BLM activists call for officers to be replaced with social workers, mental health advocates and homeless charities
By Mjlly Vincent
Daily Mail
June 8, 2020
Black Lives Matter
activists pushing to 'defund the police' have proposed plans to replace
officers with social workers, mental health advocates and homeless
charities.
Their chants called for
widespread disbanding of U.S. police forces after Minneapolis councilors
voted to abolish the city's police force in an historic move after days
of protests over the killing of
George Floyd during an arrest.
However supporters of 'defund the police' say their demands are not necessarily about eliminating police departments or stripping agencies of all of their money.
They
say it is time for the country to address systemic problems in policing
in America and spend more on what communities across the U.S. need,
like housing and education.
Among plans from activists to replace police are;
__Mental health responders to attend mental health crisis in place of armed police
__Street
outreach teams, more shelters and affordable housing to help solve
homelessness and stop the homeless from being criminalized
__Traffic stops to be eliminated entirely, with traffic violations dealt with via. mail
__Community members to attend domestic violence calls, to help intervene and establish long-term safety for the individuals
__Specialized physical and emotional support for victims of sexual violence
__Investing in prevention of sex trafficking to end economic and social conditions that lead to deeply rooted vulnerabilities
__The legalization of marijuana to stop incarceration for the 'harmless' drug
__Better handling of drug offences to stop 'criminalizing of communities of color'
__Decriminalization
of sex work and formation of an independent union to ensure individuals
have insurance, child care and safety precautions
__Restorative justice (meetings between victim and offender) to be used to deal with property crimes such as theft and burglary
State and local governments spent $115 billion on policing in 2017, according to data compiled by the Urban Institute.
Lisa
Bender, president of the Minneapolis City council told CNN yesterday:
'I just stood with total of nine members of Minneapolis city council and
we committed to dismantling policing as we know it in the city of
Minneapolis and to rebuild with our community a new model of public
safety that actually keeps our community safe.'
Bender
said the city, with a billion dollar annual budget, had analysed 911
calls to determine what help people in Minneapolis were calling for,
they found most people needed mental health services, health services,
EMTs or fire services - not an armed police officer.
She
added: 'Housing, health care, education, all of it together that helps
keep our communities safe, and to really work with our community over
the next year so imagine what that looks like to build that system,
including everyone.
'In the past I've supported and attempted
to and sometimes successfully moved funding out of the police department
into community based safety strategies. So that is what I think about
when I think about that ask is that instead of investing in more
policing, that we invest in those alternatives as community based
strategies.'
US
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called for military budgets to
be slashed alongside policing budgets to direct funds into education and
health care 'preventing conflict to begin with'.
Speaking to
The Hill
Ocasio-Cortez said: 'The militarization of our police is enabled by the
federal government. And I want everyone to draw a direct line between
our police budget, and our defense budget here in the United States of
America. Because we would not be giving local police departments who are
under-trained a tank, if we didn't give the military too much money to
have extra damn tanks lying around to begin with.
Ocasio-Cortez
added: 'The same problems that we are seeing on a city council level,
and on a city level, which are you have an entire city budget and half
of that budget goes to policing and a shred to education, a shred to
mental health services of crumb for hospitals, that is mirrored on the
federal level. It is in the image of its creator.'
Activists acknowledge this is a gradual process.
The
group MPD150, which says it is 'working towards a police-free
Minneapolis,' argues that such action would be more about 'strategically
reallocating resources, funding, and responsibility away from police
and toward community-based models of safety, support, and prevention.'
The
group states on its website: 'The people who respond to crises in our
community should be the people who are best-equipped to deal with those
crises. Rather than strangers armed with guns, who very likely do not
live in the neighborhoods they’re patrolling, we want to create space
for more mental health service providers, social workers,
victim/survivor advocates, religious leaders, neighbors and friends –
all of the people who really make up the fabric of a community – to look
out for one another'.
Adding that those who commit crime often only do so when their basic needs are not filled by other means.
Minneapolis
Police Chief Tony Bouza told the group: 'The idea of police as crime
preventers is rubbish. By the time the cop appears the criminal has been
formed and the crime has been committed .'
Speaking
at a BLM protest today Congresswoman Ilhan Omar said: 'I will never
stop saying, not only do we need to dis-invest in police, but we need to
completely dismantle the Minneapolis police department, it is rotten to
the root. And so when we dismantle we allow for something beautiful to
arise. And that re-imagining allows us to figure out what public safety
looks like for us.'
Black Lives
Matter co-founder Alicia Garza asked during an interview on NBC's Meet
the Press: 'Why can't we look at how it is that we reorganize our
priorities, so people don't have to be in the streets during a national
pandemic?'
The call for defending has been met by support from some lawmakers.
Senator Cory Booker said he understands the sentiment behind the slogan, but it's not a slogan he will use.
The
New Jersey Democrat told NBC's 'Meet the Press' that he shares a
feeling with many protesters that Americans are 'over-policed' and that
'we are investing in police, which is not solving problems, but making
them worse when we should be, in a more compassionate country, in a more
loving country.'
Representative Karen
Bass, a Democrat from California and chairwoman of the Congressional
Black Caucus, said part of the movement is really about how money is
spent.
'Now, I don't believe that you
should disband police departments,' she said in an interview with CNN.
'But I do think that, in cities, in states, we need to look at how we
are spending the resources and invest more in our communities.
'Maybe this is an opportunity to re-envision public safety,' she said.
However
the protesters rallying cry has also become a stick for President
Donald Trump to use on Democrats as he portrays them as soft on crime.
President
Donald Trump and his campaign view the emergence of the 'Defund the
Police' slogan as a spark of opportunity during what has been a trying
political moment. Trump's response to the protests has sparked
widespread condemnation. But now his supporters say the new mantra may
make voters, who may be otherwise sympathetic to the protesters, recoil
from a 'radical' idea.
Trump seized on the slogan last week as he spoke at an event in Maine.
'They're
saying defund the police,' he said. 'Defund. Think of it. When I saw
it, I said, `What are you talking about?' `We don't want to have any
police,' they say. You don't want police?'
Trump's
2016 campaign was built on a promise of ensuring law and order - often
in contrast to protests against his rhetoric that followed him across
the country. As he seeks reelection, Trump is preparing to deploy the
same argument again - and seems to believe the 'defund the police' call
has made the campaign applause line all the more real for his
supporters.
However it does appear
that the movement has already caused some major city Mayors to declare
they plan to redistribute budgets away from police departments.
In
New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Sunday that the city would
move funding from the NYPD to youth initiatives and social services,
while keeping the city safe, but he didn't give details.
In
Los Angeles, Mayor Eric Garcetti vowed to cut as much as $150 million
that was part of a planned increase in the police department's budget.
A
Minneapolis city councilmember said in a tweet on Thursday that the
city would 'dramatically rethink how we approach public safety and
emergency response.'
'We are going to
dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department,' Jeremiah Ellison wrote.
'And when we're done, we're not simply gonna glue it back together.' He
did not explain what would replace the police department.
A
majority of the members of the Minneapolis City Council said Sunday
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.
Disbanding an entire department
has happened before. In 2012, with crime rampant in Camden, New Jersey,
the city disbanded its police department and replaced it with a new
force that covered Camden County. Compton, California, took the same
step in 2000, shifting its policing to Los Angeles County.
Generally, police and union officials have long resisted cuts to police budgets, arguing that it would make cities less safe.
The
Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union for the city's
rank-and-file officers, said budget cuts would be the 'quickest way to
make our neighborhoods more dangerous.'
'Cutting
the LAPD budget means longer responses to 911 emergency calls, officers
calling for back-up won't get it, and rape, murder and assault
investigations won't occur or will take forever to initiate, let alone
complete,' the union's board said in a statement last week.
'At
this time, with violent crime increasing, a global pandemic and nearly a
week's worth of violence, arson, and looting, `defunding' the LAPD is
the most irresponsible thing anyone can propose.'
