End the American Police State

Anne Delacruz argues in favour of defunding the American police force, suggesting money should be distributed elsewhere, to improve both safety and quality of life. This Op-Ed also explores the origins of the police system, as it initially sought to thwart "slave revolts", ultimately upholding a racist and corrupt power dynamic. This article explains that these discriminatory tendencies are still widespread today, and discusses where police funding would be better directed.

In response to the nationwide #BlackLivesMatter protests, Trump threatened to deploy the military to American cities unless state and local officials cracked down on violent protests. However, these protests initiated a conversation about the systemic racism in the police force towards people of color. Numerous cases of uses of excessive force, stop and frisk laws, and drug criminalization have revealed that the American police system stands on a foundation of racism and civil and human rights injustices. Instead of calling for police reform, people are demanding police abolition, or the defunding of the police in favor of a different system of ensuring public safety. The police system in the United States should be abolished in favor of community-based public safety models and funding towards institutions that work towards crime prevention.

Despite the assumption that police are meant to protect and serve people, the history of the police force disprove this. According to a 2017 article in Time Magazine, the early forms of modern policing were based on protecting property in industrializing cities, quelling slave uprisings and returning runaway slaves in the South, and breaking up labor union strikes for workers’ rights. The purpose of the police was never to protect and serve people; the police’s origins lie in maintaining an unjust status quo between black and impoverished people, and wealthy and white people.

Several past Supreme Court cases have also ruled that the police do not have a constitutional duty to protect people. The New York Times recalls the ruling of the case of Castle Rock v. Gonzales. In 1999, Jessica Gonzales obtained a restraining order against her abusive husband, Simon Gonzales, requiring an arrest for a violation. When her estranged husband kidnapped, and later murdered, their three daughters, the police failed to act on Ms. Gonzales’ report of the kidnapping. Ms Gonzales asserted that the court order to arrest the violator entitled her to be protected and that her “property interest” was unconstitutionally deprived from her, using the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause to support her claim. However, the Supreme Court ruled that the restraining order did not protect her “property interest.” Justice Scalia concluded, “such a right would not, of course, resemble any traditional conception of property.” The Court ruled that the police are not constitutionally obligated to protect a person from harm. Similarly, the 2012 case of Lozito v. New York City ruled that the police have no obligation to protect civilians unless there is a “special relationship” between the civilian and the police. Both of these cases have established that it is not the duty of the police to protect civilians, contrary to their oath to protect and serve.

Although cities overspend in local budgets on the police, there is little evidence that overspending reduces crime. In the New York Daily News, Alex Vitale reports that “New York City spends more on policing than it does on the Departments of Health, Homeless Services, Housing Preservation and Development, and Youth and Community Development combined.” By defunding the police, the excess money could be used to support those departments. There is evidence that less policing leads to less time spent in prison. An article by the Washington Post references an experiment performed by the NYPD. During the time that they coordinated a long-term slowdown of policing, they found that crime decreased. This is evidence that the large sums of money and aggressive policing do not reduce crime. Crime is the result of a lack of resources. As budgets defund the police, those same funds can be rerouted to develop schools, fund mental health resources and rehabs, and build public housing. By increasing citizens’ quality of life, crime will decrease.

Police abolition would shift public safety responsibilities to the community as police funds are allocated elsewhere. In New York Magazine, Sarah Jones writes that police officers “take the place of social workers and emergency medical personnel and welfare case workers, and when they kill, we let them replace judges and juries, too.” Defunding the police does not mean the end of law enforcement, but community leaders, mental health professionals and counselors, social workers, emergency medical technicians, nurses, and firefighters will need to use problem-solving strategies that the police previously used to eliminate problems, mitigate the degree of injury and number of problematic occurrences, and improve problem management.

To visualize this model, take this example: A community has a drug use problem. The DSM-V describes substance abuse as a disorder. Instead of criminalizing offenders for using, possessing, or selling drugs, a mental health professional would work with them to address their substance abuse and a social worker helps them train for jobs to prevent recidivism. Instead of relying on the police to solve problems and prevent crime, the role of the police should be limited to law enforcement. Problems with underlying causes should be dealt with by social workers who are trained to deal with those problems. Although some critics call for police reform, it is a temporary solution with deep-rooted systemic issues. In the past, police reform has been ineffective.

In 2017, a dashboard camera on a police car captured the shooting of Philando Castile. The victim’s girlfriend recounted that Castile clearly explained to the police that he was reaching for his wallet, having alerted them that he possessed a firearm. These claims were supported by dashcam footage and an eyewitness. Yet, his murderer, police officer Jeronimo Yanez, was not convicted of second-degree murder. This incident, and several others, have shown that body and dashboard cameras are not enough to stop police officers from opening fire on black people, even as they comply, and explain their behaviour.

credit: Philando Castile on Facebook

In addition, reform can be easily undone. According to Vox, Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions began looking into reversing some Obama-era police reforms, known as “consent decrees” in 2017. Since reform can be reversed, a much more extensive and permanent solution is needed.

Furthermore, policies and institutional protections and privileges shield bad cops and encourage bad behavior. In “Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj,” Minhaj explains how excessive fear-based training drills police officers to view other people as possible threats and qualified immunity makes it difficult for police officers to be sued for misconduct if there are no prior cases of an officer violating a clearly-established right. “good cops” are also disadvantaged by the corrupt policing system. In 2015, former Detective Joseph Crystal quit his job after he encountered harassment from fellow police officers for reporting two other police officers for police misconduct. The culture of policing allows “bad cops” to flourish while silencing “good cops” for speaking out.

Moreover, some policies are designed to target people of color. A 2015 article by NPR revealed that the success of a police officer was based on meeting a quota of tickets and arrests. Quota policing leads to distrust between the community and the police, which contributes to over-policing in some areas. The American police system was designed to be corrupt, and the solution is to abolish it.

The police are a symbol for the systemic racism that affects all people of color, but especially black people. From a deeply prejudicial history to laws that target minorities and the militarization of the police, the policing system is heavily flawed and hinders a future towards racial equality in the United States. Reforming a system designed to oppress people of color by forcing it to police itself will not work. In order to start a new system that protects people, Americans will have to demand their local officials to reduce the police department’s budget and reinvest it into communities of color, schools, public housing, and other resources that improve the quality of life and reject any reforms that give more money to the police.

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