Defund the Police? What?

HI!

“Defund the Police,” strikes me as yet another slogan to accompany “Black Lives Matter,” “I Can’t Breathe,” and so on. A new thing to fit on a waving placard and for me, a good reason to pause and think again about the role and practice of law enforcement as we find it today.

Take our experience of the mass killing in Nova Scotia recently, the skepticism about police actions in that event, questions about whether or not it could have been prevented and the subsequent attempts by the RCMP to justify its actions. And given the way we currently deal with violence and crime, and given that the perpetrator always has a huge advantage over enforcement, the reasons and excuses for the tardy apprehension of the perpetrator may well be valid.

And I think about the role of policing in the demonstrations/riots currently going on full bore in the USA, triggered by the police murder of George Floyd and the ongoing attempts by police to find their way out of charges of endemic racist practices in their ranks. We’re familiar with the scenes of battalions of robot-like, Darth Vader-like riot police in full conflict gear descending on demonstrators as if this were a face-off between two teams, one angry and unarmed, the other equipped like a military force with lethal weapons. From the president, meanwhile, a tunnel-vision preoccupation with brute force as the solution to every conflict.

I think it’s reasonable to say that our policing is primarily engaged in apprehending and punishing breakers of the law. There is a preventative aspect to that, of course: you can’t rob a bank from a jail cell. But on the whole, we’re putting a great deal more tax money into cleaning up after deviance than we are spending on preventing it in the first place. Perhaps this is what “Defund the Police” is all about; reducing the budget to policing and diverting it instead to social services, schools and wholesome recreation for youth. Poverty, discrimination, racism and the ennui of “nothing to do” are all like petri dishes for the culture of anger and deviance. Why not reinvest scarce dollars into preventative facilities?

I’m not well versed in the training of the police, I admit. What I’ve gleaned, though, is that a similarity to military training can’t be ignored. I’ve seen prospective Mounties marching in crisp uniforms and in strict formation in Regina. There’s weapons training, self defense practice and, of course, enough law and human rights indoctrination to prevent abuse. In part, it’s reasonable. It strikes me that police being summoned, for instance, to a weapons incident would be deathly afraid for their own lives given the history of so many of their fellows dying in service. But as surely as the parameters of medical practice, for instance, are bound and governed by the social contract we’ve agreed to as citizens, so our policing has always responded to what the public demands.

Perhaps citizens are beginning to change their minds on what policing shall look like in the future, their clues coming from the news of the Nova Scotia massacre, the “lynching” of George Floyd and myriad stories of guns, gangs, shoot-outs and mayhem in the streets of our towns and cities. Too often, police involvement has made conflicts worse, even when officers and constables are decent, compassionate people. Fear for our lives changes how we react to the world around us.

So often, families of people who’ve died while being “policed” have cried out for justice. Unfortunately the justice they are calling for isn’t justice at all, it’s retribution akin to “an eye for and eye and a tooth for a tooth.” The justice that the Old Testament prophets, that Jesus Christ cried out for is something else: it’s in righteous and compassionate dealings in all aspects of society, evenly and mercifully distributed to every child of creation so that all can rest in the good will of their neighbours.

The adult in us is shaped by the experiences of our childhood and adolescence. Perhaps it makes a lot of sense to put our dollars into a better school for every child; more and better-trained teachers; a universal guaranteed income plan; engaging recreation, music and arts opportunities everywhere children are growing up; fabulous, universal daycare.

And finally, determining together to pursue a real and forward-looking plan to eliminate every injustice that ends up necessitating retributive policing. A country without guns, because, “Why the hell would I need one, stupid?”

And, putting our money where our mouths are, eh?