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Who’s made a good argument for this so-far? ... when the quality of personnel and training (not cheap issues to solve) seem so clearly to be at fault.
The extremely expensive military equipment doesn’t cost US police anything. It’s excess military stock. Defund the military.
miro_o-
Defund the military.
Not a realistic proposition sadly.
Program 1033 makes sense on paper: equipping small and mid-size (read: underfunded) police forces with tactical equipment to take on serious threats (read: counter-terrorism, also supposedly the war on drugs but that’s another kettle of fish).
In reality it allows for increased military spending (because any surplus will find good use, right?), and it’s encouraged cops to feel like they’re going to war. Defunding the military is, IMO, bridge too far. Defunding the police and refunding other institutions just might be achievable this time.
The system isn’t broken, it’s working like it’s designed to, whether intentionally or not. It needs a full rehaul, or the issues will continue wearing away at American society from within.
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Defunding the police as an idea has been around for a long time. In the 60's Angela Davis was a big supporter. More recently Alex Vitale wrote The End of Policing.
Only 5% of arrests are for violent crimes. As mentioned previously, armed police are the first contact for anyone having a mental health episode, any drug related issues, interventions at schools etc, situations for which an armed responder is not ideal. The idea is to reduce policing budgets and use that money for specialist support/intervention teams that would have much more positive results in these situations.
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Who’s made a good argument for this so-far?
Actual BLM orgs rather than celeb grifters coopting their movement.
when the quality of personnel and training (not cheap issues to solve)
seem so clearly to be at fault.This is the argument made by people who have no actual interest in improving the situation. See Joe Biden's "shoot them in the knee", "give the police an extra 300 million" one-two combo. The system is fundamentally broken, it can't be incrementally improved by technocratic solutions.
Adhiero
Lebowski
exteroceptive
I believe the idea is that you can fund things which reduce the occurrence of crime, like education, addiction support and mental health services. Or just various other municipal things that improve people's quality of life more than police officers with extremely expensive military equipment going into economically deprived communities where people are desperate, jobless and facing mass-eviction.