If you can’t trust your police with it, then there is something fundamentally wrong with your society.
This announcement coincides with protests against police brutality, at which many police have behaved brutally. That was sparked by an outright homicide by a police officer, captured on video, of a man who was subdued and presented no threat -- while other police officers watched, and many others have subsequently attempted to justify.
The "something fundamentally wrong" is very complex and subject to genuine debate, but it's not subject to debate that whatever it is, people don't trust the police.
Isn't "defund the police" 99% "that's a nice slogan", not actually "we'll be good without any form of law enforcement"? From what I understand it's a play to break unions: you defund and dismantle the police department and then you can create a new department, can start fresh with new people, new tactics etc pp. Might work, might not, but it's certainly not "eliminate policing".
No.
> not actually "we'll be good without any form of law enforcement"?
Not that, either.
“Defund the police” is about shifting substantial amounts of funding from police to supportive/responsive social service instead of law enforcement.
> From what I understand it's a play to break unions:
That's probably true of some supporters of the related-but-distinct abolish/dismantle effort, but even there it's not the main focus.
> you defund and dismantle the police department and then you can create a new department, can start fresh with new people, new tactics etc pp.
Dismantle/abolish does allow that, but most of the push for it is not for abolish-and-directly-replace, but for rethinking public safety and community services more generally and redesigning how law enforcement fits into it. While any replacement includes law enforcement personnel employed somewhere, they may not include a single large centralized paramilitary organization like the dominant model for city police / county sheriffs offices, and might (for instance) involve domain-specific law enforcement officers embedded in a variety of different public agencies.
It can, and for many people does, mean abolishing (not merely replacing) police departments as institutions, but, yes, it does not mean abolishing the law enforcement function of government.
The Democratic Party sponsored and suggested legislation throws even more money to police forces and does nothing to suggest curtailing the undue influence public employee unions have with the cities and localities they are supposed to serve. If anything the large unions have already walked back any talk that collective bargaining agreements are shielding the police and they have exerted their pressure on politicians at all levels. The reason being is because these public employee unions know if police unions fall then teachers will be next and the party cannot allow that.
So expect nothing more than a few hundred million dollars splashed around and virtue signaling bills offered up, this is a bill which is not expected to pass but if it does in the end does nothing to actually fix the problem.
To fix the police requires locking up their guns to where gaining access to them is under very set rules that cannot be watered down with exceptions. It requires requiring at all times, subject to termination, the full use of cameras any time they work either as police or contracted work in uniform; like directing traffic or protection for private individuals. It requires an outside board govern disciplinary proceedings and not leaving it up to the police force to prosecute their own when they do wrong. It requires keeping records for the lifetime of every officer that follows them where they go.
There is a lot that can be done but just watching the news shows how much is being done to insure not much actually changes but that politicians get their face time needs satisfied.