This is entirely based on an anecdotal observation based on an extremely small sample size, so please accept that big caveat, but policing, like most occupations, seems to self-select from certain personality types: Most people I know who moved on to the police force often had an "us vs. the bad guys" disposition long before joining the force. Again recognizing this observation is based on my limited exposure, I do wonder what police departments can do to reframe recruiting to attract more "lets serve our communities" disposition and less "I want to stop the villains" or "we need to fight the enemy" dispositions, as a beginning step toward reform.
To touch on your sloganeering points, I think some of the pushback from the likes of Obama and Clyburn is that "defund the police" does not mean "reform the police". The word "defund" communicates a sense of absolute withdrawal of funds. It is much closer to abolish than reform. If I were to say my project got defunded, a majority of people would interpret that to mean the project is ended. Say what you mean instead of having to pretend it means something else. You give people an easy way to disengage with your serious arguments with poor sloganeering.
The part of this post about CHOP is inaccurate in several important respects.
(FWIW, I don't mean to imply anything about your broader points here, I just want to get the CHOP facts straight. I live 1 block away from what used to be CHOP, so I am close to the issue.)
> On June 22
I believe you mean June 29.
> CHAZ/CHOP security shot up an SUV [...] Unfortunately the SUV was turned out to actually be just two Black teenagers out for a drive.
This account goes far beyond what is known about that chaotic night. Unless you're a police detective or were there at the scene, the information you have is basically what is stated this detailed Seattle Times report:
For instance, re: "just two Black teenagers out for a drive", the report quotes a man who says the SUV was his and was violently stolen from him just before the incident. Of course, we don't even know if *that* is true! Even if it is, we can't be sure that the two teens killed were the carjackers. (The police report only says the teens were "presumably" the occupants of the SUV.)
> This tragedy illustrates that if you get rid of the cops, you’ll get new cops, and often worse ones than the ones you got rid of.
This may be true, but this incident (and CHOP in general) are not a good example.
CHOP "security" was an attempt to fill a sudden police vacuum, by people who never asked for the vacuum and were unprepared to fill it. (The relevant protest demand before CHOP was "defund SPD by at least 50%", i.e. a budget cut, not outright abolition. Much less the bizarre thing that actually happened, which was "unilateral self-abolition with no warning, but limited to a region of a few blocks, except they'd still respond to 911 calls in that region, but only sometimes, and with an unpredictable delay.")
> a several-block area of downtown Seattle that was seized by protesters after police were driven out of the local precinct
"Driven out" and "seized" here are misleading.
There was about a week of standoffs between protesters and police at the intersection by the East Precinct building. Police had erected a barrier blocking one edge of this intersection, and protesters kept trying to march past it down the street.
Then, one morning, the police not only removed the street barrier but abandoned the East Precinct building next to it, leaving it boarded up and unstaffed.
As far as I can tell, this came as a surprise to the protesters as much as anyone; they had been trying to march past the building, not into it. They certainly weren't trying to "seize the area." It's more like the area was thrust into their unprepared hands. For more detail, see:
(Also, an extreme nitpick: downtown Seattle is a business district. Capitol Hill is a residential neighborhood near, but not inside, downtown Seattle.)
What are your thoughts on Tabarrok's view that the US actually needs more police? If he's right, rather than defunding the police, we should be reforming them, increasing their size, and diverting things like traffic stops to different organizations.
1) I'm concerned "defund the police" seems to be caught up in a reality where we have shrinking amount of public resources, so it's better to be them towards more effective goods like public education, etc. This, however, is at odds with my impression from reading various economist blogs which show there is not a shortage of funds, especially if the federal government is willing to subsidize state and local governments.
2) Politically, I think this is liberals doing the work of "dividing and conquering" public sector unions for conservatives, which, ultimately, will be counterproductive electorally.
3) Growing up I went to both a failed public middle school and a fairly upwardly mobile public high school; Each experience, taken on its own, has left me with vastly different perspectives about how to view teacher unions. The failed middle school left me believing unions were just good at protecting teachers, because, well, there were a lot of shitty teachers there. But, the more upwardly mobile high school left me with the opposite view, as I saw teachers, who were also in a union, really going out of their way to help kids excel. So, to me, what "defund the police" is to policing is what blaming teacher unions is to education - i.e. not a solution.
This discussion is far more nuanced than these simple comparisons between Japan and Germany and the USA gives one to believe. From watching the videos online, it seems like a good 99% of the violent police interaction would have been avoided if the suspect didn't resist arrest. And yes, this trend could have gotten worse with time, even as violent crime has went down. Just look at the media coverage and the BLM message over the years: how much of it is simply "dont resist" and instead "cops are racist"? Almost all. This will naturally lead to more people resisting arrest, not less.
Now the other 1%, probably has to do with unions protecting bad cops and a machismo culture in the academy. But thats a tiny amount and not worth all the fuss around the issue.
A little concerned with your comment about non-police individuals taking on current police duties. . Has any thought been put in place for their personal protection from individuals who flaunt the laws dangerously. I.e.: body armor, body cams, automatic gps signaling
I’m stunned that you cite percentage of violent deaths from police to justify your claim that US police are out of control. Do you realize that in the prior sentence you also note that violent crime has generally declined? Did you bother to determine if the percentage increased because violent crime was lower? How about you post the total number of police killings per year instead?
This is entirely based on an anecdotal observation based on an extremely small sample size, so please accept that big caveat, but policing, like most occupations, seems to self-select from certain personality types: Most people I know who moved on to the police force often had an "us vs. the bad guys" disposition long before joining the force. Again recognizing this observation is based on my limited exposure, I do wonder what police departments can do to reframe recruiting to attract more "lets serve our communities" disposition and less "I want to stop the villains" or "we need to fight the enemy" dispositions, as a beginning step toward reform.
To touch on your sloganeering points, I think some of the pushback from the likes of Obama and Clyburn is that "defund the police" does not mean "reform the police". The word "defund" communicates a sense of absolute withdrawal of funds. It is much closer to abolish than reform. If I were to say my project got defunded, a majority of people would interpret that to mean the project is ended. Say what you mean instead of having to pretend it means something else. You give people an easy way to disengage with your serious arguments with poor sloganeering.
The part of this post about CHOP is inaccurate in several important respects.
(FWIW, I don't mean to imply anything about your broader points here, I just want to get the CHOP facts straight. I live 1 block away from what used to be CHOP, so I am close to the issue.)
> On June 22
I believe you mean June 29.
> CHAZ/CHOP security shot up an SUV [...] Unfortunately the SUV was turned out to actually be just two Black teenagers out for a drive.
This account goes far beyond what is known about that chaotic night. Unless you're a police detective or were there at the scene, the information you have is basically what is stated this detailed Seattle Times report:
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/everybody-down-what-happened-at-the-chop-shooting-that-killed-a-teenager-and-led-to-the-areas-shutdown/
For instance, re: "just two Black teenagers out for a drive", the report quotes a man who says the SUV was his and was violently stolen from him just before the incident. Of course, we don't even know if *that* is true! Even if it is, we can't be sure that the two teens killed were the carjackers. (The police report only says the teens were "presumably" the occupants of the SUV.)
> This tragedy illustrates that if you get rid of the cops, you’ll get new cops, and often worse ones than the ones you got rid of.
This may be true, but this incident (and CHOP in general) are not a good example.
CHOP "security" was an attempt to fill a sudden police vacuum, by people who never asked for the vacuum and were unprepared to fill it. (The relevant protest demand before CHOP was "defund SPD by at least 50%", i.e. a budget cut, not outright abolition. Much less the bizarre thing that actually happened, which was "unilateral self-abolition with no warning, but limited to a region of a few blocks, except they'd still respond to 911 calls in that region, but only sometimes, and with an unpredictable delay.")
> a several-block area of downtown Seattle that was seized by protesters after police were driven out of the local precinct
"Driven out" and "seized" here are misleading.
There was about a week of standoffs between protesters and police at the intersection by the East Precinct building. Police had erected a barrier blocking one edge of this intersection, and protesters kept trying to march past it down the street.
Then, one morning, the police not only removed the street barrier but abandoned the East Precinct building next to it, leaving it boarded up and unstaffed.
As far as I can tell, this came as a surprise to the protesters as much as anyone; they had been trying to march past the building, not into it. They certainly weren't trying to "seize the area." It's more like the area was thrust into their unprepared hands. For more detail, see:
https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2020/11/who-ordered-the-abandonment-of-the-east-precinct/
https://nostalgebraist.tumblr.com/post/620713736158724096/hey-to-clarify-with-your-post-about-the-autonomous
(Also, an extreme nitpick: downtown Seattle is a business district. Capitol Hill is a residential neighborhood near, but not inside, downtown Seattle.)
What are your thoughts on Tabarrok's view that the US actually needs more police? If he's right, rather than defunding the police, we should be reforming them, increasing their size, and diverting things like traffic stops to different organizations.
Three things:
1) I'm concerned "defund the police" seems to be caught up in a reality where we have shrinking amount of public resources, so it's better to be them towards more effective goods like public education, etc. This, however, is at odds with my impression from reading various economist blogs which show there is not a shortage of funds, especially if the federal government is willing to subsidize state and local governments.
2) Politically, I think this is liberals doing the work of "dividing and conquering" public sector unions for conservatives, which, ultimately, will be counterproductive electorally.
3) Growing up I went to both a failed public middle school and a fairly upwardly mobile public high school; Each experience, taken on its own, has left me with vastly different perspectives about how to view teacher unions. The failed middle school left me believing unions were just good at protecting teachers, because, well, there were a lot of shitty teachers there. But, the more upwardly mobile high school left me with the opposite view, as I saw teachers, who were also in a union, really going out of their way to help kids excel. So, to me, what "defund the police" is to policing is what blaming teacher unions is to education - i.e. not a solution.
This discussion is far more nuanced than these simple comparisons between Japan and Germany and the USA gives one to believe. From watching the videos online, it seems like a good 99% of the violent police interaction would have been avoided if the suspect didn't resist arrest. And yes, this trend could have gotten worse with time, even as violent crime has went down. Just look at the media coverage and the BLM message over the years: how much of it is simply "dont resist" and instead "cops are racist"? Almost all. This will naturally lead to more people resisting arrest, not less.
Now the other 1%, probably has to do with unions protecting bad cops and a machismo culture in the academy. But thats a tiny amount and not worth all the fuss around the issue.
A little concerned with your comment about non-police individuals taking on current police duties. . Has any thought been put in place for their personal protection from individuals who flaunt the laws dangerously. I.e.: body armor, body cams, automatic gps signaling
I’m stunned that you cite percentage of violent deaths from police to justify your claim that US police are out of control. Do you realize that in the prior sentence you also note that violent crime has generally declined? Did you bother to determine if the percentage increased because violent crime was lower? How about you post the total number of police killings per year instead?