Representatives of the Status Quo Sustain, Compound Made-In-America Crises
Left-right-multi-level-multi-colored
Gridlock
Endemic Corruption
Traders in Blame
Multipliers of Crises
ollow the Money
The police-community relations crisis ballooned as the health crisis
was also ballooning and talks to reform turned a light on the stymies of
reform.
The National Federation of Police is a major contributor to all party
stripes in both houses of congress and in the White House. And as the former,
FOP, is intent on blocking any and all reforms concerning the police and that
establishment; so are members intent on doing the bidding of their benefactors
(their buyers, bosses, and puppeteers); and together their actions stand in opposition
to the public interest— what reasonable people would consider the common
defense and general welfare, the good of society as a whole.
The Center for Responsive Politics’ Open Secrets data shows political
action committee (PAC) and individual police contributions to public officials
do not discriminate against either wing of America’s tyrannical political
party. “Like PAC money,” a June 2020 Open Secrets article reported,
“contributions from individual police officers have gone to politicians on both
sides of the aisle, representing an array of politics.”
2020 Top recipients
(Year dates entered for the entrenched)
- Donald John Trump Republican New York (incumbent 2016-2020; candidate
for US presidency 2020
- Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. Democrat Delaware (US Senate 1972- 2009; US vice
president 2009-2017; candidate for US presidency 2020)
- Kamala Harris Democrat California (US Senate, former 2020 presidential
candidate)
- Bernard Sanders Vermont (US House 1991-2007; US Senate 2006-present,
former 2020 presidential candidate)
US House of Representatives top takers of Police Union and Law
Enforcement PAC money (Year dates entered for the entrenched: members holding office for more
than two terms, or more than eight years)
- William J. Pascrell Jr. Democrat New Jersey (1997-present)
- Steny Hamilton Hoyer Democrat Maryland (1981-present)
- Lee M. Zeldin Republican New York
- Debbie Wasserman Schultz Democrat Florida (2005-present)
- Kathy Castor Democrat Florida (2007-present)
- Julia Brownley Democrat California
- Paul Cook Republican California
- Peter T. King Republican New York (1993 - just lost seat)
- Alfred Lawson Jr. Democrat Florida
- Garret Graves Republican Louisiana
US Senate top takers of Police Union and Law Enforcement PAC money (Year dates entered for the entrenched: members holding office for more
than two terms, or more than twelve years)
- Patrick Joseph Leahy Democrat Vermont (1974 – present)
- Amy Klobuchar Democrat Minnesota (2006-present)
- Bill Cassidy Republican Louisiana (US House 2009-2015; US Senate 2014
–present)
- Robert Menendez Democrat New Jersey (US House 1993-2006 resigned to
enter US Senate 2006 – present)
- Sherrod Brown Democrat Ohio (US House 1993-2007; US Senate
2006-present)
- John Neely Kennedy Republican Louisiana
- John Cornyn Republican Texas (2002 –present)
- Lindsey O. Graham Republican South Carolina (US House 1995-2003; US
Senate 2002-present)
- Tammy Baldwin Democrat Wisconsin (1999-present)
Sheldon Whitehouse Democrat Rhode Island (2006-present)
very year in the United States,
police reportedly kill “more than 1,000 people. At least one organization is
proposing rational solutions.
“It will take deliberate action by policymakers
at every level of government to end police violence,” write the organizers of
Campaign Zero. “We are calling on local, state, and federal lawmakers to take
immediate action to adopt data-driven policy solutions to end this violence and
hold police accountable.”
Some of the solutions presented
at their website are these
- End Policing of Minor ‘Broken
Windows’ Offenses: consuming alcohol on streets, possessing marijuana, engaging
in disorderly conduct, trespassing, loitering, disturbing the peace (including
loud music), spitting, jaywalking, bicycling on the sidewalk “do not threaten
public safety.”
- End Profiling and ‘Stop-and-Frisk’
- Establish enforceable protections
against profiling to prevent police from intervening in civilian lives for no
reason other than the ‘suspicion’ of their blackness or other aspects of their
identity. This should include: immigration status, age, housing status, sexual
orientation, gender, gender identity, disability, HIV status, race, religion
and national origin as protected groups; the right for people to seek court
orders to stop police departments from profiling; bans on both intentional profiling
and practices that have a disparate impact on protected groups; ban stops for
‘furtive’ movements such as a reaching for waistband or acting nervous; ban
stops for being in a high-crime area; ban stops for matching a generalized
description of a suspect (i.e., black male ages 15-25); require officers to
establish objective justification for making a stop and to report every stop
including location, race, gender, whether force was used and whether a firearm
was found; end the use of predictive
policing technology, which uses systematically biased data to enhance police
profiling of black people and communities; prohibit police departments from
using resources to investigate, interrogate, detain, detect, report, or arrest
persons for immigration enforcement purposes; prohibit police departments from
transferring an individual to federal immigration authorities for purposes of
immigration enforcement; prohibit officers from being placed under the
supervision of federal agencies or deputized as special federal officers or
special federal deputies.
- Establish Alternative Approaches
to Mental Health Crises
Mental health crises should not
be excuses for heavy-handed police interventions and are best handled by mental
health professionals. Establish and fund Mental Health Response Teams to
respond to crisis situations.
These approaches have been proven
to reduce police use of force in these situations by nearly 40 percent and
should include: establishing a team of mental health professionals, social
workers and/or crisis counselors to send as first responders to calls involving
mental health crises, such as the CAHOOTS model implemented in Eugene, Oregon;
involvement of this multidisciplinary team in planning, implementation and
response to crises; at least 40 hours of crisis intervention training for
police officers
What is the model CAHOOTS?
Crisis Assistance
Helping Out On The Streets (CAHOOTS)
Provider of mobile
crisis intervention 24/7 in the Eugene-Springfield [Oregon] Metro area …
dispatched through the Eugene police-fire-ambulance communications center, and
within the Springfield urban growth boundary, dispatched through the
Springfield non-emergency number.
Each team consists
of a medic (either a nurse or an EMT) and a crisis worker (who has at least
several years experience in the mental health field)
Provider of
immediate stabilization in case of urgent medical need or psychological crisis,
assessment, information, referral, advocacy and (in some cases) transportation
to the next step in treatment
Provider of many
services such as (but not only) crisis counseling, suicide prevention,
assessment and intervention, conflict resolution and mediation, grief and loss.
ampaign Zero Policy Solutions continued
Community oversight
Establish an all-civilian oversight structure with discipline power
that includes a Police Commission and Civilian Complaints Office
The Police Commission
To determine policy for the police department based on community input
and expertise; share policy and policy changes in publicly accessible formats;
discipline and dismiss police officers; hold public disciplinary hearings;
select the candidates for Police Chief, to be hired by the Mayor; evaluate and
fire the Police Chief, if needed; receive full-time, competitive salaries for
all members; receive regular training on policing and civil rights; prohibit
membership of current, former or family of police officers; select its members
from candidates offered by community organizations
The Civilian Complaints Office
To receive, investigate and resolve all civilian complaints against
police in 120 days; establish multiple in-person and online ways to submit,
view and discuss complaints; be immediately notified and required to send an
investigator to the scene of a police shooting or in-custody death; be allowed
to interrogate officers less than 48 hours after an incident where deadly force
is used; access crime scenes, subpoena witnesses and files with penalties for
non-compliance; make disciplinary and
policy recommendations to the Police Chief; compel the Police Chief to explain
why he/she has not followed a recommendation; have the Police Commission decide
cases where the Police Chief does not follow recommendations; issue public
quarterly reports analyzing complaints, demographics of complainants, status
and findings of investigations and actions taken as a result; be housed in a
separate location from the police department; be funded at an amount no less
than 5 percent of the total police department budget; have at least 1
investigator for every 70 police officers or 4 investigators at all times,
whichever is greater; have its director
selected from candidates offered by community organizations; not have current,
former or family of police officers on staff, including the director https://www.joincampaignzero.org/oversight
Remove Barriers to Reporting Police Misconduct
For all stops by a police officer, require officers to give civilians
their name, badge number, reason for the stop and a card with instructions for
filing a complaint to the civilian oversight structure.
https://www.joincampaignzero.org/oversight
imit use of force
Establish standards and reporting of police use of deadly force:
- A. Authorize deadly force only when there is an imminent threat to an
officer’s life or the life of another person and such force is strictly
unavoidable to protect life as required under International Law. Deadly force
should only be authorized after all other reasonable alternatives have been
exhausted. (Ex: International Deadly Force Standard; Tennessee Deadly Force
Law)
- B. Require that an officer's tactical conduct and decisions leading up
to using deadly force be considered in judgments of whether such force was
necessary. (Ex: LAPD Use of Force Policy)
- C. Require officers give a verbal warning, when possible, before using
deadly force and give people a reasonable amount of time to comply with the
warning (Ex: Las Vegas Metro PD Policy)
- D. Require reporting of police
killings and serious injuries of civilians (Ex: The PRIDE Act; Colorado law; CA
DOJ OpenJustice database);
- E. Require the names of both the officer(s) involved and victim(s) to
be released within 72 hours of a deadly force incident (Ex: Philadelphia PD
Policy);
Revise and strengthen local police department use of force policies
Revised police use of force policies should protect human life and
rights. Policies should include guidance on reporting, investigation,
discipline, and accountability and increase transparency by making the policies
available online.
This use of force policy should require officers to:
- restrict officers
from using deadly force unless all reasonable alternatives have been exhausted
(Ex: Philadelphia PD Policy);
- use minimum amount of force to apprehend a
subject, with specific guidelines for the types of force and tools authorized
for a given level of resistance (Ex: Seattle PD Policy);
- utilize de-escalation
tactics (verbalization; creating distance, time and space; tactical
repositioning, etc.) whenever possible instead of using force (Ex: Seattle PD
Policy);
- carry a less-lethal weapon (Ex: Seattle PD Policy);
- ban using force on
a person for talking back or as punishment for running away (Ex: Cleveland PD
Policy);
- ban chokeholds, strangleholds (i.e. carotid restraints), hog-tying and
transporting people face down in a vehicle (Ex: NYPD Policy);
- intervene to stop
other officers who are using excessive force and report them to a supervisor
(Ex: Las Vegas Metro PD Policy) https://www.joincampaignzero.org/force
End traffic-related police killings and dangerous high-speed police
chases
Prohibit police officers from: shooting at moving vehicles (Ex: Denver
PD Policy); moving in front of moving vehicles (Ex: Denver PD Policy);
high-speed chases of people who have not and are not about to commit a violent
felony (Ex: Milwaukee PD Policy);
onitor how police use force and proactively hold officers accountable
for excessive force:
- A. Report all uses of force to a database with information on related
injuries and demographics of the victims. (Ex: Seattle PD Policy; Indianapolis
Metropolitan PD reporting website);
- B. Establish an early intervention system to correct officers who use
excessive force (these systems have been shown to reduce the average number of
complaints against officers in a police department by more than 50 percent.
This system should: report officers who receive two or more complaints in the
past month; report officers who have two or more use of force incidents or
complaints in the past quarter; require officers to attend re-training and be
monitored by an immediate supervisor after their first quarterly report and
terminate an officer following multiple reports;
- C. Require police departments to notify the state when an officer is
found to have willfully violated department policy or the law, committed
official misconduct, or resigned while under investigation for these offenses.
Maintain this information in a database accessible to the public (Ex: Illinois
Law) and prohibit these officers from serving as police officers, teachers or
other governmental employees (Ex: Connecticut Law).
https://www.joincampaignzero.org/force
Independent investigations and prosecutions
Use federal funds to encourage independent investigations and
prosecutions
Pass legislation such as the Police Training and Independent Review Act
of 2015 or use of existing federal funds to encourage external, independent
investigations and prosecution of police killings (see Action Items 2.2.2 and
2.2.3 of the President’s Task Force Report).
Establish a permanent Special Prosecutor's Office at the State level
for cases of police violence
The Special Prosecutor’s Office should be: required and authorized to
prosecute all cases of where police kill or seriously injure a civilian,
in-custody deaths and cases where a civilian alleges criminal misconduct
against a police officer; equipped with an office and resources to conduct
thorough investigations; required to have its Chief Prosecutor chosen from a
list of candidates offered by community organizations.
Require independent investigations of all cases where police kill or
seriously injure civilians
The independent investigators should be: required and authorized to
prosecute all cases of where police kill or seriously injure a civilian,
in-custody deaths and cases where a civilian alleges criminal misconduct
against a police officer; required to investigate all cases where police kill
chosen at random from a list of the largest ten agencies in the state; required
to report their findings to the public.
https://www.joincampaignzero.org/investigations
ommunity Representation
Increase the number of police officers who reflect the communities they
serve
- Require police departments to develop and publicly report a strategy
and timeline for achieving a representative proportion of police officers who
are women and people of color through outreach, recruitment and changes to
departmental practices (Ex: Connecticut Law)
- Use community feedback to inform police department policies and
practices
- Require a regular survey (Ex: Milwaukee survey) to be fielded to the
community to gauge their experiences and perceptions of the police and use this
information to inform: police department policies and practices; police officer
evaluations; police officer pay incentives
https://www.joincampaignzero.org/representation
Police should reflect and be responsive to the cultural, racial and
gender diversity of the communities they are supposed to serve. Moreover,
research shows police departments with more black officers are less likely to
kill black people.
ody Cams/ Film The Police
Require the use of body cameras—in addition to dashboard cameras— and
establish policies governing their use to:
- record all interactions with
subjects who have not requested to be kept anonymous;
- notify subjects that they
have the option to remain anonymous and stop recording/storing footage if they
choose this option;
- allow civilians to review footage of themselves or their
relatives and request this be released to the public and stored for at least
two years;
- require body and dash cam footage to be stored externally and ensure
district attorneys and civilian oversight structures have access to the
footage;
- require police departments, whenever they want to deny a Freedom of
Information Act (FOIA) request for body or dash cam footage, to prove in court
that the footage constitutes a legitimate FOIA exemption (Ex: Illinois House
Bill 4355);
- permanently delete footage after 6 months if this footage hasn’t
been specifically requested to be stored;
- include a disciplinary matrix clearly
defining consequences for officers who fail to adhere to the agency's body
camera policy;
- consider whether cameras or mandated footage are tampered with
or unavailable as a negative evidentiary factor in administrative and criminal
proceedings;
- prevent officers from reviewing footage of an incident before
completing initial reports, statements or interviews about an incident;
- prohibit footage from being used in tandem with facial recognition software, as
fillers in photo arrays, or to create a database or pool of mug shots. (Ex:
Baltimore PD Body Cam Policy); update privacy laws to protect civilians from
having video or audio recordings released publicly that do not contain
potential evidence in a use-of-force incident, discharge of a weapon or death.
https://www.joincampaignzero.org/film-the-police
While they are not a cure-all, body cameras and cell phone video have
illuminated cases of police violence and have shown to be important tools for
holding officers accountable.
Nearly every case where a police officer was
charged with a crime for killing a civilian in 2015 relied on video evidence
showing the officer’s actions.
Right to Record Police
Ban police officers from taking cell phones or other recording devices
without a person’s consent or warrant and give people the right to sue police
departments if they take or destroy these devices. (Ex: Colorado Law)
https://www.joincampaignzero.org/film-the-police
raining
Invest in Rigorous and Sustained Training
Require officers to undergo training—including scenario-based
training—on the following topics on at least a quarterly basis and involve the
community—including youth of color—in their design and implementation:
- Implicit
bias; Procedural justice; Relationship-based policing;
- Community interaction; Crisis intervention,
mediation, conflict resolution, and rumor control;
- Appropriate engagement with youth;
- Appropriate engagement with LGBTQ, transgender and gender nonconforming
individuals;
- Appropriate engagement with individuals who are English language
learners;
- Appropriate engagement with individuals from different religious
affiliations;
- Appropriate engagement
with individuals who are differently able;
- De-escalation and minimizing the use
of force; intentionally consider ‘unconscious’ or ‘implicit’ racial bias.
Require current and prospective police officers to undergo mandatory
implicit racial bias testing, including testing for bias in shoot/don't shoot
decision-making, and develop a clear policy for considering an officer's level
of racial bias in: law enforcement certification; the hiring process; performance evaluations; decisions about
whether an officer should be deployed to communities of color. https://www.joincampaignzero.org/train
The current training regime for police officers fails to effectively
teach them how to interact with our communities in a way that protects and
preserves life. For example, police recruits spend 58 hours learning how to
shoot firearms and only 8 hours learning how to de-escalate situations. An
intensive training regime is needed to help police officers learn the behaviors
and skills to interact appropriately with communities.
nd for-profit policing
- End police department quotas for tickets and arrests
- Ban police departments from using ticket or arrest quotas to evaluate
the performance of police officers
- Limit fines and fees for low-income people
Pass policies requiring local governments to:
- ban issuing fines or
arrest warrants for civilians who fail to appear in court for a traffic
citation (Ex: Ferguson Policy);
- ban generating more than 10% of total municipal
revenue from fines and fees (Ex: Missouri law); allow judges discretion to
waive fines and fees for low-income people or initiate payment plans (Ex: Pennsylvania
law);
- prohibit courts from ordering
individuals on parole or probation to pay supervision fees and other
correctional fees.
Prevent police from taking the money or property of innocent people.
Prohibit police from:
- seizing property
of civilians (i.e. civil forfeiture) unless they are convicted of a crime and
the state establishes by clear and convincing evidence that the property is
subject to forfeiture;
- keeping any property that has legally been forfeited
(instead, this property should go to a general fund);
- participating in the
federal Equitable Sharing program that allows police to engage in civil asset
forfeiture
Require police departments to bear the cost of misconduct: Require the
cost of misconduct settlements to be paid out of the police department budget
instead of the City’s general fund.
Restrict police departments from receiving more money from the general
fund when they go over-budget on lawsuit payments.
https://www.joincampaignzero.org/end-policing-for-profit
Police should be working to keep people safe, not contributing to a
system that profits from stopping, searching, ticketing, arresting and
incarcerating people.
emilitarization
- End the Federal Government’s 1033 Program Providing Military Weaponry
to Local Police Departments
- End the supply of federal military weaponry to local police departments
under the 1033 program. (Ex: Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act)
- Establish Local Restrictions to Prevent Police Departments from
Purchasing or Using Military Weaponry
Restrict police departments from:
- using federal grant money to purchase
military equipment (Ex: Montana law);
- deploying armored vehicles, weaponized
aircraft, drones, Stingray surveillance equipment, camouflage uniforms, and
grenade launchers; using SWAT teams unless there is an emergency situation or
imminent threat to life and high-ranking officers have given approval (Ex:
Cincinnati PD Policy);
- conducting no-knock raids (Ex: Oregon law bans all
no-knock raids);
- accessing federal grant money or purchasing military equipment
if the department has been recently found to demonstrate a ‘pattern or practice’
of discriminatory policing;
- in addition to these restrictions, wherever
possible agencies should seek to return to the federal government the military
equipment that has already been received (Ex: San Jose). https://www.joincampaignzero.org/demilitarization
The events in Ferguson have introduced the nation to the ways that
local police departments can misuse military weaponry to intimidate and repress
communities. In 2014, militarized SWAT teams killed at least 38 people and
studies show that more militarized police departments are significantly more
likely to kill civilians.
air police contracts
Remove barriers to effective misconduct investigations and civilian
oversight
Remove contract provisions, local policies, and provisions in state Law
Enforcement Officers’ Bills of Rights laws that:
- allow officers to wait 48
hours or more before being interrogated after an incident; prevent
investigators from pursuing other cases of misconduct revealed during an
investigation;
- prevent an officer’s name or picture from being released to the
public;
- prohibit civilians from having the power to discipline, subpoena or
interrogate police officers;
- state that the Police Chief has the sole authority
to discipline police officers;
- enable officers to appeal a disciplinary
decision to a hearing board of other police officers;
- enable officers to use
the contract grievance process to have an outside arbitrator reverse disciplinary
decisions and reinstate officers who have committed misconduct;
- prevent an
officer from being investigated for an incident that happened 100 or more days
prior; allow an officer to choose not to take a lie detector test without being
punished, require the civilian who is accusing that officer of misconduct to
pass a lie detector first, or prevent the officer's test results from being
considered as evidence of misconduct.
Keep officers’ disciplinary history accessible to police departments
and the public
Remove contract provisions, local and state policies, and provisions in
state Law Enforcement Officers’ Bills of Rights laws that allow police officers
to:
- expunge or destroy records of past misconduct (both sustained and
unsustained) from their disciplinary file;
- prevent their disciplinary records
from being released to the public via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
request
Ensure financial accountability for officers and police departments
that kill or seriously injure civilians
Remove contract provisions, local policies, and provisions in state Law
Enforcement Officers’ Bills of Rights laws that:
- require officers to be given
paid administrative leave or paid desk-duty during an investigation following a
police shooting or other use of deadly force;
- prevent officers from receiving
unpaid suspensions as discipline for misconduct or allow officers to use
vacation or discretionary time to pay themselves while on suspension;
- allow
officers to receive paid leave or paid desk-duty after being charged with a
felony offense. https://www.joincampaignzero.org/contracts
Police unions have used their influence to establish unfair protections
for police officers in their contracts with local, state and federal government
and in statewide Law Enforcement Officers’ Bills of Rights. These provisions
create one set of rules for police and another for civilians, and make it
difficult for Police Chiefs or civilian oversight structures to punish police
officers who are unfit to serve.
Check the Police
olice Union Contract Project
Police Union Contracts Block
Accountability by
- disqualifying misconduct complaints that are submitted too
many days after an incident occurs or if an investigation takes too long to
complete;
- preventing police officers from being interrogated immediately after
being involved in an incident or otherwise restricting how, when, or where they
can be interrogated; giving officers access to information that civilians do
not get prior to being interrogated;
- requiring cities to pay costs related to
police misconduct including by giving officers paid leave while under
investigation, paying legal fees, and/or the cost of settlements;
- preventing
information on past misconduct investigations from being recorded or retained
in an officer's personnel file;
- limiting disciplinary consequences for officers
or limiting the capacity of civilian oversight structures and/or the media to
hold police accountable https://www.checkthepolice.org/#project
The “Mapping Police Violence” website reports “99 percent of killings
by police from 2013-2019 have not resulted in officers being charged with a
crime.” https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/
The site’s maps show known police killings
- 2013: 1,106 killings
- 2014: 1,050 killings
- 2015: 1,103 killings
- 2016: 1,071 killings
- 2017: 1,093 killings
- 2018: 1,142 killings
- 2019: 1,098 killings
Data does not include “killings
by vigilantes or security guards who are not off-duty police officers”; .95
percent of the killings in their database “occurred while a police officer was
acting in a law enforcement capacity.”
erhaps when the dust settles, the
American people, as a people, all for one and one for all, will begin to shovel out the
entrenched, the corrupt and compromised, on Washington’s Capitol Hill,
Pennsylvania Avenue, and allied revolving door influencers on K-Street, DuPont
Circle, and the coast to coast allies on Wall Street, in deep-pocketed police union halls, and on Ivy League-think-tank Alley.
Perhaps the American people will together as a people and begin removing the deliberately, arrogantly
ignorant holders of public office and those whose minds have been long set on
destroying public service and dangerously dividing the American people; their human and constitutional rights, and their will and duty as the body politic.
The quality and depth of change
that must come will not come raging in streets or preaching from pulpits; but
rather, it will come quietly among neighbors acting fearlessly neighborly.
Sources
OpenSecrets “Amid calls for police reform, new dataset shows where
police money has flowed in Congress” Grace Haley and Ian Karbal, June 5, 2020
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2020/06/police-reform-new-dataset-shows-where-police-money-has-flowed-in-congress/
https://whitebirdclinic.org/cahoots/
Mapping Police Violence
https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/aboutthedata
https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/
Current Affairs News articles
Guardian “Movement to defund police
gains ‘unprecedented’ support across US.” Sam Levin in Los Angeles June 4, 2020
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/04/defund-the-police-us-george-floyd-budgets
Guardian “What does ‘defund the
police’ mean? The rallying cry sweeping the US – explained” Sam Levin in Los
Angeles June 6, 2020 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/05/defunding-the-police-us-what-does-it-mean
Police in the United States of America
“kill more people in days than many countries do in years.” And yet “America’s
powerful police unions have long resisted even minor reforms and accountability
measures, and are predictably arguing, without evidence, that budget cuts at
any scale will make cities less safe.
Defunding advocates,
however, have pointed out that the highly militarized response to peaceful
demonstrations and the aggressive and at times violent ways officers are
handling protesters has only provided further evidence that police cause harm
(when there is no public safety threat in the first place).
Community groups advocating defunding
of police departments “have put forward differing strategies: (a) opposing
police budget increases, (b) advocating mass reductions, or (c) fighting for
full defunding as a step toward abolishing police forces.
Some initiatives are tied to the
fight to close prisons. All are pushing for a reinvestment of those dollars in
services.
“In most cities, spending on police
is significantly greater than spending on services and other departments. The COVID-19
economic crisis has led cities and states to make drastic budget cuts to
education, youth programs, arts and culture, parks, libraries, housing services
and more. But police budgets have grown or gone largely untouched.”
Does defunding police mean
increasing violence and crime?
Abolition groups argue that … the
vast majority of police work has nothing to do with responding to or preventing
violence, and that police have a terrible track record of solving murders or
handling rape and domestic violence. In 2014 and 2015, New York officers staged
a “slowdown” to protest the mayor, arguing that if they did less police work,
the city would be less safe. But the opposite turned out to be true.
When the officers took a break from
“broken windows policing”, meaning targeting low-level offenses, there was a
drop in crime. Researchers posited that aggressive policing on the streets for
petty matters can ultimately cause social disruption and lead to more crime.
Policing that punishes poverty, such as
hefty traffic tickets and debts, can also create conditions where crime is more
likely.
When New York ended “stop and frisk”,
crime did not rise.
Campaign ZERO
Developed with
contributions from activists, protesters and researchers across the United
States
Its data-informed
platform presents comprehensive solutions to end police violence in America. https://www.joincampaignzero.org/about
Mapping Police Violence
A research collaborative collecting
comprehensive data on police killings nationwide to quantify the impact of
police violence in communities
https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/planning-team
Insight Beyond Today’s News, CLB - © All Rights
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