CV NEWS FEED // A report from the progressive publication Vox denounced the rhetoric of “defund the police,” a slogan popularized by left-wing political leaders including New York’s Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
“Last year, the US’s murder rate spiked by almost 30 percent. So far in 2021, murders are up nearly 10 percent in major cities,” wrote Vox’s German Lopez. “The 2020 increase alone is the largest percentage increase ever recorded in America — and a reversal from overall declines in murder rates since the 1990s.”
How to answer the surge? “One approach has good evidence behind it: the police,” Lopez wrote. “There is solid evidence that more police officers and certain policing strategies reduce crime and violence.”
Lopez found that a majority of criminal justice experts, including liberals, believe that increasing police budgets results in better public safety. “That runs contrary to the push to ‘defund the police’ in progressive circles, which tend to focus on cutting policing to boost alternatives.”
Progressives like Ocasio-Cortez who have championed the “defund the police” movement often argue that reducing police budgets will free up funds for social services such as counseling and welfare benefits to improve quality of life in communities where crime tends to crop up.
“One problem for a purely social services approach, which can range from job creation to better schools to mental health treatment, is it generally takes longer to work,” Lopez countered. “Problems like poverty, education, and other underlying issues that contribute to crime can take years, or even decades, to truly address.”
By contrast: “The impact of police, meanwhile, tends to happen quickly — almost immediately deterring and intercepting would-be criminals with the presence of officers,” Lopez observed. “For policymakers looking for quick action, that’s an important distinction, suggesting that police have to play a role even if other social services are deployed for longer-term solutions.”
“I know people don’t want to hear this, and I empathize with that, but as far as the research evidence goes, for short-term responses to increases in homicides, the evidence is strongest for the police-based solutions,” Anna Harvey, a public safety expert at New York University, told Vox.
Lopez pointed out another problem with alternative (non-police) solutions to crime: They are not yet proven. There has been very little research into the effects of social services on crime rates, whereas the body of research on police solutions to crime is vast — with law enforcement professionals being the current experts in the area of crime.
“This does not mean that the alternatives to policing don’t work,” Lopez explained. “Some might prove to be even better than the police alone in certain circumstances, but they just haven’t been studied enough to show that yet.”
Lopez went on to point out that, while many criminal justice experts are essentially pro-police, they are also open to corrections and accountability for law enforcement. “Every criminal justice expert I’ve spoken to has also said that more work needs to be done to hold police accountable,” he wrote, and a survey of experts “found that most agreed more accountability would also improve public safety.”
Lopez’s article has generated much discussion on both sides of the issue of crime. He published it under the headline “Murders are spiking. Police should be part of the solution,” with the subheader “There’s solid evidence for the crime-fighting abilities of police. But it requires a close look.”
“I did the reading,” he tweeted along with a link to his piece, “and the results are not good for ‘defund the police.’”
Readers can find German Lopez’s complete report here.
The left wants to defund the police, so that policing will become a national force. That's how regimes work.
Law enforcement is required to bring order to the chaos that "has been allowed" to ensue following the George Floyd incident. Not only on the beat policing, but courts and prosecutors that will "fully enforce" the laws of the land. The social justice issues have taken a toll on our society as they defamed the Police overall vs denouncing those within the organization that violated the law. The woke narratives have emboldened the criminal element as we've seen over and over in the "outright in your face" looting, shoplifting, assaults, murders, etc. It isn't rocket science...and denying it is intellectually dishonest. If you want more information on who and what the problem is....look at the FBI 2020 statistics....many ways to break it out and down. Again, right there in FACTUAL information.
The old adage "There are no free lunches" applies as much to police work as anything. Putting aside the damages to police agencies in each and every city which has urged or actually defunded the police (and including those which effectively "defunded" because of attrition - such as Portland and Seattle), there are two significant [problems all jurisdictions will be facing. The first is recruiting. When a city has a reputation of not backing their police, who will want to hire on? Good to excellent police will find ample opportunities elsewhere, That leaves the pool of candidates to rookies, the naïve, the less well qualified, and those who may be sketchy at best. All of which has a higher risk rate of poor policing. The second is further and repeated training of the force. Both of these issues mean that a good to excellent police force is going to cost more money than is currently being spent, as well as a major attitudinal adjustment that the police are the people standing between citizens and chaos. Yes, more police "on the street" will work to reducing crime; but it is a lot more than just putting bodies into uniforms, giving them a gun and a badge and a pat on the back and sending them out into the community.
Seattle and Portland are a microcosm for what has been happening. For several years the Seattle department has been under a Federal watch. The city has been unable to fill open positions; and flip flopped on hiring bonuses. The chaos last year resulted in even more police looking elsewhere for work, or retiring, leaving even more openings. Portland has been going through the same issues with police resigning (and being reemployed in other jurisdictions rapidly) or retiring; the city council at the behest of some Black activists got rid of the gang violence reduction team and murders and shootings have increased exponentially. They cannot get police to volunteer for a "remake" of the team as they will not allow the team to operate as they had before in spite of the fact that the Black community is begging for the team to be replaced. They had police trained in crowd and riot control, hampered their work and then one officer was singled out for prosecution and the entire team quit and went back to other regular policing duties, and now they have no one effectively trained to deal with further riots. Talking with a liberal friend who lives in Portland, he expressed that there is a general unrest among other liberals, afraid to go out for dinners and entertainment as they fear violence. He seems to think that the next round of elections will cure the problem, but does not realize how long a life a bad reputation has- one election is not going to turn the city around. In addition, the city is overrun with homeless camping everywhere, including downtown sidewalks, with the attendant mix of people suffering from mental issues, and petty to more serious criminals.
I don't care what lib cities do, frankly. They are cutting their own throats. I just wish we could build walls around all of them, give all the hood rats handguns and let them complete the solution. Then we wouldn't even have to hear about their stupid ideas and BS.
From the Catholic theological aspect, this does not seem to be the best idea. We should never ask for more violence and death where avoidable.
We should try to address the base issues that are causing the violence. This can be a range of issues, to include mental health, poverty, the breakdown of the family, drugs, or even the culture (I would say de-Christianizing, through I am confident that some will try to shoot this down). If one considers these issues one by one it can be seen that some require community building, which could be achieved through social services, church involvement, and community involvement but, as per the point of the article, almost all of them require police support. For example, a drug user may just need counseling to stop using but while using many people are unpredictable or violent thus a police officer would need to be there to detain them. Then, after or during detention, the user can go through counseling and hopefully reformed (through there is a lot of evidence that shows one should want to change as to be changed).
These issues run deep and the way it is currently being approached is obviously not working. De-funding the police and replacing them with councilors will not work, just adding more "beat cops" will not work either. There needs to be deep community involvement, a change of culture, as well as professional police and councilors to minimize the problem.
What about all the innocent people that would be murdered? Do you think Jesus would agree with what you just said?
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