"Defund the Police" was at heart a euphemism for "Abolish the Police". Many people realized that right away, except for some of my progressive friends who became apoplectic if you questioned defunding.
Of course, some of them lived in neighborhoods that quietly paid off-duty police and other services to protect their neighborhoods.
"There are many polls that show the slogan itself is deeply unpopular; whites don’t like defunding the police, but neither do working-class Blacks or Latinos."
The second part here seems really important. Leftist activists do not seem to be super in-touch with the constituency they claim to advocate for. Hard to build a large working class movement if that's the case.
One thing is true, that criminal justice reformers may not be pushing reform in good faith. They may be pushing reforms in order to sow chaos in order to get an even more authoritarian society. I know of someone who volunteered on Eliza Orlins' DA campaign last year because they were a victim of police abuse, dealt with mental health issues afterwards stemming from the abusive police encounter and really believed she wanted to make the world a better place through her reforms. When this volunteer wanted their concerns about police abuse listened to, what did they get from Eliza Orlins? Radio silence. If this is how decarceral candidates like Eliza Orlins treat THEIR OWN VOLUNTEERS who dealt with abusive and traumatizing police behavior, what chance do good people caught up in the criminal justice system have?
This is a good and worthy essay, but I want to call out a few issues.
First, the Times article you mention at the beginning is OK but it lacks some important context that can mislead readers, and it would be good to mention this: Very few cities actually cut their police budget last year. And of those that did, the vast majority made very small cuts. In New York, for example, the police budget was cut by $82 million, a relative pittance, and certainly not the egregiously bogus $1 billion number that some irresponsible people kept mentioning. See this article: https://cbcny.org/research/was-nypd-budget-cut-1-billion.
Second, saying the curfew last year was the first since 1945 misses some important nuance. The 1945 curfew wasn't really a curfew in any sense of the word I recognize. It was rather a national law, enacted as a fuel-saving measure during wartime, that forced bars and restaurants to close by midnight (see this article: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1945/02/27/121621129.pdf) The curfew last year, which made it illegal to be outside for nine hours of the day, was far more restrictive, likely the most severe restriction on basic liberty in my entire lifetime living in New York. Although I must admit that the simultaneous de facto restriction on free speech and free assembly, enacted not by law but by police truncheon, was similarly draconian.
Finally, I think you make a mistake by referring to Defund the Police as a movement. It's not a movement. It's more accurate to describe it as a policy goal and slogan often associated with might be described as the police reform or police accountability movement. As you write yourself, there's little agreement about what it means, and I bet that most of the people who bandied it about last year didn't really care about fiscal policy and budgeting. They cared about the police breaking the law and brutalizing the citizenry with no consequences. When you write Defund the Police was initially successful, the first thing you mention is the repeal of 50-a, which obviously has nothing to do with police budgets. That's a sign that Defund the Police should not itself be described as a movement.
Aside from that, thanks for addressing this issue. My own viewpoint is that I don't think defunding the police does anything to uphold accountability. I would prefer to see the following measures put into place:
- Give the Citizen Complaint Review Board sole authority over internal NYPD discipline. It also may be worth reforming how the CCRB is constituted. Perhaps the city council should have complete control over appointing people to the board.
- Establish an independent prosecutor who works only on police criminality. The DAs in each borough will never prosecute the police for anything other than the most egregious crimes.
- Enact a legal mandate that police need to buy liability insurance that covers costs when the city gets sued because of their misconduct. As it is, NYC spends hundreds of millions each year to settle lawsuits against the police. If cops had to buy their own liability insurance, they would have a financial incentive not to brutalize people. Decent cops would have cheap policies, while the worst cops would have expensive policies. This system shifts the cost to the cops and gives them a reason not to treat people with such violence and contempt.
- Apply the model from the Citizen Air Complaint Program to illegally parked cars. This will give citizens the ability to enforce parking laws against all the cops (and other city workers) who park on sidewalks and block hydrants.
- Reform the pension and overtime rules so that cops can't abuse them so easily.
- Pass a law that requires all new NYPD officers to live in New York City.
Obviously there are still significant differences—the 1943 curfew was after days of rioting that had seen several fatalities and thousands of stores vandalized, only started at 10:30 pm and was only a couple nights, and was limited to a single neighborhood where disorder was occurring.
A comparison to the 1943 curfew would be more appropriate, but when Ross mentioned the curfew in his essay, he linked to a previous essay he had written that referred to the 1945 curfew.
It's a small detail, and perhaps it shouldn't matter too much. But I think that when journalists mention the 1945 curfew they obscure the fact that the Summer 2020 curfew was truly unprecedented in the history of New York.
It appears that the NYPD, and probably many other police departments around the country, have been on unofficial strike. It started during the BLM movement and the Defund the Police movement when the NYPD became notorious in many neighborhoods for refusing to enforce the law. In addition, their presence on the streets clearly dwindled, creating the illusion that our police force was insufficiently large enough to handle the very real problems at hand. No wonder so many people, especially in poor neighborhoods, are voting for law-and-order candidates. Another political and financial scam orchestrated by the super-powerful police unions.
The rumor that the first action of the new City Council will be to replace the the shield of the City of New York with the hammer and sickle in the City Council chamber is probably unfounded, probably, not definitely
Yep. Agreed. Do over. #demilitarizethenypd is a much more accessible talking point with voters for the 2022 election cycle. (Over the din of NYPD choppers in the sky above).
"Defund the Police" was at heart a euphemism for "Abolish the Police". Many people realized that right away, except for some of my progressive friends who became apoplectic if you questioned defunding.
Of course, some of them lived in neighborhoods that quietly paid off-duty police and other services to protect their neighborhoods.
"There are many polls that show the slogan itself is deeply unpopular; whites don’t like defunding the police, but neither do working-class Blacks or Latinos."
The second part here seems really important. Leftist activists do not seem to be super in-touch with the constituency they claim to advocate for. Hard to build a large working class movement if that's the case.
One thing is true, that criminal justice reformers may not be pushing reform in good faith. They may be pushing reforms in order to sow chaos in order to get an even more authoritarian society. I know of someone who volunteered on Eliza Orlins' DA campaign last year because they were a victim of police abuse, dealt with mental health issues afterwards stemming from the abusive police encounter and really believed she wanted to make the world a better place through her reforms. When this volunteer wanted their concerns about police abuse listened to, what did they get from Eliza Orlins? Radio silence. If this is how decarceral candidates like Eliza Orlins treat THEIR OWN VOLUNTEERS who dealt with abusive and traumatizing police behavior, what chance do good people caught up in the criminal justice system have?
This is a good and worthy essay, but I want to call out a few issues.
First, the Times article you mention at the beginning is OK but it lacks some important context that can mislead readers, and it would be good to mention this: Very few cities actually cut their police budget last year. And of those that did, the vast majority made very small cuts. In New York, for example, the police budget was cut by $82 million, a relative pittance, and certainly not the egregiously bogus $1 billion number that some irresponsible people kept mentioning. See this article: https://cbcny.org/research/was-nypd-budget-cut-1-billion.
Second, saying the curfew last year was the first since 1945 misses some important nuance. The 1945 curfew wasn't really a curfew in any sense of the word I recognize. It was rather a national law, enacted as a fuel-saving measure during wartime, that forced bars and restaurants to close by midnight (see this article: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1945/02/27/121621129.pdf) The curfew last year, which made it illegal to be outside for nine hours of the day, was far more restrictive, likely the most severe restriction on basic liberty in my entire lifetime living in New York. Although I must admit that the simultaneous de facto restriction on free speech and free assembly, enacted not by law but by police truncheon, was similarly draconian.
Finally, I think you make a mistake by referring to Defund the Police as a movement. It's not a movement. It's more accurate to describe it as a policy goal and slogan often associated with might be described as the police reform or police accountability movement. As you write yourself, there's little agreement about what it means, and I bet that most of the people who bandied it about last year didn't really care about fiscal policy and budgeting. They cared about the police breaking the law and brutalizing the citizenry with no consequences. When you write Defund the Police was initially successful, the first thing you mention is the repeal of 50-a, which obviously has nothing to do with police budgets. That's a sign that Defund the Police should not itself be described as a movement.
Aside from that, thanks for addressing this issue. My own viewpoint is that I don't think defunding the police does anything to uphold accountability. I would prefer to see the following measures put into place:
- Give the Citizen Complaint Review Board sole authority over internal NYPD discipline. It also may be worth reforming how the CCRB is constituted. Perhaps the city council should have complete control over appointing people to the board.
- Establish an independent prosecutor who works only on police criminality. The DAs in each borough will never prosecute the police for anything other than the most egregious crimes.
- Enact a legal mandate that police need to buy liability insurance that covers costs when the city gets sued because of their misconduct. As it is, NYC spends hundreds of millions each year to settle lawsuits against the police. If cops had to buy their own liability insurance, they would have a financial incentive not to brutalize people. Decent cops would have cheap policies, while the worst cops would have expensive policies. This system shifts the cost to the cops and gives them a reason not to treat people with such violence and contempt.
- Apply the model from the Citizen Air Complaint Program to illegally parked cars. This will give citizens the ability to enforce parking laws against all the cops (and other city workers) who park on sidewalks and block hydrants.
- Reform the pension and overtime rules so that cops can't abuse them so easily.
- Pass a law that requires all new NYPD officers to live in New York City.
I think he was referring to the 1943 curfew following riots in Harlem: https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1943/08/03/85114168.pdf
Obviously there are still significant differences—the 1943 curfew was after days of rioting that had seen several fatalities and thousands of stores vandalized, only started at 10:30 pm and was only a couple nights, and was limited to a single neighborhood where disorder was occurring.
A comparison to the 1943 curfew would be more appropriate, but when Ross mentioned the curfew in his essay, he linked to a previous essay he had written that referred to the 1945 curfew.
It's a small detail, and perhaps it shouldn't matter too much. But I think that when journalists mention the 1945 curfew they obscure the fact that the Summer 2020 curfew was truly unprecedented in the history of New York.
It appears that the NYPD, and probably many other police departments around the country, have been on unofficial strike. It started during the BLM movement and the Defund the Police movement when the NYPD became notorious in many neighborhoods for refusing to enforce the law. In addition, their presence on the streets clearly dwindled, creating the illusion that our police force was insufficiently large enough to handle the very real problems at hand. No wonder so many people, especially in poor neighborhoods, are voting for law-and-order candidates. Another political and financial scam orchestrated by the super-powerful police unions.
The rumor that the first action of the new City Council will be to replace the the shield of the City of New York with the hammer and sickle in the City Council chamber is probably unfounded, probably, not definitely
Yep. Agreed. Do over. #demilitarizethenypd is a much more accessible talking point with voters for the 2022 election cycle. (Over the din of NYPD choppers in the sky above).