Written by Kayla Curry

The Black Lives Matter movement has dominated the news headlines for the last few weeks, but it is important to keep the momentum even as the news cycle begins to move on. America is in desperate need of concrete policy changes to dismantle systemic racism. This need has fostered talks about taking one step in the right direction by defunding the police. What exactly does this mean and is it realistic? The short answer: Yes, it's more realistic than you might think. 

Why is the policing system problematic?

Policing is an inherently racist system, and while today we say police officers exist “to serve and protect,” that was never the reason police were created in the first place. A quick look at the history of American policing will reveal a disturbing truth about who exactly the police are there to serve and protect.

America’s first police force originated in Boston in 1636 as night watches. These night watches consisted of volunteers who usually slept or drank on duty and whose sole purpose was to watch for danger and protect material goods. In the South, policing was known as slave patrolling. These slave patrols served three primary functions: (1) to capture runaway slaves and return them to their owners; (2) to terrorize slaves in order to deter slave revolts; and, (3) to enforce plantation rules through discipline of slaves. 

Even after the Civil War, black people were not free. “Freed” slaves were still bound to their place in society through exploitative sharecropping, and police continued oppressing black people by enforcing unjust Jim Crow laws which denied black citizens their rights. Today, black communities are still victims of economic oppression through lingering effects of redlining which causes banks and loaners to deny loans to those in “urban” areas. They also experience over-policing of their neighborhoods, another way in which they are oppressed. 

Police organizations grew throughout history, but they did not grow in response to a rise in crime because there wasn’t one. Instead, police departments served as tools of the wealthy. Police maintained social control by suppressing labor unions and ensuring a “stable and disciplined workforce,” as well as making deals with organized crime enterprises.

During the early 70s, the Nixon Administration deliberately manufactured the “War on Drugs” and “tough on crime” policing. A top Nixon aide later admitted, “We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.” 

In other words, policing has always been in the interest of the wealthy, the powerful, and the white, and it has also always been blatantly anti-black. To this day, it is a reactive institution built to suppress and oppress those less powerful. When officers brutalize citizens, they believe they are doing exactly what they were meant to. The only way to reduce the violence is to reduce the policing itself.

How would defunding the police work and how would it be better than the system we have now?

Defunding the police means treating the disease of inequality in America instead of just treating the symptoms of it. Crime being one of these symptoms. To create significant change, cutting police budgets have to be supplemented by an investment in communities and social services such as mental health centers, Medicare, drug rehabilitation programs, child care services, education, and other programs that would build a social safety net and prevent crime from occurring. 

Over the years, police budgets have grown while allocations for social welfare have declined. Today, the United States spends twice as much on law enforcement than on cash welfare programs such as food stamps and supplemental Social Security payments. Major U.S. cities spend as much as 40% on policing budgets, leaving little funding for poverty prevention and public infrastructure. 

The U.S. spends over $100 billion on policing and another $80 billion on mass incarceration which both disproportionately harm black and brown communities. Not to mention the expensive legal fees and settlements in cases of police brutality. The U.S. would be better off spending a fraction of that into investing in programs preventing poverty and supporting education and social welfare. With $79 billion, we could make public colleges in American tuition free and still have $101 billion left over.

It is also important to note that police officers, on average, only get about 672 hours of training, which is less training that it takes to become a barber or a plumber. In a number of states, officers can begin working the field before undergoing basic training, yet we give police officers the authority to deal with all kinds of emergencies they are clearly not equipped for such as dealing with mental illness, spouse abuse, and other high-intensity situations that require professional help. Instead they are trained to use force and, in some cases, conditioned by “warrior-style” police training to approach every situation as inherently dangerous. This prioritizes officer safety over the safety of the public. 

While there are nuances in the different plans for defunding the police, most supporters of defunding the police support investing money into communities and into utilizing mental health counselors, social workers, and other non-police professionals equipped to handle emergencies that have long been directed to the police department.

Is this how we end systemic racism?

Defunding the police is only one step in abolishing systemic racism, but it is a big one. Defunding the police might sound radical to some, but so did abolishing slavery. Change can be scary and unfathomable to some people, but to others who are forced to live the harsh realities perpetuated by a system that works directly against them, it is essential. America was built for free by slaves and has never been a place that works to serve and protect black, indigenous, and people of color but rather exploit them. 

We are now on the cusp of a revolution and a turning point in history. It is everyone’s responsibility to not only ask what is happening, but more importantly, why. This is where you will uncover an America operating on inequality and injustice, and now is the time to choose whether you will be an agent of change or someone who stubbornly stifles it.

References

“A Brief History of the Drug War.” Drug Policy Alliance, www.drugpolicy.org/issues/brief-history-drug-war.

Badger, Emily. “How Redlining's Racist Effects Lasted for Decades.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 24 Aug. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/08/24/upshot/how-redlinings-racist-effects-lasted-for-decades.html.

Deming, David. “Tuition-Free College Could Cost Less Than You Think.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 19 July 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/business/tuition-free-college.html#:~:text=But%20free%20college%20isn't,need%20to%20foot%20the%20bill.

Ingraham, Christopher. “Analysis | U.S. Spends Twice as Much on Law and Order as It Does on Cash Welfare, Data Show.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 4 June 2020, www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/06/04/us-spends-twice-much-law-order-it-does-social-welfare-data-show/.

Potter, Gary. “The History of Policing in the United States, Part 1.” The History Of Policing In The United States, Part 1 | Police Studies Online | Eastern Kentucky University, plsonline.eku.edu/insidelook/history-policing-united-states-part-1.

“State Law Enforcement Training Requirements.” The Institute for Criminal Justice Training Reform, www.trainingreform.org/state-police-training-requirements.