What defund actually means…
“Defund the Police” was some of the worst branding/slogan I’ve ever seen. Like, opponents would literally just say “Can you believe they want to defund the Police?”
The actual ideas of the movement, like the program in this article, are great. They’re popular, too. Demilitarizing the police has pretty widespread support.
But the first-glance impression of lawless anarchy that the “Defund” slogan brings up… You shouldn’t need to explain why your slogan doesn’t mean what it appears to mean.
That’s true, but I’m not sure any amount of clever messaging would matter to something like 75% of the US population when they want less accountible, more militarized police. It’s like the Kaepernick kneeling thing, no matter how respectful and polite you are, they don’t want what you want…
It means a lot of things. A big chunk of the movement wants police abolition, too. It’s a radical movement, i don’t want to see the teeth taken out of it.
That’s true, I dont speak for anyone but myself. It’s hard enough to convince the unconvinced of bare accountability, let alone abolition!
It’s cool, I figured you weren’t trying to undermine anyone. I don’t think straight-up authoritarians can be convinced that cops should have anything but absolute power. Better to try to convince compassionate liberals that radical solutuons are worth a shot. The activists they lionize were a lot more radical than they think. Some spicy MLK quotes might work. Idk, BLM got me to start learning about history, and it radicalized me a lot.
It would scare people less as well
Hmmm it’s almost like sending fully armed and decked out gang members to respond to mental health crises would result in exacerbated circumstances??? Wild stuff.
/s
But for real I love this program and hope to see it spread throughout the country
They have a similar program in Manchester New Hampshire that has been very successful from what I’ve heard.
Err… Did the USA not already have the option to send an ambulance full of paramedics to emergency calls? What do they do if someone calls and reports a heart attack, send round the rozzers to arrest their heart?
Yes, sending paramedics is normal. Including the mental health expert and not sending cops for certain calls is new.
In most of the US, if someone is having a mental health crisis where they may hurt themselves or others, the only option has been to call the emergency line and have cops sent. Cops don’t receive adequate training on how to deal with those situations and far too many have ended in the death of the person needing help
