In MN the Minneapolis city council wants to disband the police department entirely. This may be all talk, and I'm not sure if it's technically possible, but what happens if there is no police department? What are the second and third order effects of that? Is having no law enforcement a better outcome for the residents? My initial reaction is "no".
When confronted with videos of people rioting, looting and vandalising most respond that "it's only a few bad apples, the vast majority are peaceful". Is it not true that most cops are OK too? I'm honestly asking. Yes there are some problem cops - Chauvin obviously having a long history of issues. But are we really saying that the majority of cops are bad actors? It feels like with emotions so hot right now, people are willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I am skeptical that is the right course of action.
You know the protests are in all 50 states. Some of the flare-ups are due to responses to pent-up frustration from covid, but a lot are due to police riots/escalation. The rest of the protests are peaceful.
> But what are the second and third order effects of underfunded police departments?
Police departments, for many reasons, are the most over-funded [1]. NYPD went on strike and crime actually went down [2] for the month they didn't police.
The goal is not to "disband" but essentially rewrite the entire purpose of the department. Essentially put the policing function in receivership to be revived with new leadership.
[1] https://theappeal.org/spending-billions-on-policing-then-mil...
[2] https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-proacti...