De-Fund the Police?

Years ago, I got an early morning call to come to church.  Quick.  A suicidal young man was threatening to walk out into traffic.

When I arrived the police had beaten me to the scene and I discovered the agitated young man was African American.  Two white officers in uniform wearing gun belts loaded with handcuffs, tasers, billy clubs and other tools of the trade were doing nothing to calm the situation.  I asked them politely to leave.  Obviously this stranger had walked into a church because it signified safety and sanctuary. He needed pastoring, not policing. I took him out for pancakes and coffee.  A good meal doesn’t cure an existential crisis, but it’s often a decent palliative.  

Current calls to “de-fund” the police are simply an acknowledgment that law enforcement isn’t the answer to every problem.  And the assertion that police departments suffer from “systemic racism” doesn’t mean that all cops are bigots.  Police and sheriffs come in all colors and races and most are undoubtedly doing their best in a very hard job.  

Systemic racism means that our judicial process produces tilted outcomes.  Blacks, latinos and native people wind up behind bars far more often than whites, and  it’s not just cops at fault.  It’s our under-funded Public Defender system.  It’s local prosecutors who get rewarded for producing convictions (some DAs actually offer cash bonuses for trials that end in a lock up).  It’s for-profit prisons that incentivize longer sentences.  There’s unconscious racism at every level.

My wife is a criminal attorney.  She used to defend juveniles. She’d watch surveillance videos from department stores introduced as evidence in court. Two teens would enter the mall, one white, one black.  Both were shoplifting but the security cameras always focused on the black girl, who would be charged and convicted.  Was she guilty?  Yes.  Was justice done?  You decide.

This past month,  Congress began bipartisan talks to shut down transfers of military-style gear to those patrolling our city streets.  I think our whole approach to crime needs an overhaul.  Why is it “looting” when a black youth steals a TV but “liquidation” when white collar crooks take a company into bankruptcy, giving themselves million dollar bonuses while leaving worker pensions high and dry?  

I’m glad the conversation has begun.  It’s just tragic that it took eight minutes and forty-six seconds to get it started.