With the recent deaths of several individuals at the hands of police officers, we have all been witnesses to both peaceful and violent protests to these actions. Throughout all that has transpired, there have been calls and demands to “defund the police” or to eliminate police departments as efforts to rid our society of these blatant acts of discriminatory behavior. This rhetoric that can be useful to excite and give a measure of solidarity to a cause, but it is not the answer that addresses the underlying issue of racial disparity in the country. Indeed, disparities do exist as is evident by the actions of some police officers, but a potential answer lies in thoughtful and planful systemic changes.
Now, let me make it abundantly clear, I am not advocating for the elimination of police departments nor am I undermining the actions of those who are claiming that change must occur with the police. What I will be proposing is that there is much to be said about the “defunding” issue and that will be what I focus on with this blog. There is a need for some entity, either governmental or private, to protect the citizens in a respectful and humane way. In the absence of such a function, chaos would prevail, and anarchy would run rampant. There must be a system of laws and rules and the enforcement of them so that there can be orderly interaction between and among various entities, including individuals and organizations. In a recent article in the Washington Post, Georgetown University Law Professor, Christy Lopez stated: “be not afraid, “’Defunding the police”’ is not as scary (or even as radical) as it sounds.” She went on to state: “We turn to the police in situations where years of experience and common sense tell is that their involvement is unnecessary, and can make things worse. We ask police to take accident reports, respond to people who have overdosed and arrest, rather than cite, people who might have intentionally or not passed a counterfeit $20 bill. We call police to roust homeless people from corners and doorsteps, resolve verbal squabbles between family members and strangers alike, and arrest children for behavior that once would have been handled as a school disciplinary issue.” What Professor Lopez is stating, is that the police are asked to do many things that have nothing to do with ensuring the public safety of a community or that they are equipped to handle.
A good many years ago, when I came to join the faculty of the School of Social Work at The University of Alabama, I became involved with research and training activities with the Birmingham, Alabama Police Department. I was encouraged to become involved by my good friend and colleague, the late Dr. Ray Sumrall. He had been engaged in consulting with the police department in Birmingham and had written several proposals that were funded by the Federal Government. One study focused on improving the management of the criminal investigation. This study focused on community policing and having police officers utilize the resources in the community to deal with specific problems that others were better trained to handle. To accomplish this reorientation to policing, we trained all the sworn officers and their supervisors over a period of several months. The outcome was that the officers were more inclined to draw upon those resources and move on to other police-specific issues. If resources are moved from the police department to relevant community-based resources, then this is an example of defunding certain activity that police spend their time handling.
Another approach to address defunding the police, is to consolidate and integrate specific functions of governmental departments. It has been reported that there are around 130 jurisdictions throughout the country that have consolidated the police, fire and paramedic functions into a single Public Safety Officer position. Once staff are trained, this can be a much more efficient use of these resources and much more cost effective. There are several models of integrating these services and these efforts are often met with various challenges. Not everyone who is a police office can be a fire fighter nor an EMT. Similarly, not everyone who is a fire fighter can be a police office or have the medical interest required of an EMT. A winnowing process would have to be recognized if there was a movement in this direction. Parenthetically, one of the most expensive components of any jurisdiction is a full-time fire department. There is a great deal of down time which would be filled with police and/or EMT activity. To utilize fire personnel in this manner would not minimize the role of the firefighter when specific expertise is needed. Others would be trained to step in. One of the biggest hurdles of consolidation and integration are the labor unions representing these various components. They would need to be included to any negotiations to move in this direction.
In any consideration of modifying the role of the police officer, citizen receptivity is critical. Another study that I had the privilege to be a part of was assessing the extent to which citizens would be receptive to alternatives to their calls for service. My specific involvement dealt with the development, implementation, and analysis of a community survey which was conducted in Birmingham, Alabama and San Jose, California. Six criminal categories were included: burglaries (not in progress), larcenies, vehicle thefts, personal assaults, family disturbances, and environmental problems (i.e., road hazards, animal complaints, disturbances such as loud music or parties, etc.). The individuals who were included in the survey were victims of the specific category, e.g., a person who reported a vehicle being stolen would be included in the vehicle theft category. For each category 100 completed surveys were completed by trained interviewers who conducted the interviews by telephone. Each of the victims had been victimized within the three-month period prior to being called by the interviewer. Briefly, what we found was that in Birmingham and San Jose, the victims who called for service were receptive to an alternative to a police officer responding, immediately. Further, the findings revealed that the receptivity to an alternative was category specific. To be receptive to alternatives would allow the sworn police officers to be engaged in activity that they are trained to handle and focused, specifically on the public safety in the community.
There are ways to reconfigure the functions of a police department and that is what should be the focus of the current debate. Eliminating choke holds as a technique for subduing a person needs to be done, but there needs to be systemic changes, not piece-meal responses. Police officers do need to be more community oriented as they carry out their duties. They do need to be responsive to various demographic realities of the communities. The officers patrolling a specific community should reflect the racial and ethnic makeup of the community. The inclusion of more police officers indigenous to the community should become normative for the community policing function. It is my belief that individuals from the community would have an advantage in handling and diffusing potentially volatile situations. What I have included certainly does not exhaust the discussion, but, hopefully, it is a beginning that can foster additional discussion and lead to substantive changes.