The Defund the Police Movement and BLM

Why We Should Not Defund the Police

Calls to defund the police have been growing since the death of George Floyd in 2020. But what does it actually mean to defund the police, and is it a good idea? Those who advocate for defunding the police do so because they believe that police are the problem and that by removing funding for police, communities will be spared police brutality. What these advocates of defunding miss is that police do a lot to enforce the law. One need only look at what has been going on in cities like Portland and New York City, where defund the police movements have taken hold. With fewer police to enforce the law, looting, vandalism and random attacks have increased drastically (Sturla et al.). Instead of advocating for defunding, opponents of police brutality should be advocating for better training, higher standards, and improved community relations through the application of community policing.

The defund the police movement is not as homogenous in its views as one might think, first of all. There is a lot of anger in some communities because of perceived injustices, racism, and inequality. Much of that anger has no outlet so it trends towards whatever organizing principle is at hand. In the wake of the death of George Floyd, Black Lives Matter and Antifa became very popular organizations with those angry about various issues: these groups were organized and vocal. So the anger and frustration of communities was naturally funneled into these groups. These groups are left-leaning, radical and often extreme. Rather than look for common ground between the needs of the community and those looking for an end to abuses, these groups called for radical solutions—like defunding the police—and what they meant by this was that they wanted to abolish the police, as has been seen in the creation of “autonomous zones” in Portland (Arrieta-Kenna). While the anger in various communities is real, the belief that police need to be abolished does not appropriately reflect the concerns of the public. Not everyone who is in anger wants to abolish the police (Koziarski, Huey). However, the defund the police movement is loudest because it is voiced and echoed by these organizations that are active in these communities. People are frustrated by injustice and the perception that police brutality occurs, but the defund the police movement is more a reflection of the radical aims of Black Lives Matter and Antifa than it is of the needs of whole communities.

Police are needed to maintain law and order in society, and police need funding to do that. Funding allows police to recruit, hire and train top-tier candidates so that the members of the law enforcement community are high-quality, high-caliber individuals who can be trusted to do the job they were hired to do. Without funding, police cannot do their jobs effectively, and that means communities cannot address the most basic need of ensuring that law and order is maintained. Who is going to perform that function if not the police? Local organizers are unable to perform that function because they lack the knowledge, skill, tools, and legal authority to perform that function. Without local police, the only logical solution to enforcing law and order is to have federal or state troops enter into the picture, which means having an occupying army at the state level—i.e., a military-police state. That is certainly not the outcome that most communities are going to want; however, if the situation in some places (like Portland) continues to worsen it will be what happens—for if police are not able to do their job because of the protests and actions of radical organizations, states will have no choice but to turn to a military solution to restore order in local communities. By calling for the defunding (abolishment) of police, people are calling for the military to intervene. A military-police state may be necessary to restore order in the short-term, but it does not provide any solutions to the initial underlying problems and needs of the community in the long-term. The frustration that people feel is real and needs to be understood and appreciated, but within an appropriate context and framework that also takes in the need of the community as a whole to feel safe and secure in its possessions, free to live according to the rights afforded it by the Constitution, and without fear of life or livelihood being taken from them. Therefore, clamoring for the abolishment of the police (only to have military intervene when it becomes necessary to restore order) is no more of a viable solution that the idea of defunding the police to address issues of inequality, racism, injustice or other abuses.

Defunding is not what is needed; instead, a focus should actually be on re-funding the police and allowing law enforcement to engage in logically-minded reform practices (Koziarski, Huey). Better training, higher standards, and improved community relations through the application of community policing are the answers to the problems that communities want addressed. Training is important because without it, officers will not know how to act in the most appropriate manner when faced with a potentially dangerous situation on the job. Higher standards are also important because without these, no one knows to what level they should hold themselves and be held accountable. Higher standards can only be met, however, if quality and high-caliber recruits are hired for law enforcement. The outrage directed at police today is causing many good officers to leave the force because they seen the outrage environment as unfair, unjust, and potentially harm for themselves if they are targeted by the cancel culture mob. Even the trial of Derek Chauvin was marred by this cancel culture, with the President of the United States and members of Congress weighing on the matter by calling for a guilty verdict while the trial was still on-going! The jury had to convict out of fear that the cancel culture mob would turn its venom on them and attack them at their houses if they did not. This is not a climate of justice, and it is certainly not how the justice process is meant to work. Higher standards are needed, but individuals with high quality character are also needed to reach and maintain those standards. Finally, improved community relations through the application of community policing can help to heal some of the wounds that currently exist, and it is a way to close some of the gaps between communities and law enforcement. Trust needs to be restored on both sides, and that is one way to do it.