Is "Defunding" the Police an Option?

(c) by Mark Dempsey

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike sleeping under bridges, begging in the streets, and stealing bread. - Anatole France

A mailer from the Sacramento County Deputy Sheriff's Association arrived recently, reminding me that if we don't support fully funding the police, bad things will happen. On the cover, masked burglar  pries open a door, next to "Do you feel safe?" in large letters. My question: Are these peace officers or the mafia, extorting money from the fearful?

Is police funding excessive?

U.S. population: 1981 - 229.5 million - 2017 - 325.1 million... a 42% increase...compared to...

Police funding: 1981 - $40 billion - 2017 - $115 billion....a 187.5% increase.

Hmmm, I wonder!

And, for generations, the U.S. has been defunding social safety net programs that would make police force unnecessary. This includes evicting mental patients from asylums, reducing welfare, and being miserly with Social Security Disability.

Some policemen (and women) are genuine peace officers, not the army of occupation, and I want their jobs to be safer. We used to acknowledge that the social safety net was a cheap way to ensure peace. Now, people often believe only frauds get such support. As Warren Buffet acknowledges, there's a class war going on, "And," he says, "my class is winning." 

 

Meanwhile, the police are left to face the desperate, with limited remedies, aside from force, for that desperation. For the Deputy Sherrif's Association, the beatings will continue until morale improves!

Locally, 71% of Sacramento County's General Fund goes to Law Enforcement, Jails and Courts. The County spends tens of millions settling cases of abuse by law enforcement. 

 

Crime and arrests have been declining in recent years, too, but the County jail (pre-quarantine) was full! Sixty percent of its inmates were not convicted of anything except being unable to afford bail. That's right, it's illegal to be poor in Sacramento.

As with many problems, the complete solution is simple.
1. Everyone has to use a public defender for all cases, civil and criminal.
2. Assign public defenders randomly. (Note: now prosecutors get roughly five times more money than public defenders.)
3. The penalty for (convicted) tampering is an automatic life sentence without parole.
4. Everyone has the right to a jury trial if they choose and juries are told about jury nullification.
5. No pleading, all cases get a trial.
6. End cash bail and monetary penalties for criminal cases, since they make some crimes not crimes for the rich.

No one should be able to use power or money to buy a better version of anything important: justice, health care, education, security, etc. The second elites have to use the same lawyers as everyone else, and can’t game it, the system starts working. (from Ian Welsh)

The idea of defunding the police is a start, and certainly one whose time has arrived. Sure, the police will protest, but they serve us, not vice versa.

Update:

From the Davis Vanguard: California's 2019 Crime Rate is the Lowest in Recorded State History 

The graph: 

 

Update #2:

“Holding someone in jail pre-trial is gonna make it 30 percent more likely that they’re gonna commit a crime when they get out than if they had been free,” said [Robin Steinberg, CEO of The Bail Project], adding that the few states that have eliminated cash bail have seen their violent crime rates continue to decrease."

Update #3: Brooklyn tries eliminating police presence. Says the article in the link: "reported rapes, robberies and grand larcenies were down in 2020 as of last week, compared to the previous year, according to NYPD data posted online."...

Police were just a phone call away, but...“It’s radical messaging. Because, in retrospect, they’re saying, ‘Hey, look, we had no patrol activity in this area all this time, and nothing bad happened,’” said Butts, director of the Research and Evaluation Center at CUNY’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

“But that’s different than saying, ‘That’s our strategy from now on,” he added. “And you would not say that, because you don’t want to communicate to the community that we’re no longer protected by law enforcement.”

Update #4:

Police killings of civilians: rate per 10 million of population.

Such extreme statistical differences raise basic questions about a US social crisis. pic.twitter.com/qFgVuCsxkF

— Richard D. Wolff (@profwolff) March 9, 2021

 

Update #5: “The United States is at risk of an armed anti-police insurgency”

“I am beginning to observe in the U.S. some of the social conditions necessary for the maturation and rise of an armed insurgency. The U.S. is at risk of armed insurgencies within the next five years if the current wave of killings of unarmed Black people continues….. Entities operating independently will spring up, but over time, a loose coalition may form to take credit for actions of organizationally disparate groups for maximum effect. There will likely be no single leader to neutralize at the onset…. There is another, related variable: The availability of people willing and able to participate in such insurgency. The U.S. has potential candidates in abundance. Criminal records — sometimes for relatively minor offences — that mar Black males for life, have taken care of this critical supply. …. Some of these men may gradually be reaching the point where they believe they have nothing to lose. …. Any anti-police insurgency in the U.S. will likely start as an urban-based guerrilla-style movement. Attacks may be carried out on sites and symbols of law enforcement. Small arms and improvised explosive devices will likely be weapons of choice, which are relatively easy to acquire and build, respectively….. The U.S. government will seem to have a handle on the insurgency at first but will gradually come to recognize that this is different…. I am often amazed that many people appear unaware that Nelson Mandela was co-founder of uMkhonto we Sizwe, the violent youth wing of the African National Congress,”

Update #6: Defunding the police has no connection to the recent increase in murders, and that increase remains far below murder rates in the '90s.