The country has seen revelations about off-books police interrogation warehouses in the past.
A new lawsuit filed in federal court last month alleges that the Baton Rouge Police Department ran a “torture warehouse” where members of its Street Crimes Unit strip searched, beat, and otherwise humiliated people and then released them, often without their being charged with a crime. Soon after the lawsuit was filed, the FBI opened a civil rights investigation into the allegations of misconduct at the now-shuttered warehouse known as “the BRAVE Cave.”
East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore said the arrests of Street Crimes members could impact hundreds of criminal cases, comparing the fallout from the revelations around the BRAVE Cave to those during the 2021 Narcotics Unit scandal. Frampton said that the fact that the BRAVE Cave sprung from police reform is “a frustrating irony and it makes you wonder about the capacity there is to reform these sorts of institutions without dismantling them altogether."
Defunding/dismantling is the next step, and if cops keep doing shit like this it will happen.
All reformation does is change how they cover up their corruption and take out their anger on the public at large.
The only way to get rid of police corruption, is to raise a new generation of intelligent, educated peace officers who are trained to de-escalate, trained on how to deal with difficult people who may be in crisis, who know the laws they are supposed to enforce, who do not want a thin blue line to hide behind, who do not need qualified immunity to protect them from their ineptitude, Who will actively arrested fellow officers and out corruption and criminal behavior should the need arise, and who wont stand by the side and do nothing while it happens infront of them.
And once they are ready, you fire every. single. person. associated with the police. You root out the corruption by purging it, and sterilizing the basket, so it has no roots from with to ruin the new crop.
then you put civilian oversite over them to investigate and monitor to make sure the new batch are staying true to their purpose and training.
Make any argument you want. Whenever you want. For me, I don't think the defund argument will ever work nationally. I think all the defund argument does is help Republicans fund raise.
Let's take the money away from police and put it into social workers and therapy. A cop in a given area usually makes twice what a social worker does, so let's get some bang for our buck and remove all police, replace them with social workers. Twice the bodies to do the same amount of work but now with a focus on fixing the communities that generate the problems. A focus on working to solve the cause and remediate the families of those affected. Defending the police can happen and it will be gloriously effective.
Funny enough the only people who will start violent crime are ex cops who want to show how violence is only solved with violence.
There are a lot of great potential solutions. The problem is getting people in a position of authority where they can effect change. This isn't a insult to you but leaving a comment on a relatively obscure message board isn't likely to accomplish much. We need to find a way to motivate enough people to vote to elect politicians who see the problems and are open to solutions.
100%. We as a society create laws. There is no point in making these laws if there is no one to enforce them. Further more, most Americans want police to show up when they dial 911. Defunding the police isn't going to happen.
What can happen, mandate body camera usage. Have an independent auditor review the footage. Prosecute the crimes discovered on the body cam footage. Terminate the police who do not use the mandated body cameras.
Defunding the police (horrible fucking slogan btw) isn't about just cutting off police funds and saying fuck it. It's about redirecting the funds to preventative and less militaristic interventions, including better audit equipment and oversight boards, non-lethal and non-armed social services and mental health interventions, and a refocus on community policing instead of military-style Jack Bauer larping.
I would just add the note that whatever the slogan, however branded the movement, there will be a concerted effort to delegitimize it, both from without and from within.
Defending the police or dismantling existing departments and replacing them whole cloth is very likely the only viable solution when the cultures in and around the institutions are the problems.
People seem to think that the marketing needs to be palatable. I don't. It won't matter. It will ultimately come to force. It's unfortunate but the reality is that it seems like the force of violence is the highest truth in this world. We won't get reforms through dialogue or nibbling at the edges. These institutions need to be forced to change, and they will resist. It will come down to individuals with strong wills who refuse to back down in the face of violence.
The solution is not in how you describe it but how you run it. The description is merely the vision on which you build or tear down as necessary. Merely saying defund x or y is no basis for evaluation needed for the widespread acceptance which will lead to implementation.
The current movement is spent & any traction gained has been lost due to bad messaging. The best thing would be to abandon it altogether, start with a coherent message & go with what you said.
I want whoever is best trained and equipped to deal with the problem to show up when I call 911. That ain't always a guy with a gun who barely passed high school.