In the recent months, the activism against police brutality has reached new heights. Although the worldwide protests have a provided a necessary united stand against centuries of unfair law enforcement actions, “Defunding the Police” will only increase the rate of police violence, whilst putting civilians at a greater risk of threat from both criminals and law enforcement officers.
George Floyd wasn’t a one-off case. Police brutality is a plague that has infected every single continent, with the Global South understandingly suffering worse. In the age of social media, the police brutality in the United States and elsewhere came under huge scrutiny. However, this remarkable boon can also be loosely translated as people jumping on to bandwagons without really knowing much about it. And one such recent case is “Defund the Police”. Yet, thousands of tweets and posts under #defundthepolice, politicians and world leaders know why it shouldn’t even entertained.
Defunding the police should only be approached once the purpose of policing is fulfilled ie when the crimes no longer exist. However, people want to defund the police to reduce police brutality. Crime rates in the United States are significantly much higher than a majority of nations in Global North. Astonishingly, the country has a higher crime index (46.73) than India (42.38), Pakistan (44.58) and even Iraq (46.35) according to Crime Index by Country 2020. This only shows how ineffective law enforcement has been in the most powerful country right now despite reforms in the last 25 years and reducing funding will only worsen their ranking worldwide.
On the contrary, the lack of funding to the police has been a major source of police brutality globally. Latin America, the hotbed for police brutality, is a prime example of this. Police officers in Major Latin American cities earn 16% less than the rest of the public sector. This means police officers are often not eager to work, hence depicting a lower performance level. Police are still yet to use technology entirely in the departments. Such addition, would although require greater funds but also promises reduction of police brutality and crime rates. Implementation of body-worn cameras has in fact depicted a drop in cases of police brutality, yet we need more patience to allow technology to be as fruitful as we hope.
The death of George Floyd also highlighted another flaw in the police department, the discrimination against marginalized group. Born as a slave country, the American policing system was based on the slave patrol of the late 18 th Century, and for centuries, mass lynching of the minorities have been celebrated. Today, racial profile plays a huge role in policing in the United States. The police are often trained to have an implicit bias against African Americans and Muslims amongst others. Studies show that black people are also thrice more likely to be killed by police than white by the police officers. Similarly, since 9/11 American Muslims have also been victims of open discrimination and disparate use of force by law enforcers.
Perhaps the most important factor for police brutality rates in the United States is down to police training procedure in the country. The emphasis on “Complacency kills” as “the first rule of police brutality” instructs police officers to act without any hesitance, often viewing civilians as felons. The use of funds in police training and division training hours is in fact the necessary change that should have been in place by now. Firearms skills and Self-defense training often contribute 111 hours of the training, while conflict management and community policing strategy are only dedicated 8 hours. As such, police are not trained enough to evacuate people or diffuse situations, and it seems as if they are often trained to play a Hollywood crime movie character in real life. America needs to move on from the fear-based training if the police are ever to get back the trust of people.
Yet, the biggest misunderstanding that people currently have in regards to police brutality is believing this as an issue of excessive funding when it’s an issue of unnecessary power and authority. Accountability for police brutality has always been concerning with only 1% of all convicts have been charged with cases of police brutality. This is highly down to entrenched impunity as 95% of accused don’t even undergo any investigations. These impunities allow police to commit extreme atrocities without facing any consequences. Along with this the victims also have to deal with qualified immunity in order to achieve justice. The qualified immunity in the United States ensures that favorable judgment against police is near impossible, hence denying any actions against them.
All in all, defunding the police isn’t going to help anyone. It will only decrease the trust between an agitated, dissatisfied group of police officers and civilians who will be victims of increased number of crimes. We need a legislative reform to end this evil cycle. The impunity and qualified immunity need to be discussed again, while the police training process, including the division of hours and length of training must be changed. At the end of the day, police are the law enforcers. They are supposed to work for us, to protect us. But this all will only be possible if they were held accountable for their actions and reminded of their true responsibility- “protecting people”