Should the police be defunded?

Give more funds to public services that might mitigate violence

Question: Should the police be defunded?
Position1 of 2›: Yes, the police should be defunded
Argument: Give more funds to public services that might mitigate violence

Reducing the role of police in society could replace them with a system that is filled with people and organizations that have the ultimate goal of justice through peace.

The argument

There is a need for a system that does not use violence and brutality to respond to protests or insurrection. The defunding of the police would reallocate the funds to other public services like job training, counseling, and violence prevention programs. For example, instead of having a police presence in schools, those funds should be redirected to school counselors instead. The Los Angeles budget, for instance, provides the police $3.14 billion out of the city's $10.5 billion. Compared with the large LAPD budget, spending on municipal programs such as economic growth ($30 million) and housing ($81 million) falls short. Even shrinking a small part could make a big difference in the investment into nonpunitive programs that benefit public safety and health such as homeless services, health programs, housing, and job programs.

Premises

[P1]Many causes of violence and social harm are better addressed by services like counseling, job training, and violence prevention than by armed policing. [P2] Police budgets currently dwarf spending on these mitigating public services, as seen in Los Angeles where the LAPD receives $3.14 billion while housing and economic growth receive a tiny fraction. [P3] Reallocating even a portion of police funding to nonpunitive programs would substantially improve public safety and health outcomes. [C] Therefore, the police should be defunded so those resources can be redirected to public services that mitigate violence.

Counter-arguments

Starting a defunded program is not the answer. Defunding the police would only prevent the funding of programs that could slowly change the methods of violence with police. These programs include implementation of guardian-oriented policing, policy and oversight, crisis intervention training, community policing, police-community engagement efforts, collaborative partnerships with mental-health and social-service agencies, and increased women and minorities in law enforcement.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] This is plausible for some harms and asserted for the category. Counselling, job training and violence prevention address conditions that generate crime over years; they do not answer a call in progress, and the premise never distinguishes prevention from response. [Rejecting P2] The comparison is not like for like. A police budget is overwhelmingly salaries for a large standing workforce, while economic development and housing appear as discretionary programme lines, so the ratio does not carry the significance the premise reads into it. [Rejecting P3] 'Would substantially improve' is a prediction. The evidence on these programmes' effect on violence is mixed and slow-acting, and the premise assumes both that money transfers cleanly between departments and that outcomes follow. [Rejecting C] The reallocation must come out of something the police currently do. Many of the reforms this position elsewhere supports — training, oversight, crisis intervention teams, community engagement — are themselves funded from that budget.