There has been a growing call from activists for defunding the police since George Floyd died May 25 after a White officer pressed his knee into the handcuffed Black man’s neck, ignoring his “I can’t breathe” cries and holding it there even after Floyd stopped moving. His death sparked protests that spread nationwide.
The argument for defunding the police and creating new ways to provide public safety comes after years of seeing police reform efforts fail or fall short. Local governments have hired new police chiefs, fired officers for misconduct, added body cameras and taken other actions that have proved to not be enough to stop police brutality.
Now activists and even some elected officials are looking at defunding or disbanding police.
For example, Sunday, a majority of the members of the Minneapolis City Council said they support disbanding the city’s police department.
Nine of the council’s 12 members appeared with activists at a rally in a city park Sunday afternoon and vowed to end policing as the city currently knows it. Council member Jeremiah Ellison promised that the council would “dismantle” the department.
“It is clear that our system of policing is not keeping our communities safe,” said Lisa Bender, the council president. “Our efforts at incremental reform have failed, period.”
Bender’s frustration is understandable, especially since President Donald Trump and his top officials claim there’s no systemic racism in U.S. law enforcement agencies as Americans flood streets in protest.
But the call for defunding the police is counterproductive and plays into Trump’s hands. The call for defunding allows Trump to portray his Democratic opponents as reckless and willing to jeopardize public safety.
Defunding is not the answer.
What is needed are serious and comprehensive reforms in legislation, policies and procedures that will hold police officers accountable for brutality and address the problem of systemic racism in policing.
Monday, Democrats in Congress proposed a sweeping overhaul of police oversight and procedures that would be a significant step in the right direction.
The Justice in Policing Act would limit legal protections for police, create a national database of excessive-force incidents and ban police choke holds, among other changes, according to an early draft. It is the most ambitious change to law enforcement sought by Congress in years.
The package confronts several aspects of law enforcement accountability and practices that have come under criticism, especially as more and more police violence is captured on cellphone video and shared widely across the nation, and the world.
The proposed legislation would revise the federal criminal police misconduct statute to make it easier to prosecute officers who are involved in misconduct “knowingly or with reckless disregard.”
The package would also change “qualified immunity” protections for police “to enable individuals to recover damages when law enforcement officers violate their constitutional rights.”
The legislation would seek to provide greater oversight and transparency of police behavior in several ways. It would grant subpoena power to the Justice Department to conduct “pattern and practice” investigations of potential misconduct and help states conduct independent investigations. It would ban racial profiling and boost requirements for police body cameras.
And it would create a National Police Misconduct Registry, a database to try to prevent officers from transferring from one department to another with past misconduct undetected, the draft said.
“We cannot settle for anything less than transformative structural change,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
She’s right.
The legislation is the most expansive effort in recent years to crack down at a federal level on policing practices across the U.S. But it is expected to face strong resistance from Republicans, police unions and local officials who don’t want Washington intervening in their policy-making.
Republicans should join Democrats in a bipartisan effort to address police brutality and systemic racism in policing in America. In November, voters should support those who support serious police reform and oppose who those who stand in the way of change.
(Reprinted from the Philadelphia Tribune)
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