In the past couple of days, we have seen requests from protesters to stop funding the police or defund the police. It is even written in the middle of the main street close to the White House. There are some questions appears in my non-American brain of mine, how? will it be a lawless country or not?
Today, the Minneapolis city lawmakers have vowed to disband the police entirely. If it proceeded, then it will be a historical change in the law enforcement world and could encourage other countries as well.
The US Dependency on Law Enforcement
At first, we will talk about the numbers. The United States has spent 2% of its GDP on public orders and safety in 2018, and it is bigger than other advanced economic countries.
While counting on the homicide rate, the US has a 5.5% homicide rate, higher than the average of OECD countries, 25 times more than the UK, and 4 times more than Canada that spent lower than it.
Compared to other NATO founding countries, it has the highest incarceration rates per 100,000 population. Good news, the crime reminds stagnant since 2016, with not much significant increase and decrease. But, the budget keeps rising and reached $115 billion in 2017.
Compared to other OECD countries, the US only spent 18.7% of its GDP on social programs, it is below the OECD average which is 20.1%, below Poland and Slovenia which spent around 21% and 13% below France, that spent 31% of its GDP. It shows how the US relies heavily on the police and prison to implement law and order, while they have to fix the root of the problem through community development.
How about aggression conducted by the police? According to The Guardian back in 2015, 59 people have been shot by the police in the US in the first 24 days of 2015. While 55 people shot by the police in England and Wales in the last 24 years. Even though police in the US sometimes faced more violent crimes, but it is still a worrying number.
Do you remember about a 75 years old elderly that was shoved by Buffalo police during the protest recently? In the video, it is shown that a row of officers was walking towards the man, and two of them pushed him until he seriously injured and bled on the sidewalk. Did the police officers stopped and help him? No, they walk past him and even lied if that elderly was tripped until the video was shown.
Those two police officers were suspended and the 57 other police officers have resigned to protest the suspension of their friends. For them, what they did was only executing orders. This is totally disgraceful and unacceptable. If the organization that the community paid actually do not protect and injured the community especially the elderly, then it is justifiable if people want to cut the police budget to fund community development programs and the healthcare system.
For the year 2021, the New York Government is going to cut the budget for a lot of social program’s spending, due to Covid-19. In the other hands the NYPD budget reminds untouched and bloated until it reached $6 billion. Therefore the Communities that demand police reform asked the government to cut more than $1 billion.
Why we cannot be dependent to the police?
If we learned about penology, prison is expected to lock up criminals, to protect the society from it. Then, they expect a deterrent effect for the criminals, so they will not re-offend. The last thing is rehabilitation, so they can come back as a better person. For high-level crimes that is just like homicide, serial killer, terrorism, incapacitation really could help.
For crimes related to financial incapability or social behavior, it does not work as effectively. According to data from the Pew Center in April 2011, 43% of ex-convicts repeated the crime. The data from the US Sentencing Police, in 2005, shows that 49.3% of ex-convicts were arrested again within 8 years after being released.
This shows that the deterrent and rehabilitation functions of prison are not effective in stopping crime. These are two elements of post-trial in penology, and they prove the inefficiency. So we can conclude that this method cannot be 100% reliable.
If criminals cannot be fixed in prison or with the police, it means we have to fix it from the roots of the problem. Marginalized and lower class communities are lacking in education, welfare, and mental health facilitation.
If the children in this communities are unable to get a better education or abused, it will be very difficult for them to have a good future and financial stability in the future. Then, there will be higher possibility for them to commit crimes, in order to survive or to cope their mental needs. So, the development in society through education and social programs is very important, and funds must be increased here, not only 18% of the GDP.
What is defunding the police actually?
It is not a new thing, it is the last resorts of the attempts on reforming the police that have been going for years. There are advocates that request to abolished the police entirely and change into a community-based security system. These people demand changes in the police system from the governing regulation until the practice.
For some, defunding police does not mean cutting all of the budgets or abolished law enforcement from the system. They only want to decrease the budget of the police, to cut the US dependency on the punishment culture in the justice system. Then, reallocate the budget to social programs, neighborhood infrastructure, education, childcare, development of the marginalized community, public national healthcare system, social services for mental health, domestic violence, homelessness, housing, and other community welfare-related programs. These are the thing that will increase safety.
BLM’s co-founder clarified on NBC “When we talk about defunding the police, what we’re saying is ‘invest in the resources that our communities need.”.
Lawmakers in some cities like Los Angeles, Washington DC, and Philadephia have supported the cut of the police departments’ budgets. While Minneapolis city lawmakers are planning to disband the whole police department and try to find community-based security alternatives.
Will it be more dangerous without police?
Well actually, there is no example of defunding the police yet, therefore we have not known whether the crime rates will be increased or not. But, increasing the budget every year has not significantly decreased the crime rates. Robbery and property crime rates are decreasing but not significant, around 3-7% per year. While the aggravated assault and rape rates that caused by behavior, continue to increase by around 2-3% each year.
The NYPD went on strike back in 2015 and stopped doing proactive policing. Proactive policing is a patrol practice to handle minor violations. They went on strike, to threaten the major because they believed that the crime rate will rise. On the contrary, the numbers actually declined. No one knows the reason behind it yet, because it only happened for 7 weeks.
People believed if proactive policing could increase crime, because society is stressed out over unnecessary arrests, or people can lose their jobs due to trivial crimes, which could be corrected by registering them for social programs.
What is the security alternative?
Minnesota lawmakers stated that they are still assessing some methods that they can be used to replace the police. While collaboration between the police organization and community also could be established.
The community-based security system or community policing is actually a collaboration between the police and the local community, to identify and resolve community problems. So, the police will ask for local involvement in security matters, and the police are not the only law and order enforcers. All community members can work together to improve the security of the local area.
Do not imagine the local community on patrol carrying weapons side by side with the police. This policy is beyond that, the citizens will solve problems collectively by providing crime control and preventive measures. They have to be able to ask the rest of the community to actively participate in the process of solving problems, crimes, and change the police organizations’s system, including their governing regulation and the practice.
The police will assist the community to work together to solve criminal acts in the area, improve the quality of life of the people, think of preventive measures that can be done by social programs, and so on. The public also can assess and watch the actions of the police, to make sure that their behaviors continue to uphold human rights and provide advice of police’s performance.
So, we will expect a constructive partnership between the civil community and police organizations. We are hoping that creativity and accountability will flow inside the security system, to secure and improve the quality of the local area in a more sustainable and peaceful way. But, it will be only achieved when the community have confidence the police, and it is now the job of the police organization to build that trust.
What do you think should be done by the US?
The Siren of Novgorod 