We hear a lot about the bad stuff that happens involving the police. Yes, that’s certainly worth considering and taking into account when deciding what the role of police should be going forward. But it’s also worth noting that we only hear about the worst of the bad stuff; the stuff that sells ads. The stories that really tug at the heartstrings. We can’t make every decision solely on the statistics that are provided to us with just the right set of conditions to tell the story that person wants us to hear.

“Who will you call when you need help?” That’s all I ever hear when someone is opposed to the idea of defunding the police (which is admittedly a misleading phrasing). Well, that’s a great question. Who do I call now? The police. Great, okay. Let’s parse this out.

Someone is raped. They call the police. A statement is taken, a rape kit is logged into evidence, along with clothing and anything else that can quite easily provide evidence that at least corroborates the presence of another individual worth investigating. Tox screens for any drugging may be taken.

Then most of the rape kits sit untested for years.

“Well, the lab is overworked and understaffed. They do a lot.” Okay. Maybe we need to look at what parts of the budget could be reallocated to support serving and protecting. A study found that an estimated million rapes occur in the US every year. Less than 10% are reported, about 18% go to trial, and about 37% see conviction. Of those million, about 6000 end in prosecution.

Whatever your views on drug use and prostitution, those are vices that are autonomous choices which (in themselves) have no effect on you, or anyone else. Arguments for collateral effects aside, rape and murder are pretty hard to make a case for as having no effect on the victim or the people in their lives. And those crimes are not autonomous; you don’t choose to be raped or murdered, because that would no longer fit the definition. Choosing sex is called consent. Choosing to die is called suicide (which is also – ridiculously enough – considered “illegal,” but that’s another topic).

Department expenditure on these will vary from place to place, but budget reports tend to be replete with paragraphs of statistics, such as how many grams of each drug were seized, and how much money was recovered. All of this while rape statistics are swept under, and have abysmally low rates of attention and successes.

Murder is another interesting one. Murder is taken seriously, yes. But if a cop is murdered, there’s a sudden increase in efficiency and swiftness in finding the killer and “bringing them to justice.” Flip the narrative to investigating a murder committed by a police officer… “More evidence is still coming in. We don’t want to rush to any judgments…” which translates to, “we’re stalling until the media attention is caught by the next big thing so we can sweep this under the rug.”

As asinine as the drug war is, and as preposterous as making consensual sale of sex illegal is, why is the general public okay with all that time, money, and effort wasted and totally okay when a police officer gets paid administrative leave (a lot of words for ‘vacation’) after committing a potential murder?

Part of defunding police could be as little as making small adjustments in the procedures that really don’t make any logistical, financial, legal, or logical sense.
SOLUTION PROPOSAL:
Any officer-related shooting or assault results in immediate suspension without pay, pending investigation results by a citizen oversight committee. That might save the police a lot of money because:
1) The police will think more critically about pulling the trigger, resulting in lower legal fees; less incidence of critical public opinion and cries for further defunding; less workload on forensics and “internal affairs” (which is really a conflict of interest).
2) Incentivizes speedy and thorough investigation, so as not to give the impression of special treatment (if exonerated, give the officer back-pay; if found at fault, follow appropriate disciplinary actions).
3) Places police in a position that is easier for the public to trust them, as it shows good faith that they aren’t receiving special treatment and a license to kill with impunity (furthering the decreased likelihood of further calls to defund).

I know you probably zoned out after the first line of point #1. “If the police hesitate, they’ll get killed!” There’s no reason they need to hesitate. The not-bad-apples won’t have to change a thing they’re already doing. The ones that unload seven rounds into a person’s back (by the third shot you must realize you’re doing something egregious! That’s if you’re truly fearing for your life; an ethical and in-control person wouldn’t get the first shot off) will need to start thinking about satisfying their potentially, allegedly psychopathic urges to kill someone and get away with it.

But let’s get back to “who do you call?” Right now, as things are, if you call the police in the midst of a crime, the chances are the crime will be complete by the time police arrive. So the protection part of ‘protect and serve’ is already a colossal failure, because police have morphed from a patrol-based, community-oriented service to a Judge Dredd-style court of the streets in which a human, elevated to some kind of demigod status, levels uncharacteristically drastic judgment and punishment to innocent individuals. (Don’t forget, we are still innocent until proven guilty by a proper due process.)

We can only protect ourselves and each other. If the police happen to be right there when something goes down, or arrives in time to subdue a situation, more power to them. That’s not even remotely the majority of cases, much less anything other than the most rare occasion.

Ah, but service! They still serve us, yes? Well, no, not normally. As I opened with, actual crimes with real and damaged or dead victims often go unsolved. Not for lack of ability to solve, but for lack of focus. Each time I’ve ever needed police to address a crime against me, the bare minimum would be done. I (in my due diligence where the police failed) discovered a distinct finger print after having my home burglarized. I was laughed at for pointing it out and requesting a print be lifted. They simply file a report so you can get some insurance money, and call that a win.

There’s no interest in crime prevention. There’s no interest in seeking retribution for losses sustained by the community it is tasked to serve and protect.

Most of the incidents that involved me getting pulled over, whether I received a ticket or not, was during the act of the cop doing something equally (or more) illegal than I allegedly was doing (i.e. distracted driving, blocking right of way with no lights indicating such, etc). Our society is conditioned to believe that police are above the law.

So who would I call? I don’t really know who to call now, unless the question is in reference to whom I would receive some kind of proof for an insurance claim from. Little solace there if my life, or the life of another, is in imminent danger. So honestly, if I’m in a situation like that I’m calling no one until I’ve somehow mitigated the danger myself.
Gun to my head, I’m complying until I hopefully escape.
Gun to someone else, I’m going to distract until someone (maybe even the police) can diffuse the situation or level the field.
Actions need to be taken by the observer if any harm is truly expected to be prevented. Should it be that way? No, of course not. That’s why the action of defunding is on the table.

That funding needs to go to housing, mental health, social work, rehabilitation, and other infrastructure that supports the people that are often driven to crime by the circumstances of their lives. We only care when it starts to bleed over and affect our lives, but it wouldn’t have to get to that point if we actually tried to treat the source of the problem rather than punish the disease and leave a trail of collateral damage in the wake.

The police today are a crude, early form of chemotherapy that kills healthy cells to spite the diseased ones. Accurately funding the services that can prevent the disease is more like a targeted gene therapy that suppresses the mutant gene; sets it on the correct course. Maybe instead of phrasing it as ‘defunding the police’ we should say ‘refunding humanity.’ Because humanity has been investing in something that has only perpetuated the problem, and instead of getting our money back, we just want to apply it to a proper source. Refunding humanity seldom needs guns and authority as much as it needs care, attention, and the willingness to listen, process, and make changes where changes are needed; to try new things instead of doubling down on the old things that clearly don’t work.

Check out some of our discussions on police issues, including the defunding movement:
Defunding Police
Police Brutality
Black Lives Matter
And for the shorter attention spans, a few Minute Microscopy episodes to ponder:
Morality, Ethics, and the Law
Crime!