Defund the police

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Thu, 2022-01-27 10:11

Pondering

On that committee you referenced.

https://rabble.ca/economy/growing-support-for-defunding-of-police-prompt...

A move the report praises as “practical” was the June 2019 decision by Halifax regional council to rescind a roughly $350,000 it had previously allocated to purchase armoured vehicles. Council reallocated those funds to diversity and inclusion offices in the municipality, as well as to other anti-Black racism programs.

That seems to be the only money actually reallocated even though the police budget has been increasing while crime has been decreasing.

There is no mention of reversing the following:

Funding for the Halifax Regional Police has steadily increased over the last several years. To find the money municipal councilors has to find cuts elsewhere in their budget. For instance, they cut funding to local public libraries.

This was placed in the hands of:

The report, Defunding the Police: Defining the Way Forward for HRM, was authored by the Halifax Board of Police Commissioners Subcommittee to Define Defunding the Police.

The Police Commissioners are defining defunding. Isn't that like putting the fox in charge of the hen house?

https://globalnews.ca/news/8517133/defunding-halifax-police-report/

A committee tasked with defining how to defund Halifax-area police has instead produced a wide-ranging report recommending a shift away from a “reactive” enforcement-based policing model – but it includes no specific budget cuts.

The report on defunding doesn't include any transfer of funds along with the tasks.

I am reminded of Greta Thunberg saying "blah blab blab". Lots of lip service and baby steps.

Thu, 2022-01-27 11:15

#53

epaulo13

What's Next for the Defund Movement?

Five police abolitionists from around the country—some of them newly elected to city councils—talk about lessons from 2021 and plans for 2022.

quote:

Robin Wonsley Worlobah: I think often in these conversations — and within our movement — it’s about policing only. And that’s also how the opposition tries to frame it. But actually, under a capitalist society, policing is only one piece. My city council campaign put Question 2 within a socialist analysis: “We have to correct the conditions under racial capitalism that cause a power imbalance and inequality that policing ends up reinforcing. We have to make mass investments in our public infrastructure, which we know actually address crime by stabilizing people’s lives and their communities.” Neoliberals don’t want to hear anything about mass investments. We lead with transitional demands that not only improve people’s material conditions, but also shine a light on an enemy to rally working-class people around — demands like rent control, which maintains some level of housing security for working-class people and has a very clear class enemy in corporate developers, who generate millions if not billions of dollars of wealth from working-class people through ever-expansive rents. So then we link these issues by saying, “You are going after our localized enforcement structure of capitalism, the police.”

I think the movement backing Question 2 made a mistake of not naming the enemy. Because then the opposition was able to say, “You hate the police chief, this upstanding Black man.” Or, “You hate Black people, you want them to live in communities riddled with gun violence.” The mayor, these corporate-backed PACs like Operation Safety Now, the Downtown Council, the chief of police and the police union literally went on four months of a speaking tour. Almost every weekend, out over in north Minneapolis, where a baby has just got shot and killed, they would basically say, “Look at these grieving parents, look at these grieving Black folks, we can’t afford to try something experimental.”

We didn’t have a narrative to counteract that at that scale. And that’s fine — but if we don’t have the narrative, then we damn sure have to have the ground game. Because, I mean, we’re only running on people power, we ain’t got none of these corporations sponsoring us....

Thu, 2022-01-27 12:30

#54

epaulo13

‘Defund the Police’ Activist Among Names to Replace Justice Breyer

Among the Black women being discussed as President Joe Biden’s possible nominee to fill the Supreme Court seat of retiring Justice Stephen Breyer is a civil rights lawyer who has backed the ”defund the police” movement.

Lawyer Sherrilyn Ifill, 59, was mentioned by The Associated Press and number of Democrats, progressives in particular, as a candidate. Ifill is president and director-counsel at the Legal Defense Fund of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Biden vowed during the 2020 campaign debates to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court, because it was “time” for a Black woman to have “representation.”

Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., an avowed Black Lives Matter activist, tweeted: “.@POTUS you promised us a Black woman on the Supreme Court. Let’s see it happen.”

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, mentioned Ifill specifically among those that should be “weighed and considered” to replace Breyer, tweeting:

“On behalf of the constituents of Texas’ 18th Congressional District and Texas, I thank him for his leadership and wish him all of the best. I strongly believe that his retirement presents the perfect opportunity for President Biden to follow through on his campaign promise to appoint the first Black Woman to the Supreme Court. While there are many qualified contenders to fill the vacancy of this seat on the court, the candidacy of Ketanji Brown Jackson, Leondra Kruger, J. Michelle Childs, Wilhelmina ‘Mimi’ Wright, Eunice Lee, Candace Jackson-Akiwumi and Sherrilyn Ifill should all be weighed and considered.”

Ifill has been open in her support of the defund the police movement after George Floyd was killed by a police officer and amid 2020 election year protests, telling “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert“:

“It’s been interesting to see how this phrase ‘defund the police’ makes people very anxious and very nervous. This is our opportunity to do something that’s long overdue, which is to fundamentally re-imagine what public safety looks like in this country.

“What we have done is we have turned over armed law enforcement officers the right to enter our communities to solve a set of community conflicts that actually don’t require an armed officer. Rather than turn the entire public safety regime over to armed law-enforcement officers, we need to look at that funding, reduce that funding, and use it to support these other services.

“I think the anxiety is about the phrase and actually not anxiety about the concept. We should be looking at budgets. We should recognize that this over-reliance on police has given us a regime that we can see is not working.”

Thu, 2022-01-27 12:37

#55

epaulo13

..cbc 22 min podcast.

A path for Halifax to defund the police

Last week, committee chairperson El Jones presented the report to Halifax's Board of Police Commissioners. While the document doesn't recommend a specific amount of money to be cut, it takes an in-depth look at shifting some responsibilities away from police — namely sexual assault reporting and responses to mental health crises.

Today, Jones walks us through the report's rethink on how to keep our communities safe and examines the common ground between supporters and opponents of defunding.

Thu, 2022-01-27 12:42

#56

Pondering

Biden will not appoint her. I want police reform to actually happen not just be debated. This is like PR. Polls support it but voters don't.

Thu, 2022-01-27 13:26

#57

epaulo13

..the cbc podcast is excellent and a must listen. it rips open the nature of our political and economic systems. and then offers a different path to travel. jones also connects the defund position to the current covid crisis.

..cahoots is mentioned by the interviewer. jones has a response to this as well.

What is CAHOOTS?

CAHOOTS (Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets) is a mobile crisis intervention program staffed by White Bird Clinic personnel using City of Eugene vehicles. This relationship has been in place for nearly 30 years and is well embedded in the community.

CAHOOTS provides support for EPD personnel by taking on many of the social service type calls for service to include crisis counseling. CAHOOTS personnel often provide initial contact and transport for people who are intoxicated, mentally ill, or disoriented, as well as transport for necessary non-emergency medical care.

How does the City support CAHOOTS?
The City funds CAHOOTS through the Eugene Police Department. In Fiscal Year 2018 (July 2017 to June 2018) the contract budget for the CAHOOTS program was approximately $798,000 which funded 31 hours of service per day (this includes overlapping coverage), seven days a week. One van was on duty 24 hours a day and another provided overlap coverage 7 hours per day.

Over the last several years, the City has increased funding to add more hours of service. The Fiscal Year 2020 (July 2019 to June 2020) budget included an additional $281,000 on a one-time basis to add 11 additional hours of coverage to the existing CAHOOTS contract. CAHOOTS was able to add 5 of the 11 hours of service to bridge an afternoon gap to maintain two-van coverage. The City carried over the funding for the 5-hour expansion through Fiscal Year 2021 (July 2020 to June 2021).

Thu, 2022-01-27 14:58

#58

Pondering

This is not defunding or abolishing police. It is reforming policing.

The City funds CAHOOTS through the Eugene Police Department. In Fiscal Year 2018 (July 2017 to June 2018) the contract budget for the CAHOOTS program was approximately $798,000 which funded 31 hours of service per day (this includes overlapping coverage), seven days a week. One van was on duty 24 hours a day and another provided overlap coverage 7 hours per day.

It doesn't sound like they ride along on 911 calls which is what we need to reduce police violence against the vulnerable. The unit described doesn't respond to incidents that involve violence.

<p>CAHOOTS provides support for EPD personnel by taking on many of the social service type calls for service to include crisis counseling. CAHOOTS personnel often provide initial contact and transport for people who are intoxicated, mentally ill, or disoriented, as well as transport for necessary non-emergency medical care. </p>

Montreal has a similar pilot project.

https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/city-hopes-team-of-social-wo...
Plante said the Mobile Mediation and Social Intervention Team will be a civilian service designed to respond quickly to crises or distress situations involving vulnerable people in public areas. She defined vulnerable people as those experiencing mental health problems, addiction issues, homelessness or a combination of these. The team will also be called in to mediate in “cohabitation” conflicts between small business owners and vulnerable populations, she said.

The team’s mandate is to try to resolve problems linked to how public space is being occupied and also to help people who are in need or in crisis in public areas, such as parks or alleyways. The team will refer those in need and even accompany them to community organizations or health-care institutions, such as hospitals, if necessary.

Plante said Montreal police currently do an “excellent” job on the ground in most of these situations. But she acknowledged that SPVM officers do not get the kind of specialized training that social workers do to mediate skilfully in these situations. The vast majority of 911 calls to police have to do with these kinds of situations, she said.

The team of five workers, plus a co-ordinator, will be employees of a non-profit organization called the Société de développement social (SDS), which specializes in this kind of intervention and mediation. The organization is currently involved in a similar pilot project with the Société de Transport de Montreal (STM) and the SPVM, in which SDS counsellors help police and métro workers resolve conflicts involving vulnerable people in the subway system.

The $160,000 pilot project will run from Sept. 1 to the end of December in the territory served by police Station 21 in the Ville-Marie borough. For the purposes of the pilot project, members of the team will be available 15 hours a day — between 9 a.m. and midnight — seven days a week.

“Our long-term vision is to make this a municipal service, with a team that is accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week, serving all of Montreal,” Plante said. “It could intervene in places like Cabot Square, Milton Park, Émilie Gamelin Park, wherever there is significant need linked to homelessness, and I am also thinking of places such as the northeast of the island, where there is a crying need for street intervention among the youth.”

Asked whether the project should be seen as a response to the “defund the police” movement, SDS executive director François Raymond said it is more about “refunding the social aspects of police work.”

While the new civilian team will work in close collaboration with the SPVM’s Station 21, they will also work independently. They might be called to intervene in a situation before it gets to the point where police intervention is required, he said.

“It can be two vulnerable people who are starting to have a fight. … It can be a small business that has a problem with loitering or aggressive behaviour and instead of going into a confrontational situation, it’s better to have a counsellor go there and listen to everybody and start a mediation process to de-escalate toward a peaceful resolution.”

Montreal only has a pilot project but I have no doubt it will be continued and is popular with voters. However, no defunding of police occurred.

I hope they will go on potentially violent ride-alongs but there is not indication of it.

Thu, 2022-01-27 15:10

#59

Pondering

Toronto is also doing something similar which sounds great but it seems the problems are being caused in large part by lack of mental health and addiction services.

https://globalnews.ca/news/7615131/toronto-council-approves-community-cr...

“Underinvestment in mental health treatment over several decades has meant that more people with mental illness are not receiving the supports they need and are falling into distress, resulting in increased interactions with police, who have essentially become default first responders of the mental health-care system for those experiencing crisis,” staff wrote, noting there has been a 32.4 per cent increase in crisis calls over the past five years.

“However, using law enforcement to address health issues creates service barriers and risks for many Torontonians, particularly Indigenous, Black, and equity-deserving communities. Systemic discrimination in Toronto has negatively impacted how these communities experience community safety.”

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health has also been advocating for improved crisis care options instead of police services being the lead responders.

So again I don't see this making much of a difference. The goal is to off load non violent 911 calls so police can do other stuff.

The job of the crisis team is to try to diffuse the situation without burdening the system because there aren't enough mental health and addiction services.

Not a penny will leave the police department budget.

Thu, 2022-01-27 15:31

#60

Pondering

epaulo, I strongly support the expansion of addiction and mental health services and reallocating police budgets to support crisis management teams.

What is coming across to you as opposition is cynicism. What's going on in Toronto and Montreal began long before the defund police slogan.

The goal is not to better serve the public. The goal is to save money. It's cheaper to have non-police respond to addiction and mental health issues. Solutions for the homeless, addicted and mentally ill remain temporary.

The homeless are not all going to get apartments or tiny homes. No one I know if is arguing for the kind of housing that could solve the problem.

We need federally owned rooming houses with controlled rent and services like a cafeteria and health care staff working in the building every day.

So the left is all happy and excited over these diversions from police to social workers but the whole thing is just to save money. This is in lieu of addiction and mental health care services and housing for the homeless.

Thu, 2022-01-27 16:18

#61

epaulo13

..for anyone who is unable to listen to the cbc podcast...

..jones rejects the notion of the likes of cahoots which is contained within the police budget. she says it doesn't make sense to have police led health units when we can have civilian ones. she likens it to prison health staff who participate in cover ups. part of this she says is looking at what works.

..and jones says more on this subject than i have just posted. i looked for a transcript but did not find one. so i recommend finding a way to listen.

Thu, 2022-01-27 17:17

#62

Pondering

I read one suggestion that holds a lot of promise. Taking 911 services away from police. They don't do ambulance or fire. Add an emergency health care unit. Let trained dispatchers decide which emergency services to dispatch, police being just one of them.

In another post someone mentioned investigative services. I didn't think that should be removed from police but on second thought perhaps it should be. If you are robbed but the suspect is no longer there it isn't an emergency. A beat cop shows up 2 hours later and takes notes. You don't need a gun to do that.

Thu, 2022-01-27 17:25

#63

Pondering

Thank you. I am too impatient to listen to podcasts. My mind always wanders off. I have mutiple youtube windows open and regularly switch to a different topic. Political, then painting, then a matriarchal society in China followed by some dance videos and back to politics. Focus is not my strong suit.

Thu, 2022-01-27 17:53

#64

Paladin1

This is American but here is a good example of a good police officer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N907XuA18sA

Watchign this video you'll see the male officer (who assaulted the female officer) recieves special treatment. This double standard happens in Canada too. This is what time and effort should be put into addressing.

Thu, 2022-01-27 18:25

#65

kropotkin1951

Unlike the majority of Canadians I live under RCMP rule. In BC they police our municipalities except for some of the larger cities. There is nearly zero civilian oversight of the RCMP in those communities. The federal parliament has limited control over the force, primarily appointing its head. The oversight committee is national and has no authority to tell the RCMP to cease an action without going through a process that the RCMP delays. The classic case is the blocking of roads around Rexton being deemed illegal but the same practice continuing around indigenous protest sites in BC because they are the subject of a different complaint, yada yada go to jail.

The RCMP also enforces the ongoing theft of indigenous unceded territories prior to treaties being signed. In that role they meet with and coordinate their actions with corporations who have gotten injunctions from a court. They then deploy what ever level of armed response to protests that they deem fit. The provincial government okays the broad scope of RCMP operations including authorizing additional budgets for flying squads of para-miltary units to take down indigenous land defenders.

In October 2013 the RCMP attacked unarmed protestors and blockaded the people of Kent County from accessing parts of their community. They complained and in 2019 an interim report damned specific aspects of the RCMP's conduct. The final report is below.

https://www.crcc-ccetp.gc.ca/en/FACR-anti-shale-Gas-Protests-Kent-County...

In the meantime the RCMP continues to act like they were still the NWMP.

"The show of force against unarmed activists and members of the media drew a flurry of condemnation from civil liberties organizations and calls for the Mounties to withdraw. Over the last year, multiple independent reports have found the federal police to be serial violators of civil liberties and basic human rights.

The Civilian Review and Complaints Commission (CRCC) concluded stop checks, roadblocks, exclusion zones and indiscriminate retention of open-source intelligence were unconstitutional or illegal when the RCMP used these tactics during Mi’kmaw-led anti-fracking protests near Rexton, N.B., in 2013.

The watchdog agency also found Mounties racially discriminated against Colten Boushie’s mother when notifying her of her son’s killing in 2016.

The most scathing rebuke was delivered by a former top court judge who found the internal culture of the RCMP is toxic, entrenched with racism, and “tolerates misogyny and homophobia at all ranks.”

Given these “very thorough critiques,” Monaghan isn’t confident the RCMP leadership can be trusted to tackle these issues. He says someone else must step in.

“The approach when we have an organization that is so impervious to outside democratic control is to try to break up that organization and to try and siphon off different responsibilities to other social service providers,” he says.

To that end, in a June 2021 report an all-party House of Commons committee urged Parliament to demilitarize the Mounties, phase out contract policing and help provinces and territories establish their own forces.

RCMP reform was in the throne speech and the election platform that saw Prime Minister Justin Trudeau win his third mandate, but Monaghan doesn’t believe the Liberals have the political will to deliver.

“This is a big institution with a lot of political power,” he says of the RCMP. “There is a hesitancy among politicians to take on the entrenched powers of police and police unions.”

It’s a sentiment that Pam Palmater, a Mi’kmaw lawyer and professor from Eel River Bar First Nation, tells N2N she agrees with.

“There is no saving the RCMP,” she says. “Canada is facing a real situation. Either they fix it from the outside or they get rid of it altogether. As you can see, they are the primary crux of the problem when it comes to Indigenous land defence, water defence or even advocating for our human rights.”

I would like some ideas as to what we should call this style of policing? Is it totalitarian Soviet policing or democratic American style policing?

Thu, 2022-01-27 19:33

#66

epaulo13

..and the elephant in the room. police are just tools of a neoliberal country. which is totally distructive to it's population. no reform can alter this because it comes from the governments ideology and policies itself.

..so we need to find ways of taking that tool away. just like we have to find ways of dealing with climate in spite of the gov neoliberal ideology.

..the brilliance of defunding/abolition is that we can transfer much of the police responsibilities and it's related budget..which is enormous..to civilian services. which totally improves the lives of everyone in that community in so many ways. including security.

Thu, 2022-01-27 19:39

#67

epaulo13

..not to mention the abolition of prisons and the culture of punishment. definitely and advancement for civilisation and humanity.

Thu, 2022-01-27 21:09

#68

epaulo13

..this is meant for population control not terrorists. the halifax mayor cancelled this. because of the defunding debate.

Canada's militarized police forces face defunding and 'de-tasking,' experts say

As a statement of police power, the armoured rescue vehicle that Halifax Regional Police had planned to buy for more than $300,000 spoke volumes about the militarization of law enforcement agencies in Canada.....

The Montreal Police department's new armoured vehicle is shown at a press launch in Montreal, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2013. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes)

Thu, 2022-01-27 21:12

#69

epaulo13

"(The vehicle) obviously had become a symbol in the community that really made us have a second look at it and say, 'Is this something important to us right now?"' Mayor Mike Savage said.

Fri, 2022-01-28 07:48

(Reply to #69) #70

Left Turn

epaulo13 wrote:

..not to mention the abolition of prisons and the culture of punishment. definitely and advancement for civilisation and humanity.

Yeah, I don't support allowing murderers to continue to roam free on our streets.

A couple of days a go there was a stabbing indicent at the Harbour Centre Tim Horton's in downtown Vancouver. The suspect has been identified an arrested. I absolutely support the arrest of this person; I hope he is convicted and sentenced to time away from society.

Now, the time he spends away from society should be used to rehabilitate him so that he will no longer be a threat when he eventually re-enters society, and our justice system generally doesn't do a good enough job of that. But I cannot support the idea of allowing this person to continue to roam free and be a threat to the safety of others.

Fri, 2022-01-28 08:23

#71

epaulo13

Yeah, I don't support allowing murderers to continue to roam free on our streets.

..to suggest that this is what is meant by abolition is ridiculous. extreme even.

Fri, 2022-01-28 08:24

#72

Pondering

I would like some ideas as to what we should call this style of policing? Is it totalitarian Soviet policing or democratic American style policing?

I don't think it is either. I think it is our own traditional colonial mountie style policing with the goal of protecting and amassing wealth for the wealthy.

Fri, 2022-01-28 09:13

#73

epaulo13

Why Arguments Against Abolition Inevitably Fail

Movements against racist police violence and against entrenched racial injustices in this country’s jails and prisons can claim a history that is almost as old as the institutions themselves. Precisely because opposition and protests calling for reform have played such a central role in shaping structures of policing and punishment, the notion of reform has superseded other paths toward change. Ironically, many efforts to change these repressive structures — to reform them — have instead provided the glue that has guaranteed their continued presence and acceptance.

Both policing and punishment are firmly rooted in racism — attempts to control indigenous, Black, and Latino populations following colonization and slavery as well as Asian populations after the Chinese Exclusion Act and the World War II incarceration of Japanese Americans. Attempting to undo the harm of policing and prisons without attending to these immense embodiments of systemic racism is doomed to failure. The 20th-century militarization of the police has been further intensified by Islamophobia. More generally, the evolution and expansion of the police and the prisons are constant reminders that capitalism has always fundamentally relied on racism to sustain itself.

The insight that racism is essentially systemic and structural rather than individual and attitudinal — one repeatedly asserted by health care advocates and anti-police and anti-prison activists over many decades — finally entered mainstream discourse in 2020 under the pressure of Covid-19 and its disproportionate impact on Black and Brown communities. Its most popular expression in the slogan “Defund the Police” was disseminated during the mass mobilizations protesting the police lynching of George Floyd. For those who recognize the deeply conservative repercussions of equating “reform” with change, the call to defund the police manifested an abolitionist impulse to eschew the usual calls for punishing individual police officers and instituting some form of civilian overview of the department. Instead of habitual and perfunctory calls for “reform,” organizers began to think more deeply about pathways toward more radical change — in other words, change that would begin to respond to some of the root causes of why poor communities, and especially communities of color, are particularly vulnerable to the criminal legal system.

But for others, it had a jarring effect, conjuring up images of chaotic, crime-ridden (Black and Brown) communities, with no force in place to guarantee order. Some people, who live in so-called high crime neighborhoods, where they are preyed upon not only by the police but also by armed individuals and groups from their own communities and for whom the demand to defund the police was their first introduction to abolitionist ideas, were understandably bewildered. How would they survive at the mercy of malevolent groups who hardly care about the trajectory of stray bullets that have taken the lives of children and other bystanders? Their fears are real and not to be dismissed. But this is absolutely the moment to engage in the kind of educational activism that might help to encourage all of us, especially those of us who live in the most vulnerable neighborhoods, to purposefully rethink the meaning of safety and security.

quote:

Security is not possible as long as the physical, mental, and spiritual health of our communities is ignored. Armed human beings, officially trained in efficient methods of administering death and violence, should not be dispatched in response to a Black woman experiencing an episode related to a psychiatric disability. She may not only not receive help, but her behavior may well be used as a pretext to kill her. Safety and security require education, housing, jobs, art, music, and recreation. If the funds currently directed toward these institutions — police departments, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), jails, prisons, and immigrant detention facilities — were rerouted toward the public good, the need and justification for steadily expanding institutions of state violence would certainly decline. Abolitionist approaches ask us to enlarge our field of vision so that rather than focusing myopically on the problematic institution and asking what needs to be changed about that institution, we raise radical questions about the organization of the larger society.....

Fri, 2022-01-28 10:08

(Reply to #73) #74

Pondering

epaulo13 wrote:

Yeah, I don't support allowing murderers to continue to roam free on our streets.

..to suggest that this is what is meant by abolition is ridiculous. extreme even.

Abolish means get rid of entirely. No more police. It is ridiculous, extreme even, to think the word means anything else to regular people.

This is what I mean by the left's inability to communicate effectively with ordinary people that don't obsess about politics. Most people use dictionary meanings not activist jargon.

If you say you are against capitalism that means you are opposed to:
"an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state."

In another thread you specified aspects of capitalism but once people interpret you as an extremist you are dismissed. People will say they don't want to talk politics. People react to political extremism the same way they do to evangelicals.

If someone is known to be anti-vax anti-covid restrictions etc. few will listen to their arguments or have a discussion with them. The very same arguments for lifting restrictions coming from someone who has generally accepted that measures had to be taken will be taken seriously and considered.

Abolition is getting rid of police entirely. It is ridiculous and extreme so when you say it people think you are being ridiculous and extreme. From then on nothing you say is taken seriously. What is going through their head while you are talking is that you are trying to sell them on a stupid idea.

Put yourself in that same situation. Say someone trying to convert you to their religion.

My father was an atheist. He considered believing in God no different than believing in Santa Claus. One afternoon he must have been bored because he let a Jehovah Witness in the house. He just wanted to toy with him intellectually because he knew the histories of religions. So that's one reaction you could get. As you speak the listener is formulating counter arguments in their head not considering your argument.

Most people just close the door or not answer it. If it is someone you come into contact with regularly, like a family member, they will tell you they don't want to discuss it.

Jehovah Witness comes to the door, I'm not listening.
Someone who is racist. I'm not listening.
Someone who thinks climate change is exagerated. I'm not listening.
Someone who is anti-vax. Not listening.

When you presented the information on Cahoots I was inattentive and assumed you were presenting it as a success story for defunding police. Abolition, getting rid of police entirely, is ridiculous and extreme. There isn't a chance in hell I would support that so I am listening with an automatic bias against whatever argument you are presenting because I have already firmly decided abolishing police would be ridiculous and extreme.

Fri, 2022-01-28 11:47

#75

epaulo13

..what is indisputable is that the police are the tools of the powers that be. this goes back, as angela davis points out in #73, to colonisation and slavery. the forerunner to the rcmp, the north west mounted police, was created to suppress indigenous uprising and remove them from their territories. we know this. it is our history. and we know that it continues to be the case today.

..and in the here and now the police, the criminal justice system, prisons serves to both maintain and serve the interests of the neoliberal powers that be. any benefit to the population that derives from this institutional control is purely incidental. and they will not be reformed because their primary purpose is to maintain the status quo.

..the important questions, the very core..that comes from the rise of defund/abolition..is what can we replace these forces of oppression with?

..and that is an extension/part of the broader question..what do we replace neoliberalism with? in light of our understanding that we can not reform neoliberalism.

Fri, 2022-01-28 11:54

#76

epaulo13

..angela davis

quote:

Abolitionist approaches ask us to enlarge our field of vision so that rather than focusing myopically on the problematic institution and asking what needs to be changed about that institution, we raise radical questions about the organization of the larger society.

Fri, 2022-01-28 14:33

(Reply to #76) #77

Michael Moriarity

epaulo13 wrote:

..what is indisputable is that the police are the tools of the powers that be. this goes back, as angela davis points out in #73, to colonisation and slavery. the forerunner to the rcmp, the north west mounted police, was created to suppress indigenous uprising and remove them from their territories. we know this. it is our history. and we know that it continues to be the case today.

..and in the here and now the police, the criminal justice system, prisons serves to both maintain and serve the interests of the neoliberal powers that be. any benefit to the population that derives from this institutional control is purely incidental. and they will not be reformed because their primary purpose is to maintain the status quo.

..the important questions, the very core..that comes from the rise of defund/abolition..is what can we replace these forces of oppression with?

..and that is an extension/part of the broader question..what do we replace neoliberalism with? in light of our understanding that we can not reform neoliberalism.

Correct on every point, and very well said. Thanks epaulo13.

Fri, 2022-01-28 16:50

#78

epaulo13

..txs for that mm.

Fri, 2022-01-28 18:18

#79

Pondering

Very eloquent and appropriate for discussions amongst intellectual activists. Completely useless for convincing the general public whose support is needed.

The right tailors their messages to whomever they are addressing. They never ever promote neoliberalism. They promote freedom and the right to work and god and country. If they promoted neoliberalism they would lose.

Someone here will know the name. A philosopher, German, whose name starts with an S that argued leaders have to lie. Bonus clue, people like Rumsfeld are fans. They will never say"we had to lie for your own good". They will say they had to lie to deceive the enemies otherwise they would totally tell the truth. Except now when they are confronted with lies they just keep insisting it's the truth.

It's easy to fool people who want to believe. I think that is at the core of every successful con. That and preying on fear or greed.

The left keeps trying to appeal to morals and altruism. Fear, greed and desire are all more powerful. We keep expecting to be successful because we are right. Why won't everyone just see that?

Take the topic of immigration. The left focus is on our guilt for causing people to have to immigrate in the first place, or the cruelty of sending people back to hellhole countries. Perhaps reminders of the ship of Jewish people turned away.

One messaging about immigrants intended to promote immigration does the exact opposite. It claims that immigrant children are better educated and more successful than the average child. Someone who fears immigration is going to think "immigrants will end up bossing my kids around in our own country". They will be competing for places in university.

I think the messaging is intended to counter the notion tha immigrants suck up social resources like low-income housing and health care they didn't contribue to paying for. Whether or not that is the goal the messaging is terrible. It completely misunderstands the opposition to immigration which is rooted in opposition to change and fear of losing majority status. Those are not issues you can really change people's minds on. What they need are cold hard facts.

Migrants are staffing all our care facilities and farms.

Our population is aging. We need people paying taxes to support social services or they will collapse.

In Quebec without immigration we will be a forever shrinking percentage of Canadians reducing our power. Our social services won't be sustainable. Our economy will shrink. Attracting business to Quebec requires workers.

No change is not an option. We either pick an ever declining population along with shrinking social services due to lack of workers or we accept immigration.

That frames immigrants in an entirely different light. Covid highlighted the refugees caring for the sick and elderly so they are very open to the message that we need them. We aren't doing them a favor by letting them be here. We are beholden to them for looking after us and our elderly in our time of need.

There are legitimate debates to be had over how many and what kind of migrants we should accept. There are legitimate debates over who should respond to what kinds of emergency situations and proven reduction in crime through providing housing and social supports.

When you open up the conversation with "defund the police" or even worse "abolish police" non-activist types stop hearing you. Why defend words that undermine your goal? I totally understand using that kind of terminology amongst people participating in intellectual conversation as we sometimes do here. I don't understand addressing the general public with it when you know that it is misinterpreted.

Fri, 2022-01-28 18:48

(Reply to #79) #80

cco

Pondering wrote:

Someone here will know the name. A philosopher, German, whose name starts with an S that argued leaders have to lie. Bonus clue, people like Rumsfeld are fans. They will never say"we had to lie for your own good". They will say they had to lie to deceive the enemies otherwise they would totally tell the truth. Except now when they are confronted with lies they just keep insisting it's the truth.

You're thinking of Leo Strauss, though the inspiration for the idea goes back to Plato.

Fri, 2022-01-28 20:28

#81

Pondering

You're thinking of Leo Strauss, though the inspiration for the idea goes back to Plato

I knew one of you intellectual types would know it. I just didn't expect it so fast. lol I could make up a sort of activist trivial game describing vague stuff I'm sure I read somewhere.

Fri, 2022-01-28 20:29

#82

epaulo13

Abolition Is Public Health

In October, well into the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, public health workers across the U.S. were gathered virtually on computer screens spread throughout the country to attend the annual meeting of our professional organization. We sat awaiting the start of a session that would culminate in a series of votes where representatives from various internal divisions would decide on behalf of our organization to adopt or reject a set of newly proposed policy statements.

Several of us in the virtual audience had worked on and submitted one of these statements, titled “Advancing Public Health Interventions to Address the Harms of the Carceral System.” The statement reviewed research on the health consequences of incarceration and the health-promoting alternatives to incarceration — ultimately proposing a range of policies that would decrease reliance on the criminal legal system and move towards an abolitionist future, centering the public’s health and wellbeing. We had spent the months leading up to the vote engaging with the organization’s membership around the statement, discussing their concerns, incorporating their feedback, and addressing misconceptions.

quote:

This was the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association, the largest public health professional organization in the United States. One of its central goals is to advance health-promoting public policies in the U.S. through advocacy, lobbying, public testimony, and letters to Congress. At its annual meeting, APHA adopts evidence-based policy statements that are meant to guide APHA’s policy agenda. Although the first speaker was the only dissenting opinion during the Governing Council’s vote, their words echoed other feedback we heard from within APHA before the vote. Public health, along with most of society, has often ignored or marginalized abolitionist ideas — despite their salience to the field’s mission — seemingly out of fears rooted in misunderstanding or a commitment to the status quo.

As co-authors of the APHA policy statement on carceral systems, we see abolition as central to public health policy and practice. Many of us were also co-authors of APHA’s 2018 policy statement, “Addressing Law Enforcement Violence as a Public Health Issue,” which grew from a graduate student project at San Francisco State University in 2015. Inspired by the uprisings in Ferguson to mourn, commemorate, and demand justice after the murder of Michael Brown, and the call from organizers for all sectors to leverage their power toward abolition, the statement’s original authors brought an ongoing discussion about police violence, anti-racism, class consciousness, and abolition to a mainstream public health space.

quote:

Ultimately, the policy statement was adopted by the American Public Health Association at the 2021 conference with majority support from Governing Council members (86% to 14%).

Through the permanent passage of the statement, APHA calls for measures to be taken by public health and other decision-making bodies across the U.S., including: “mov[ing] towards the abolition of carceral systems and build[ing] in their stead just and equitable structures that advance the public’s health.” APHA recommends, among other things: (1) decarceration; (2) divesting from carceral systems and investing in the social determinants of health, including housing, employment and other resources to support health; (3) committing to non-carceral measures for accountability, safety, and well-being that are aligned with survivors’ justice goals, such as transformative and restorative justice; and (4) decriminalization. The statement argues these public health solutions are long overdue measures needed to address the longstanding, widespread health harms of carceral systems on individuals, families, and communities....

Fri, 2022-01-28 20:35

#83

epaulo13

Advancing Public Health Interventions to Address the Harms of the Carceral System

This version of the statement was formally adopted by the American Public Health Association (APHA) at their annual conference in Denver, CO on October 26, 2021 with majority support from Governing Council members (86% to 14%).

ENDORSEMENTS

Organizations within APHA Endorsing:

LGBTQ Health Caucus; International Health Section; Occupational Health Section; Mental Health Section; Medical Care Section; Latino Caucus; Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drugs Section; Oral Health Section; Black Caucus of Health Workers; Justice and Incarcerated Health

Organizations Outside of APHA Endorsing:

Aging People in Prison Human Rights Campaign, California Coalition for Women Prisoners, Drug Policy Alliance, Do No Harm Coalition, FreeThemAllWA, Psychologists for Social Responsibility, Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice (CURYJ), Jewish Voice for Peace Bay Area, Movement for Family Power, Justice Teams Network, Anti Police-Terror Project, Deeper Than Water, Human Impact Partners, Public Health Awakened - Los Angeles Chapter, Public Health Awakened - Michigan Chapter, A New Path (Parents for Addiction Treatment & Healing), South Asian Public Health Association, Public Health Justice Collective, Collaborative for Health Justice-UIC School of Public Health, Health and Medicine Policy Research Group, Radical Public Health at UIC School of Public Health, Coalition on Homelessness San Francisco, Gray Panthers of San Francisco, White Coats for Black Lives UCSF, The Praxis Project, Collaborative for Health Equity Cook County

Fri, 2022-01-28 20:45

#84

Pondering

India Walton's message is that the language activists use amongst themselves is not the language they should use when addressing the public. "Abolition" is fine when professionals activists and students are addressing these topics.

If you have to begin by explaining your terminology doesn't mean what they think it means you have lost your audience. Why not just use language that people will interpret correctly?

Sat, 2022-01-29 07:02

(Reply to #84) #85

Left Turn

epaulo13 wrote:

..what is indisputable is that the police are the tools of the powers that be. this goes back, as angela davis points out in #73, to colonisation and slavery. the forerunner to the rcmp, the north west mounted police, was created to suppress indigenous uprising and remove them from their territories. we know this. it is our history. and we know that it continues to be the case today.

..and in the here and now the police, the criminal justice system, prisons serves to both maintain and serve the interests of the neoliberal powers that be. any benefit to the population that derives from this institutional control is purely incidental. and they will not be reformed because their primary purpose is to maintain the status quo.

..the important questions, the very core..that comes from the rise of defund/abolition..is what can we replace these forces of oppression with?

I'm in favor of replacing the RCMP with municipal police forces that cannot be commandeered the the Canadian and provincial governments in support of colonialism.

However, I reject the idea that police cannot be reformed. I admit that it won't be easy to accomplish, becuase there are powerful forces that want to prevent police from being refromed, but it is possible.

I also firmly reject the idea that taking murderers off of our streets is of no benefit to society. If every living murderer were allowed to continue to go about their daily business without having been rehabilitated first, our society would be a much more dangerous place.

And no, I don't believe that it's acceptable to allow murderers and other violent criminals to continue to go about their daily business while we try to rehabilitate them through social services. Because while we're going about that, these violent criminals would be able to strike again.

On top of that, while I do believe we should reform the criminal code to reduce the number of arrestable offenses, I also believe that once someone commits a violent crime, the waive any right they may have to not be arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to time away from society while they are rehabilitated.

I also don't believe that there's any level of changes to society that could be made that would reduce violent crime to zero, so that argument won't work on me either.

Sat, 2022-01-29 09:39

#86

JKR

I totally agree.

Sat, 2022-01-29 10:18

#87

Pondering

Ditto

Sat, 2022-01-29 10:27

#88

epaulo13

I also firmly reject the idea that taking murderers off of our streets is of no benefit to society. If every living murderer were allowed to continue to go about their daily business without having been rehabilitated first, our society would be a much more dangerous place.

..no one said this.

I also don't believe that there's any level of changes to society that could be made that would reduce violent crime to zero, so that argument won't work on me either.

..or this

And no, I don't believe that it's acceptable to allow murderers and other violent criminals to continue to go about their daily business while we try to rehabilitate them through social services. Because while we're going about that, these violent criminals would be able to strike again.

..nor this.

..the rest well fine. i never expected that everyone would agree.

..i have a different point of view from yours left turn. what i have posted so far though shows numbers of people working to alter those present entities. and some of the progress made even surprised me and continues to do so as i dig further into the subject.

..reasons behind the support for defund/abolition is also a reality that should be respected. the harm being done through these entities is horrendous at the very least with no sign of abating. not even a little bit.

..so fear mongering about murderers wandering the streets is not the approach i would take to respect those reasons. after all as we know the police cause the death of people of colour, indigenous folks and activists on a regular basis and then freely walk the streets..without fear being held accountable.

..while prisons are over represented..full of..the poor, the mentally ill, indigenous and black folk. not murderers. not ceos' or corrupt politicians nor members of the police force that have caused deaths. so i would recommend a respectful approach to abolition as well.

Sat, 2022-01-29 11:23

#89

epaulo13

..and let me add..with the destruction of the environment, to which no corporation has been held responsibe for, will only cause more scarcity. uprising from below. the militarisation of the police is no accident. so while it's fine to say the police can be reformed it's not enough to make it believable.

Sat, 2022-01-29 12:18

#90

epaulo13

..interesting connection

Abolish long-term care

quote:

Drawing on the work of prison abolitionists and deinstitutionalization movements, on January 20, 2022, the Disability Justice Network of Ontario launched its campaign to abolish long-term care. DJNO is demanding the deinstitutionalization of the nearly 200,000 disabled people, including 230 children, living in long-term care and the closure of all institutions with records of harm and violence. Instead of nationalizing institutionalization, DJNO is calling for the nationalization of home care, palliative care, pharmacare, and accessible and affordable housing, which would provide elderly and disabled people options outside of institutionalization.

Sun, 2022-01-30 08:30

#91

epaulo13

..check out some of the links for more detail.

When is the time to talk about defunding?

The City of Winnipeg is running a highly biased public survey and consultation process about the police budget that provides no options for long-term defunding. The community has shown up – as always – to demand a better vision for Winnipeg, with hundreds of people filling our alternative Healthy Communities Survey.

But once again, we’re being told that now is not the time to talk about defunding. In fact, Winnipeg Police Board chair Markus Chambers went as far as to say at the beginning of the process that “it’s not to talk about policing per se.” When one of our members attended the first city-run online session and consistently called out the lack of defunding options, they were chastised as not “civil.” Yet Chambers has also claimed that:

If people want to talk about cuts, that's on the table.

As the City of Winnipeg continuously repudiates budget cut options, we’re forced to ask: when is the time to talk about defunding the police? Where is the table to talk about cuts?

Was it when thousands of Winnipeggers gathered outside the Manitoba Legislature, City Hall, and Winnipeg Police headquarters in the summer of 2020 for rallies organized by Justice 4 Black Lives Winnipeg against police violence? Was it during the relentless rallying and campaigning by Eishia Hudson’s family for justice after she was murdered by police? Was it after over 100,000 people signed an online petition whose very first demand was “defunding/abolishing the Winnipeg Police Service”?

How about when dozens of people showed up at city council and committee meetings to courageously speak against budget proposals that awarded millions more to police? Or emailed and phoned their councillors with a message of defunding? Or when 36 percent of Winnipeggers polled by Angus Reid said that the city spends too much on the police? What about when communities organized pressured Winnipeg School Division – the largest school division in the province – to cut its school resource officer program?

All of these were powerful instances of the community calling for defunding. Yet all of them have been ignored when it comes to the City’s budget. This year, the Winnipeg Police Service is set to spend the most money in its history by far: $320 million, or over 26% of the City budget. Not only is the City refusing to listen to calls for defunding – they continue to go in the very opposite direction, increasing the police budget at a rate far higher than any other city department.....

Sun, 2022-01-30 08:32

#92

Pondering

All of these were powerful instances of the community calling for defunding. Yet all of them have been ignored when it comes to the City’s budget. This year, the Winnipeg Police Service is set to spend the most money in its history by far: $320 million, or over 26% of the City budget. Not only is the City refusing to listen to calls for defunding – they continue to go in the very opposite direction, increasing the police budget at a rate far higher than any other city department.....

So a complete failure of the defund movement (so far).

Sun, 2022-01-30 08:45

#93

epaulo13

Join us for one hour on Thursday, February 3 at noon or at 7 p.m. EST to tell Toronto councillors to defund and re-task the Toronto Police Service. Together we will email and call the Executive Committee and councillors to tell them to vote against any budget increase for the police and invest in affordable housing and community services that will directly assist and respond to the needs of Black, Indigenous and racialized neighbours.

Sun, 2022-01-30 15:24

#94

epaulo13

Kristin Richardson Jordan (KRJ) NY City Council 9

NYPD is still the biggest gang in New York City

Kristin Richardson Jordan, an activist, writer and socialist

..jordan was recently elected representing harlem. part of her platform was defund the police.

Mon, 2022-01-31 14:13

#95

epaulo13

..in 2020 a motion to defund the police went before van city council. it was adopted unanimously. it was a hot issue at the time with the black lives matter protest explosions expanded into canada. i acknowledge some on the council voted in order to look progressive. not because that's what they believed in.

..this showed up when the council requested a very modest 1% cut in the police budget. but here is where it gets really interesting.

..turns out the city doesn't have the authority over the van police. the police board does. and the mayor is only 1 member of that board. how politically protected is that!

..here's the current board makeup

POLICE BOARD MEMBERS

Mayor Kennedy Stewart, Chair and Board Spokesperson
Faye Wightman, Board Vice-Chair
Patricia Barnes, Member
Allan E. Black, Q.C., Member
Frank Chong, Member
Wendy John, Member
Merrilee Robson, Member
Rachel Roy, Member

Under British Columbia’s Police Act, the Board consists of the Mayor as Chair; one person appointed by the municipal council; and up to seven people appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council.

..so vancouver has no or very little control over the police budget. that authority belongs to the province. with this established i will continue my point in the next post.

Mon, 2022-01-31 14:02

#96

epaulo13

..this from mar/21

Vancouver police budget fight going to B.C. government for review

The battle over the Vancouver Police Department's 2021 budget is being escalated to the provincial government.

The Vancouver Police Board announced Tuesday that members had unanimously decided to apply for a budget review from B.C.'s director of policing, describing the approximately $340 million budget approved by city council last year as a "$5.7 million cut."

"This decision was made without any analysis or risk assessment regarding public safety impacts," vice-chair Barj Dhahan said in a statement. "It appears the VPD is the only municipal police department in British Columbia to have been subject to a budget cut for 2021."

quote:

But the board insists the budget will force Vancouver police to delay hiring replacements as members quit or retire, and doesn't factor in "contractual legal obligations for collective agreement provisions, or inflationary increases." Dhahan suggested it will have be a negative impact on public safety and officers' well-being.

quote:

In a statement, Mayor Kennedy Stewart noted that the economic realities of the COVID-19 crisis has already forced the city to lay off 1,800 staff and defer $250 million in capitol projects. Councillors have also taken a 10 per cent pay cut.

"Council was forced to grapple with $13 million in increased costs due to the pandemic, while losing $85 million in revenues," Stewart said. "Council decided to hold the 2021 police budget steady, while at the same time boosting funding for community policing centres to $300,000 to enhance public safety."

He noted that the police department's budget has ballooned by 70 per cent over the last decade, and currently makes up one-fifth of Vancouver's entire operating budget.

Mon, 2022-01-31 14:21

#97

epaulo13

..as yet i have heard nothing from the ndp government. i expect little from them as they are dependent on the police for the implementation of its policies re gas and oil. it's a mutual dependency. a win win collaboration. whether or not there is a difference between van police or the rcmp is irrelevant. as the cost of the subsidies to gas and oil..which includes site c dam..are enormous and will surly cause the need for more austerity in the near future. and the need for the van police to repress the uprising this will cause.

Tue, 2022-02-01 08:56

(Reply to #97) #98

Left Turn

epaulo13 wrote:

..in 2020 a motion to defund the police went before van city council. it was adopted unanimously. it was a hot issue at the time with the black lives matter protest explosions expanded into canada. i acknowledge some on the council voted in order to look progressive. not because that's what they believed in.

..this showed up when the council requested a very modest 1% cut in the police budget. but here is where it gets really interesting.

..turns out the city doesn't have the authority over the van police. the police board does. and the mayor is only 1 member of that board. how politically protected is that!

Vancouver City Council may have voted in favor of a 1% cut to the police budget in 2020. And yet in the vote on the 2022 budget in December 2021, a majority of city councillors plus Mayor Kennedy Stewart voted in favor of a major increase to the police budget.

Mayor Stewart has been leaning to the right on many issues in recent months, as there are four declared right-wing mayoral candidates in the 2022 Vancouver municipal election, but zero declared mayoral candidates to Sterwart's left.

Tue, 2022-02-01 09:30

#99

epaulo13

..so the police won. and the citizens get cuts. disgusting.

Tue, 2022-02-01 14:04

#100

epaulo13

..it seems vancouver isn't the only city seeing police increases. what is positive is the support for defunding.

..lots of important info in this post. much more that i'm posting.

Police see major budget increases despite majority support for defunding

Amid growing calls to defund the police and invest in community programs better suited to meeting people’s needs, police forces in Canada will see budget increases in 2022.

Major cities across the country have voted to increase police funding, revealing the hypocrisy and, as Robyn Maynard put it, the moral cowardice of political leaders who promised to “reckon” with police racism and violence following mass uprisings in the summer of 2020.

Canada’s 10 largest municipal and regional police forces will see budget increases in 2022, receiving an average of 3.7 per cent more than last year. Vancouver will post the largest increase at 7.9 per cent, while Edmonton’s police will see the smallest increase at 0.3 per cent. In dollars, Montreal and Toronto city councils have passed the largest increases, at $45 million and $25 million respectively.

Salaries are by far the largest police-related expense, amounting to 80-95 per cent of overall spending. In Vancouver, two-thirds of the increase is due to an arbitrated salary increase meant to equalize the earnings of police across British Columbia’s Lower Mainland. But salaries and other costs tend to rise each year without arbitration, meaning that a modest budget increase of around two or three per cent simply allows police to maintain existing operations. In cases where budgets increased more than that, the extra money was mostly devoted to hiring more personnel in various priority areas.

quote:

Defunding the police with an eye toward abolition, on the other hand, would curtail institutions’ capacities for violence and other destructive effects on oppressed communities.

The demand to defund the police also reflects a broader view of public safety. While police focus on punishing crime, they typically ignore or worsen various harms that deeply affect people’s safety.

Homelessness, for instance, is a form of harm that defund activists would like to address, whereas the policing of homelessness aggravates the situations people without housing find themselves in. Gender-based violence is a harm, too, and most advocates would like to see non-carceral measures to prevent it—along with material and psychological supports for survivors—rather than police responses to violence after the fact, accompanied by legal processes that often re-traumatizes survivors.

Meanwhile, drug use can be harmful because it is a crime. The current overdose crisis is a direct result of the war on drugs and the dangerous drug supply and conditions of use it creates.

Defunding the police means shifting resources toward non-police services and programs that address harms like these. In the words of Montreal activist Marlihan Lopez, “it’s about choosing an economy of care over an economy of punishment.”

Demands to reallocate 10-50 per cent of police funding to other services have been advanced in every major city.

In Ottawa, activists from the Ottawa Black Diaspora Coalition and other groups protested in front of police headquarters and blocked a highway on-ramp as the city’s police board held a virtual debate about funding. In Hamilton, Defund HPS organized to stop police actions against homeless encampments, arguing for an investment in housing rather than policing.

With virtual city council meetings making it difficult to protest in-person, people have contacted their representatives or submitted written briefs to call for defunding. The Vancouver-based Defund 604 Network developed a People’s Budget, consulting over 700 residents about their visions of a non-police future and used the result to press the city for change. Activists in Halifax won the city’s support to consult the population and develop a detailed plan to defund the police.

Sidelining dissent, supporting police

In the face of these actions and majority public support for defunding, the police and their allies in Canada’s major cities had to work harder for their customary budget increase this year. Using a familiar tactic, they stoked fear of crime.

In Montreal, the police, the police brotherhood, the media, and a range of politicians translated a small increase in certain gun crimes in 2021 into a sense the city was no longer safe. The city passed a $724 million police budget for 2022, despite majority public support for defunding, in order to hire 122 more police officers. Mayor Valérie Plante claimed the extra resources would allow police to be “even more proactive” in the fight against gun crime, despite research and community groups pointing to the far greater effectiveness of community crime prevention programs.....

Tue, 2022-02-01 14:09

#101

epaulo13

..more

quote:

Signs of positive change

Despite the budget increases, there were some positive developments in most cities. In a number of places, individual city councillors have allied themselves with activists and fought hard against budget increases. In Ottawa, Vancouver, and Calgary, the budgets requested by police or police boards were shot down by council in favour of smaller increases.

Given cost inflation, budget increases of less than three per cent will require police to trim their operations in some way. In Edmonton, Calgary, and Ottawa, small budget increases were accompanied by increased funding for community programs and alternative responses to 911 calls, a pairing that reflects the vision of the defund movement: a smaller role for police and a larger role for non-police workers in addressing public safety.

Some municipal leaders and even police chiefs appear to have learned to think about public safety in new ways. In Edmonton, a city-commissioned report found that 32 per cent of 911 calls had nothing to do with crime and could be diverted to non-police workers. Recognizing the implications, Mayor Amarjeet Sohi said he was committed to “reducing the need for policing” by investing in housing, social services, and other programs. In Ottawa, police chief Peter Sloly urged the city to develop an alternative response plan, where certain 911 calls would be diverted to a service that could address them “differently and ideally better.”

Meanwhile, Peel Regional Police Chief Nishan Duraiappah claimed he supported the defund movement in principle. The police, he explained, cannot be the solution to all safety issues and other actors are needed to “address the [safety] needs of the community.”

Defund the police

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