight for their rights or search another job.

That seems pretty similar to people interpreting "defund the police" as anything else than "abolish the police in it's current form"

From what I understand, that sub used to be anarchists and kind of exploded into just general taste for modern working conditions and pushed out the regular anarchists. The death of that side of anti-work was probably when that highly publicized Fox interview with one of its mods happened

The anarchist position is generally for the abolition of policing, and "defund the police" was a compromise position once it became clear the liberals would not join any coalition calling for outright abolition.

Fair, I haven't checked the history so I could have it backwards. I've read and studied a lot of anarchist stuff over the years (it appeals to me greatly on an emotional/philosopical level, though I'm unconvinced of it's pragmatic utility) and hadn't encountered "defund the police" prior to that, but it's a deep and wide field so easy to miss things. I would expect "defund everything" rather than "defund the police" though certainly they would agree that the latter is a great step toward the former.

What term do you use instead?

You go respond to a noise complaint in a bad neighborhood full of guns without any protection then!

I'm all for police not to be armed in countries where owning guns is not allowed. In the US that proposition sounds crazy though.

The vast majority of noise complaints shouldn't require deadly force or any weapon at all. It's exactly the kind of work that police shouldn't even be involved in. I suppose it would be a massive improvement if they even kept their weapons in the trunk of their cars, but ideally you'd have someone qualified responding to noise complaints who could request police backup when needed.

>The vast majority of noise complaints shouldn't require deadly force or any weapon at all. It's exactly the kind of work that police shouldn't even be involved in.

The problem is many Americans will become violent when told by someone they're being too loud. I had a neighbor in college threaten to shoot me once because I complained about their noise. Police can't be expected to run to their car when some nutcase pulls a gun on them. In other countries this might be ok, but in the land of extremist individualism where there's far more guns than people, it's a bad idea.

If a police officer came to your door to tell you that you were being too loud would you ignore them unless they had a gun pointed at you? I'm guessing that you wouldn't and neither would your neighbor. Almost no one would. Yes, crazy people do exist, but the overwhelming majority are not psychopaths who would shoot anyone who knocks on their door. Most people understand that if you shoot at the unarmed cop, you'll be quickly surrounded by large numbers of armed ones who will come to lock you away.

Very few people will choose to go to prison instead of turning down their music or calming down their guests.

> Most people understand that if you shoot at the unarmed cop, you'll be quickly surrounded by large numbers of armed ones who will come to lock you away.

In many situations, you'll be quickly surrounded by large numbers of armed ones looking to shoot back at you, but if they're forced to accept arresting you unharmed, they will...

Very true. The whole trope of "I will not be disrespected" is a huge US character trait.

The problem is for a notable segment of the populace, "disrespect" can be as minor as "looking bemusedly at you" or having the audacity to have a different opinion.

The problem is that you don’t know what noise complaints are dangerous or not.

> but ideally you'd have someone qualified responding to noise complaints who could request police backup when needed.

I don’t think you are going to get any takers for that job. “You only are going to get shot at 1% of the time, if you survive you can call for police backup.”

> I don’t think you are going to get any takers for that job. “You only are going to get shot at 1% of the time, if you survive you can call for police backup.”

Thanks for elaborating the point, this is exactly what I was trying to get at with the "you go do it then". How are you going to convince people to join the police knowing they'll be going into places where people will be armed but you yourself are not armed and somehow need to enforce the law and project some level of authority if the situation is hairy.

> I don’t think you are going to get any takers for that job. “You only are going to get shot at 1% of the time, if you survive you can call for police backup.”

If that were true, unarmed security guards wouldn't exist yet we have no problems finding people willing to do that job.

Unarmed security guards aren't approaching random houses with unknown situations for noise complaints.

They're often in places more dangerous including patrolling neighborhoods (the kinds neighborhoods that need extra paid security) full of 'random houses' and they investigate suspicious noises every one of which is an unknown situation. I'd rather tell people having parties to turn down their music than confront people breaking into places and committing crimes with nothing but a flashlight and a radio.

As long as they aren't opening doors, its not the same thing. Security guards are making the rounds in places they know well, they aren't engaging with dangerous situations (e.g. physically confronting a shoplifter at QFC or Fred Myer is a huge no no).

> I'd rather tell people having parties to turn down their music than confront people breaking into places and committing crimes with nothing but a flashlight and a radio.

You only think that a few times before you realize the first situation will sometimes lead to a lot more trouble than the first.

You are very right in terms of the dangers cops face. But somehow, all this reminds me of: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/immune-sn...

But we got to find a way to break this escalatory cycle?

It’s not about having no guns. It’s about having better training to have other options than pure violence and intimidation to solve problems.

It seems that being unarmed in that situation would be safer, wouldn't it? One doesn't 'win' a gunfight so being armed is just a provocation - unless there's a strategy and intent to disable/kill right off the bat in which case the police should be coming in as a coordinated SWAT team.

When citizens have the right to bear arms, any sort of domestic violence complaint (the most dangerous for police) can turn into an armed confrontation. Social workers tasked with dealing with unhoused in our area often want police escorts anyway for their own safety as they don’t know what they are getting into (just as the police wouldn’t).

We aren’t Europe, our murder and violent crime rate are way above them.

> Car accident? Cops are ... undertrained

A small point, just one that recently ground my gears...

My step-daughter was recently in a collision. Her car and someone else's collided in the middle of a traffic lighted intersection. No intersection cameras, dash cameras, or nearby business security cameras, no witnesses.

Officer, "Did you have a green light?"

Step-daughter: "Yes, I believe so, I was moving with traffic."

Other party: "Yes, I definitely did."

Officer to step-daughter: "I am issuing you with a citation for failure to obey a traffic control device."

On what grounds? The other party was more ... adamant? The other party, who is biased (just as my step-daughter is, to be clear), who is also a potentially liable party?

Thankfully, that got contested and dismissed, but in the process caused a whole slew of insurance-related drama, and then court cases, where the other party attempted to sue her, and because she is a minor, it couldn't be in small claims court, etc., etc.

Well said

> I hope this city learns its lesson after being sued

Government entities don’t generally learn a thing from being sued. The problem is that it’s not their money: it’s the taxpayers’ money, so no pain is felt. This is also the source of many other problems with government.

This matches my experiences. On my ~10th FOIA lawsuit against gov agencies and I don't expect to stop anytime soon. They just keep going, seemingly under the reckless guise of "risk management".

You write as if there is no accountability in a democracy. The mayor can be voted out if he or she wants to use municipal funds to settle lawsuits due to poor judgement.

There is no accountability in representative democracy.

"Voted out?" You mean "not voted back in" again. During their term officials can do whatever they want and they know it. "We won't re-elect you" is a completely toothless threat.

What do you propose we do instead?

No, I write as if I have some experience in this area.

Most likely the police will continue to harass him. Probably in worse ways that will be harder to overcome.

Yeah, a better slogan is "cuff the police" imho

> We don't need less funds

We spend more on our police force than each country in the world spends on its military, except for ourselves and china. We need less funds.

Do you have a source for that? It seems like a problematic measure to use absolute dollars spent as it had to be normalized per capita and to cost of living.

In just officers per capita the US more or less middle of the pack.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_depend...

This site claims $129 billion: https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiative...

Sure, you can adjust per capita. I still think it's a fairly shocking statistic—we certainly don't get that value back except as a jobs program.

I got ~$80 billion from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (page 14):

https://bjs.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh236/files/media/docu...

One caveat: That spend metric has a standard error of ~$2.6 trillion. With a T.

(See page 25 in same document for the error table.)

Dismantling the police union would do wonders for law enforcement in this country. It’s the only union that needs dismantling and the movement should have used that as their leading catchphrase.

Police need unions too, for the same reasons everyone else does. Police deserve pay increases that keep pace with the rising cost of living, limits on how many hours or days they can be forced to work without rest, time off for training, sick time, family leave, workplace safety etc.

The problem isn't that police have unions, it's that police are allowed to police themselves. If we take that ability away, police unions won't have any say in how officers are investigated or disciplined. The other major problem are the district/state attorneys and judges who refuse (or are unable) to charge police with crimes and hold them accountable.

The “unhelpful” part is that people take the 3-word slogan and assume they know what it means. to pretend like “Defund the Police” ever meant “stop paying all police and don’t do anything different” is purposeful ignorance at this point (2.5 years after it was popularized).

In practice, it is a call for lots of changes in the US legal/policing system and government responses to requests from residents.

The best enumeration I have seen of these policies is CampaignZero[1]. You may not like their policies (they align with lefty prosecutors/DAs like Chesa Boudin), but they exist and there are specific policy proposals.

And cities don’t learn from what police officers do. Most large cities have city attorneys who are required to clean up the lawsuit messes that the police department makes and larger cities have a city manager that insulates the police department from the political side of city government. Neither the city attorney nor the city manager are responsive to voter demands nor do they have the legal authority to tell the police to do anything differently (except during the labor negotiations phase, when they are almost always outmaneuvered by police union negotiators).

[1] https://campaignzero.org/

> to pretend like “Defund the Police” ever meant “stop paying all police and don’t do anything different” is purposeful ignorance at this point (2.5 years after it was popularized).

You may not like it, but you don't control what "defund the police" means to everyone. There absolutely are people who mean it different ways, and it's not "willful ignorance", it's just the standard linguistic challenge of using an ambiguous pithy expression which then becomes overloaded as different people try to declare "what it really means."

“Defund the police” is a terrible slogan.

“Oh what we mean by that is actually the opposite where we want to redistribute funding in different ways blah blah blah”.

And all a critic has to do is “left wing radicals say they want to defund the police”.

Do you have any critic proof suggetions?

I suspect they're rather hard to coin.

Reform the police, demilitarize the police, deescalation for police, stop police violence, accountability for police, teach cops to be kind, etc... Of course they're not "critic proof" - someone motivated to twist words will find a way. But they'll have to twist words, whereas now they just use their plain, literal, unambiguous meaning.

But there's a good reason why defund/abolish the police is sticking around - because a significant part of the activists do mean it [1] (ACAB didn't come from nowhere), and the moderate faction that doesn't mean it literally is unwilling to part from the radical faction that does.

Anyone supporting the moderate faction is in a thorny position - do they think the moderates will grow a spine and stand up to the radicals once they've achieved their goals, or will they continue to meekly let the radicals set the agenda?

[1] Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police [..] There is not a single era in United States history in which the police were not a force of violence against black people. Policing in the South emerged from the slave patrols in the 1700 and 1800s that caught and returned runaway slaves. In the North, the first municipal police departments in the mid-1800s helped quash labor strikes and riots against the rich. Everywhere, they have suppressed marginalized populations to protect the status quo. - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abol...

> ambiguous

But it's not ambiguous. It has a literal meaning, which is zero funding for police. That the activists using it are trying to act smart with Humpty Dumpty wordplay [1] doesn't change its well-established meaning. Especially when related activists get NY Times opinion columns doubling down on that meaning [2].

See how many other movements you can think of, that can make such outrageous claims, only for the journalist class to massage their words and bend the rules of language past their breaking point, to make the movement palatable to the masses.

[1] ’When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

[2] Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abol...

Defund and Re-allocate. They really need to start saying the re-allocate part. No one can take them seriously without it.

Fewer cops, more detectives.

Deescalation training is widespread, and doesn't work. It's the cop equivalent of phishing training: something everyone knows is silly you click through to get over with.

I don't think de-escalation training would actually achieve much. The folks saying that we should defund the police think that the system and its incentive structures are broken. Training cops to resist those incentives is a losing battle.

There is evidence thay de-escalation training works: https://www.uc.edu/news/articles/2022/01/police-training-red...

I agree that we need different use of funds, but it's worse than you're implying: we need to replace the "Killology" escalation training with something sane, like transition to the sorely needed explanations of the 1st Amendment.

Camden NJ has a pretty successful story about removing their police department and replacing it with a new one:

https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-protests-for-racia...