No, Defund The Police is not a thing
An increasingly popular meme on the right-wing is that BLM/Antifa/Socialists/Libtards has caused Mayors of Democratic cities to Defund their Police and that this has caused a massive crime wave in those cities.
It's not hard to find sources for this dubious claim.
Cities in parts of the U.S. that slashed their police department funding last year, in part as a result of police-involved shootings, have seen an uptick in certain crimes over the past year, according to data analyzed by Fox News.
Cities such as Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York City, Portland, Ore., and Austin, Texas, have shifted funds from police departments to social services programs. Such cuts have led some departments to lay off officers, cancel recruiting classes or retreat from hiring goals.
As police departments were left to make do with shrunken budgets and less support, some big cities have seen sometimes drastic upticks in murders and other violent crimes, a Fox News crime analysis found.
It's a close and familiar line that reinforces age-old prejudices and ideologies.
And because it's practically self-evident to conservatives, there's no real interest on the right to actually look and see if this is real and true.
While a few major cities like New York and Los Angeles have made large, high profile cuts, more than half actually increased spending or kept it unchanged as a percentage of their discretionary spending, based on a Bloomberg CityLab analysis of 34 of the largest 50 U.S. cities that have finalized 2021 budgets. As a group, the difference between police spending as a share of the general funds fell less than 1% from last year.
Less than 1% doesn't sound significant, because it isn't significant.
And even that 1% isn't real.
For instance, Minneapolis is the leading example.
The commission’s actions essentially halted any effort to defund or dismantle the police department until at least next year.So, it’s incorrect to say the police department has been defunded, as in, an overhaul or abolition of MPD as we know it.
But, it does depend how you’re defining “defunded.”The City Council moved $1.1 million from the police to the health department to fund “violence interrupters” who would mediate conflicts and head off further trouble.
Some people think of defunding as shifting money from police departments to spend on other priorities, such as mental health services and other programs, to bolster public safety. Still, it’s worth noting in this case that the amount of money the council diverted is less than a percentage point of the police department’s budget.
Once again, shifting less than 1% of the police budget is some radical left-wing social experiment. And yet, even that is bullsh*t.
The Minneapolis City Council has reversed its original effort to defund the city's police department in the wake of George Floyd's death last summer. Now the city is planning to spend $6.4 million to hire dozens of police officers after an unprecedented number of officers quit or went on extended medical leave after Floyd's death and the unrest that followed, which included the burning of a police precinct.
So Minneapolis will actually have a BIGGER budget for police. Not a smaller one.
But that doesn't fit into the right-wing meme, so you won't hear about that.
How about Chicago, an obsession of the right-wing for decades.
Chicago cut its police budget by 3%, largely by eliminating vacant positions. Not a lot, but more than 1%.
Consider that Chicago spends $1.6 Billion for its police, that it used $280 million of its Covid relief fund for the police, and Chicago is spending more on policing per person than at any time since at least the Vietnam War.
an analysis shows Chicago is spending more on policing per person than at any time in the last half-century despite a persistent drop in crime over the last two decades, while the vast majority of murders remain unsolved.Chicago allocated about $750 million in today’s dollars to the police department in 1964 from the city’s general operating budget. About 3.5 million people lived in Chicago then, meaning the city funded the police at a rate of $215 or so per resident, adjusted for inflation.
This year, Chicago budgeted $1.6 billion for its police department, excluding money set aside for police misconduct lawsuits and police pensions. That means Chicago is planning to spend more than $600 per resident on policing in 2020
Does this sound like a police department that is being neglected?
Comments
There is a simple (but not easy) solution.
That is to end qualified immunity for police (pigs).
That would make them think twice before over reacting knowing that in most cases that there will be no serious repercussions.
A second alternative would be to investigate police unions for corruption.
Unfortunately "Crime Bill" Biden would not approve.
Aren't those two solutions
interrelated? Also, police unions make sure their members are over-paid based on their skills, experience, intelligence, and emotional maturity.
Deactivate and destroy bullets - easy solution - and
yes no immunity for anyone - pigs or peace pigeons. IMF employees had immunity and as far as I remember, you can't get those "dilomatic half immunes" for anything and kids of those 'half diplomats' (G4 Visa holders including their family members) suffer because of it.
Nobody trusted my son, because the folks from the US Air Force (when my son joined them) couldn't get any information about his father. I add to say that his father was not bought and rather a lefty inside the IMF. He is dead for quite a while. My son had nothing but troubles because of his fathers immunity and I was not allowed to work other than in my original profession (which was totally useless and unrealistic) Immunity my ass.
Luckily we won the Green Card Lottery way back in 1987. We both became permanent residents with it. My son was offered the US citizenship 16 years later and I am grateful for it.
Ok. just a little "Schwank" of my life. Who cares anyhow.
Have a good one.
https://www.euronews.com/
FORBES, huh?
I'm surprised; given that their target audience is 1%ers (or, like, top-4%ers), I wouldn't have thought they'd be misinformative (uninterested in anything the business class doesn't care about, of course, but you'd think they'd be comparatively lucid in what they were covering); I'd been thinking of becoming a subscriber.
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
Police unions
and associations are some of the most powerful in the nation. Politicians endanger themselves by getting on their wrong side, and they seek out endorsements every election. Police have attained the status of a civilian version of the military industrial complex. As you pointed out any reallocation of funds to move police power to say, professional mental health intervention is a cut, and makes you anti police.
I wondered about the "defund the police" slogan. There was a lot of discussion around reorganizing the police, but it was the "defund the police" the media chose to use. I don't know if it was the RW propaganda machine but it was the worst way to frame the problem.
Defund the police was a terrible slogan
Reform the police would've been a better slogan.
The black community is demanding more than anything else that the police have to face some accountability when they kill someone.
And to do that the local DA should not be the one investigating and prosecuting the police. The local DA is a coworker of the police.
Everything starts with that.
Horrible police training is a close second.
Militarization of the police is a close third.
Demilitarize the police would have been a more effective,,,
message. I remember when police acted as public servants most of the time (unless you were a protesting black or hippie). Today it seems their goal is to make as many arrests as possible to drive local revenue to hire more cops and buy more old military equipment. It is a sick vicious cycle protected by the "blue line".
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Absolutely correct.
Focus on the fact that the cops are now a de facto occupying army, and use the concept of demilitarization to define a path from where we are now ("Comply or die!") back to where we should be ("To Protect and To Serve").
When I see cops, I head the other way with all possible speed. You never know when that friendly smile you might once have been inclined to give them decades ago would be interpreted as a mortal insult, and give them a reason to "fear for their life" you to death. "Don't make eye contact!" is now the rule. It should not be that way.
I've said it many times before: there is something fundamentally flawed about any society in which the first reaction of an ordinary citizen to the sight of a cop is fear.
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
Wow -- Bloomberg played this one straight.
OTOH -- Bloomberg Opinion gets a freaking "F" for
this tweet
USA #1 best place to be during a pandemic. b at MOA details how they came up with this. Bottom line: "We added two arbitrary criteria with little relevance that now let the U.S. look great. U.S.A. U.S.A. U.S.A."
Well, if de-funding the police is not a 'thing'
Then how do you account for increasing crime rates in these long-term Democratic-run cities, many of which are well stocked with Soros-backed DA's and judges.
Or is that not a thing, either?
Even if police funding is not reduced, crime will continue to escalate if those without
any moral compunction about committing violent, antisocial acts are allowed to
do so on a continuing basis *with impunity*.
True, something needs to be done to address the situation that generates such people
and behaviors in the first place.
True, people need to have opportunities to participate constructively in society and not
be permanently marginalized based on a couple early mistakes.
True, abusive police exist and all to often do not face consequences more severe than a
paid vacation aka: 'administrative leave' even when the kill an innocent person.
Yes, all that needs to be addressed, but in the meantime, a relatively small set of violent
offenders manage to offend repeatedly - in no small part due to a failure of district attorneys
to prosecute and courts to impose appropriate sentences. And real people are harmed as a result.
What, if anything, do you propose be done about *that*?
Take Stephen Cannon the (black) killer of retired (black) police captain David Dorn in St. Louis, during last summer's riots. Cannon (who's chosen form of protest was looting TV's from a pawn shop) had been convicted in 2014 of felony robbery and sentenced to seven years in prison - but never spent a single day incarcerated as a result, was given probation instead, and still not jailed when he violated the terms of his parole.
Or take Brandon Elliot - 38 year-old attacker of a 65 year-old Asian woman walking to church in NYC.
Elliott had been out on parole for two months after having been incarcerated for the 2002 stabbing death of his mother (in front of his 5 year-old sister). Reportedly, he yelled at his diminutive Filipino-American victim "You don't belong here!".
It's not clear just where Elliott does belong, but if anyone didn't belong there, it was him.
Or, take Rashid Brimmage - inflicted serious injuries on a 92 year-old woman whose offense - apparently - was to be walking down the street on her way back from shopping. Not that this should have been entirely surprising as Rashid - then aged 31 had over 100 prior arrests.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jfN1kXPiak]
Lest it appear that this is strictly a black male thug thing, well it's not. Not entirely.
Consider white "Florida Man" TJ Wiggins. 26 years old last year when he, along with his brother and girlfriend killed three friends they had arranged to go fishing with in what is described as a 'massacre'. Since the age of twelve, Wiggins had accumulated 230 felony arrests - and was on conditional release on other pending charges at the time of the killings.
The outcome of the NYC mayoral primaries should suggest that even deep blue enclaves are starting to question the 'catch and release' system that fails to hold offenders like the above accountable for their actions and allows them to pose an ongoing risk to those around them.
Lest it appear that this is a male thing exclusively, well, it's not that either. Well, not quite.
Seems to be a thug thing, though.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSnrTHDwbn8]
One could go on all day and night with examples, but the patterns are pretty clear - I don't see the (exclusively Democrat plus token Green or Socialist) leadership of these cities taking responsibility for dealing with the situation, if they are even willing to acknowledge there is a problem.
Maybe we just blame it all on White Supremacy?
source - Epoch Times
There is a whole lotta disinformation here
let's unpack this.
For starters, the crime rate may be up a lot from last year but it isn't up from 2019. Crime rates dropped dramatically in the same Democratic run cities 2020 but no one gives them any credit. Nor should they get any credit because the drop in crime was due to the lockdowns. At the same time they deserve no blame for the increase with the end of the lockdowns.
This stuff is self-evident. And the only reason you missed it is because you listen to biased sources,
As for "Soros-backed DA's and judges". WTF? Do you expect me to take this seriously?
As for "those without any moral compunction about committing violent, antisocial acts". That sounds suspiciously like Hillary's "super-predator" comment. It has a touch of either racism or classism to it.
But the crème de la crème is "*with impunity*".
So you're telling me that in the nation with the largest prison population in all of human history, the nation that other countries won't honor exporting criminals to because our prison system is considered inhumane, that we allow criminals to walk the streets with impunity?
In other words, we're a nation that's "soft on crime". That also happens to imprison our population at a record amount in inhumane conditions.
Does this sound like a consistent and sane position do you?
"Walking the streets with impunity."
"Disinformation"?
In the examples I gave, for instance that of Rashid Brimmage, yes - he is a criminal,
yes, he was walking the streets with impunity - despite over a hundred previous arrests. In the course of which walking he attacked a frail 92 year-old woman, seriously injuring her. So much for *her* impunity.
Or of paroled, convicted murderer Brandon Elliott, also a criminal, also walking NYC streets with impunity during which he attacks and seriously injures an older Asian-American who is doing nothing more than walking down the same sidewalk. What about *her* impunity?
Do you have anything to indicate that these perpetrators have any moral compunction about committing these acts? Of course you don't. Yet you want to implicitly stake some sort of moral high ground by suggesting that stating what is evidently true is somehow classist or racist.
I agree that US prison conditions are disgraceful and counterproductive, but it does not necessarily follow that violent serial offenders should be out in society in a position to commit further damage. There should be humane ways to keep such people out of circulation and spare innocent people the sometimes fatal consequences of not having done so.
Here are a couple MORE recent examples from your neck of the woods:
New Year's Eve, SF - two pedestrians killed by parole violator driving armed and intoxicated fleeing from a robbery in a stolen vehicle.
Feb. 5, 2021, SF
The parolee arrested in a crash that killed a young father on Lake Merced Blvd in San Francisco had been arrested numerous times in the months leading up to Thursday's tragedy.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58quppi6bKU]
You, personally? Of course not. But I'll address it anyway since there may be others interested in such things as the extent to which such offices can and are being 'bought', the motives of the people who are doing the buying and the consequences of electing such people as Kim Gardner or Kim Foxx or Chesa Boudin.
Much more here
"If the battle for civilization comes down to the wimps versus the barbarians, the barbarians are going to win."
- Thomas Sowell
How do you think we’ve arrived at this point?
Does not this quote perfectly explain both the history of modern “civilization”, and indicate the trajectory of it’s future? Globally the US has taken on the role of the barbarians, building on its fetish for violence, and the use of force in its attempt to dominate the entire world, including its own domestic population.
Meanwhile our planet is headed toward becoming an uninhabitable wasteland, an existential problem that is unlikely to be solved by the further application of even more institutional violence at home and abroad.
We desperately need an intervention. A peaceful and loving one, not just a new group of barbarians to run amok.
Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all."
- John Maynard Keynes
It was only a determined minority
that managed to turn America toward empire - people came here, in general
to get away from empires and saw the US as offering a better, freer alternative.
Or were enslaved by neighboring tribes and sold abroad, or transported for theft of
a loaf of bread - but even the descendants of those who survived that were likely better off than had their ancestors stayed where they were.
You say that the US has behaved as the world barbarian and in recent times that's not far off the mark. But that has been pushed and engineered by people who are about power and not 'government of, by and for the people'. In fact, were people to actually insist on a system that truly reflected those values it would mean an end to their power.
So, they are fine with the erosion of values and the collapse of civil society if they can manipulate it so people will be desperate for authoritarian solutions - which the elite have every intention of controlling.
How did we get here? It's taken an effort. The dumbing down and moral decline of a relatively healthy and robust society is not something managed overnight. Encouraging indebtedness, lowering of educational standards, convincing people that the solution to problems is something to be delivered by corporations or government rather than by self or community initiative and improvement, instilling a sense of permanent victimhood and enmity toward other races, religions, etc. is not something done overnight or on limited resources.
You need control of academia and educational bureaucracy, you need people in debt, you need psyche drugs, you need control of media, you need i-phones and alphabet agencies. You need to let violent, anti-social behavior go unpunished, and if possible, glorified (but not allowed to threaten elite interests directly). Thugs to prey on people, wimps to cower and demand to be saved from the thugs and, hopefully, police or military capability to come down hard on those recalcitrant deplorable types who want to live free and independently and take responsibility for themselves. (*So* 18th Century, what do they think this is, the Age of Enlightenment or something?)
And then you will have created, a la Sun Tzu, the conditions for your adversary's defeat before going to war with him, or maybe without ever having had to.
"Just as any moron can destroy a priceless Ming vase, so the shallow and ill-educated people who run our schools can undermine and destroy from within a great civilization that took centuries of dedicated effort to create and maintain." ~ Thomas Sowell
"We are... living in a free society without the faith that built that society - and without the conviction and dedication needed to sustain it... We still have the cathedral of freedom but how long will it last without the faith?" ~ Thomas Sowell
Well Dr. Franklin, what have we got a republic or a monarchy?
More at ProfessorBuzzkill: Link
Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all."
- John Maynard Keynes
Let's get down to brass tacks
what you're calling for is for people to spend more time in jail. Sure you would prefer that US prisons weren't so awful. But that isn't your main charge here. Your main point is that criminals should be in jail for longer periods of time.
Yes you use a few individual examples, but what you're really calling for a systemwide.
What you're saying is that the largest penal colony in the world is soft on crime.
Exactly what percentage of the population should be in jail? 5%? 10%? 50%?
As for your Soros point, that article is from the Federalist. You might recognize the Federalist from being the group that has stuffed our federal courts with right wing judges. So no I don't take that source seriously. Especially when they claim that people can't compete with Soros money, when by all evidence people can't compete with Federalist money.
More than a few "individual examples"
Are dead - or have had their lives threatened or destroyed. Real people.
If you believe that it's OK to have people who commit serial violent, anti-social acts out in society free to victimize people with few or minimal consequences then why don't you just come out an SAY SO?
I understand there are petty, nuisance process type charges that can ensnare undeserving people into progressively greater legal difficulties. I understand that there are people in prison for what are, effectively victimless 'crimes'. That sort of thing is wrong and should be shut down.
Laws should be readily understandable and reflect a broad consensus about what society regards as acceptable and unacceptable behavior. Trials should be prompt, fair and open. Conditions of incarceration should be humane.
But none of that is an excuse for letting violent thugs run rampant until they finally kill someone (and actually get caught) or are killed by rival gangbangers or an armed citizen.
There should be consequences for violent, anti-social behavior. Period.
If you think otherwise, please state why. If you have a better concrete alternative then let's hear it.
Maybe you like to explain to this woman that although it's unfortunate that her daughter is dead, the alternative, of incarcerating the career criminal who killed her for numerous crimes he had already committed, would have increased the US incarceration rate and probably been racist, too - and so, quite unacceptable. Not leaving him loose to commit more crimes, including, as it turned out, killing your daughter, simply not an option...
I don't think she speaks English, but I can help with the translation.
Yawn... As usual, attack the source, fail to address the substance. Nothing new here.
None of the links to Kim Foxx, Chesa Boudin or Kim Gardner detailing their various failures and misdeeds were the Federalist. And I hadn't even gotten to (Fulton County, Georgia DA) Paul Howard...
"We seem to be getting closer and closer to a situation where nobody is responsible for what they did but we are all responsible for what somebody else did." ~ Thomas Sowell