zlacker

Coming from a poor (and incidentally very white) area myself, I understand the sentiment behind 'defund the police', but being comfortably middle class now, I also recognize it's something of a nonstarter with people who don't have that experience.

I prefer 'Police Out Of Poor Neighborhoods'. Police actually add value in rich neighborhoods (maybe by definition), and it's got a humorous acronym.

Edit: And police are much less likely to be shot at in rich neighborhoods. It's really win-win-win.

>>SuoDua+(OP)
Yes, lets further exacerbate class disparities by now only providing safety and security for the rich. At least this way we can stop pretending that we even care about the poor.

>>woeiru+t
"Don't be snarky."

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

"Eschew flamebait."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

>>SuoDua+(OP)
You’re joking right? Poor neighborhoods have the highest rates of crime.

>>SuoDua+(OP)
> but being comfortably middle class now, I also recognize it's something of a nonstarter with people who don't have that experience.

I think this is one of the two culture clashes happening with police versus civilians right now.

After the protests in the wake of the Michael Brown killing, there were articles written[1][2] about how there are a ton (many dozens) of tiny towns around Saint Louis each only a few city blocks large that prey on their citizens like parasites. Middle class people have largely moved out of these towns so they avoid this problem.

I don't think "defund the police" is a particularly good slogan and this is likely the reason other comfortably middle class families are likely to reject that calling.

But I also think that those who are comfortably middle class and ignoring the very real struggles of the lower class at the hands of the police and their governments have a duty to help lift their fellow Americans up and at least learn about the problems they face, if not do something about them. If we don't, we are no better than the pre Civil War city dwellers of the North comfortably ignoring the plight of the slaves and the indentured servants in the agrarian south.

[1] https://www.npr.org/2014/08/25/343143937/in-ferguson-court-f...

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/03/0...

>>SuoDua+(OP)
I'm sympathetic to the idea that neighborhoods have a right not to be policed if they don't want to. But historically, the alternative to effective policing hasn't been peace and harmony; it's been protection rackets and violent mobs. I think we need to have some confidence that we're not plunging cities back to the crime rates of the 90s before we go down that route.

>>woeiru+t
I can't second the GPs post hard enough. Police tend to abuse the poor much more often than they help. When they are there to help it's usually a zero-sum proposition: one poor person, usually a non-white, is gonna get a beat down at the hands of "justice" far out of proportion to whatever transgression against another poor person they may be guilty of.

I grew up poor, white, in a neighborhood with non-whites (black, asian, and hispanic). None of us was safe from the police, though whites were in marginally less danger generally.

>>symlin+r6
And the billions spent on police aren't exactly doing much to stop it so it's probably time to change the way we handle crime in low income areas.

>>jaybee+Ng
Yet, the party in power in those neighborhoods have had power for 60 years. Why continue to give them blank checks? Why trust their ideas now?

>>thephy+td
I don't even think that in most cases it's a case of wilfully ignoring. I think many, e.g several people responding to me, genuinely believe more police would lead to more security in poor neighbourhoods.

The trouble as I see it is that police broadly have two functions: to respond to emergencies where violence is likely and to suppress or tax the grey and black economy (huh. just noticed the ufnordunate linguistics of that). The 'responding to emergencies' function will of course still need to be performed, but it's fairly reliable that the poorer a neighbourhood is the less likely the residents are to voluntarily call 911 if an emergency does happen. In truly poor places the 'taxing grey and black markets' part of police work completely overshadows the good done by the 'responding to emergencies' part.

That is understandably very difficult for wealthy people to imagine, because they have very few examples of grey or black markets in their own lives, let alone instances where they have no other options. The thought that most people in any area would rather have enterprising teenagers sell bootleg cigarettes without hassle isn't even repugnant to them, it's just foreign.

>>jaybee+Ng
How do you know it isn't doing much to stop it? The story of Camden NJ says the opposite. Crime flourished as the police force shrunk, and declined when they disbanded and reformed a much large force.

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/apocalypse...

>>SuoDua+Pi
I'm not naive enough to think that adding more police is the solution, but withdrawing them is _definitely_ not the right answer either.

The inescapable conclusion to withdrawing the police is: 1 - response times will go up drastically, 2 - security will deteriorate, 3 - wealthier and middle class folks will stop visiting/living in those areas because of #1 and #2, 4 - the tax base will evaporate, 5 - the infrastructure, schools, and all other communal areas will deteriorate, 6 - the class divide will become a gaping chasm between the poor who are relegated to the slums and everyone else. We don't have to try this again. We know that this is what happens from our own history in the 20th century!

>>sidlls+dg
I understand that the police need to be reformed, and that they disproportionately police the poor. There are much better options than withdrawing them from all poor neighborhoods though. As we have seen time and time again, when the police are impotent, someone else will step up into the void to provide security. Typically, that's either organized crime, or (worse) vigilante justice. The net result is always the same though: the people living in those communities are always worse off.

Edit: I guess I should propose a solution instead of just railing against this idea. How about we: 1 - end the war on drugs, and 2 - fundamentally address poverty for once in this country.

>>woeiru+Xm
If you believe that 3, 4, and 5 had anything to do with the police in the 20th century then you should probably read up a whole lot more. From my perspective 3, 4, and 5 are what causes 1 and 2.

>>SpicyL+4e
That's a fair concern. I would go beyond your initial statement though, and say that if neighborhoods don't want to be policed it's likely they know their own interests better than anyone else. Some police departments do a good job even in bad neighborhoods; others... seem to exacerbate the existing problems. I can think of no better litmus test than what the residents themselves think.

>>SuoDua+(OP)
Hearing from someone who’s lived in both environments is interesting.

The empathy exercise for those of us in privileged neighborhoods is to imagine: How toxic must the dynamic be for entire communities to feel less safe with police and want them out altogether?

>>SuoDua+(OP)
Adding value like harassing blacks that "seem suspicious" for being in a rich neighborhood? It's not that simple.

>>woeiru+cp
Both of those things would help substantially, but it's not the entire problem. One of the core problems is that police have essentially been militarized. Their purpose isn't to serve the public trust, it's to engage in the control of an occupied population. Their purpose to ensure the most likely segment of the populace to take to the streets doesn't.

That's why all this crying over law and order in response to the protests is kind of hilarious. Their heavy handed tactics have backfired hard, and I have no sympathy for any of them. I feel for the police the same way I'd feel for an occupying army facing resistance.

>>divbze+XC
Well, I can give you a simple example. Where I grew up, you'd hear a gunshot every so often. No one paid it any mind - we knew it was the neighbors hunting out of season.

Technically a crime. But we all knew they and their children needed the meat. If everyone did it, the deer population would collapse and no one could hunt effectively even in-season. If someone had called a wildlife officer they could have certainly made the trek down. But no one would think to call the wildlife officers on them, because we knew it would lead to their children going hungry.

I think the thing people from rich neighbourhoods miss about that sort of thing is that when they hear stories of that nature [1], people's children going hungry over a minor infraction is seen as a failure of empathy on the constabulary's part. It's not. It's a failure of the law, and the constabulary's job is to uphold the law, not play social worker to people who break it. Hence our community's collective judgement that it was in everyone's best interest if the wildlife officer never found out about our neighbor's poaching activities.

[1] Joe Oliver has a great rant about a similar situation, lest readers think this only works in rural settings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UjpmT5noto