OPINION:
The death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police has spurred two weeks of protest marches and riots in about 150 American cities and around the world.
There are many sensible solutions to the problem demonstrated by Mr. Floyd’s death. There should be no tolerance of racism at any level of society, particularly in law enforcement where the impact of government is felt on a personal level. Smart reforms of police methods, including a ban on restraining procedures that choke a suspect, are called for.
But the few sensible political reactions to Mr. Floyd’s death are lost in a flood of “progressive” proposals that would make matters worse. The left’s favorite among those proposals is to defund or disband the police. A veto-proof majority of the Minneapolis city council has promised to disband the city’s police force entirely. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio wants to impose a major reduction in police force funding. Many other cities, including Los Angeles, Baltimore and Philadelphia, are reportedly considering similar actions.
Doing away with a police force, like the Minneapolis city council proposes, is just plain dumb. Without people trained and sworn to enforce the law, society cannot function. The fact that disbanding the police force is even proposed has probably already driven hundreds of Minneapolis officers to seek jobs elsewhere.
Cutting a city’s police budget is analogous to cutting the defense budget. It can be done wisely or foolishly. In the 2011 Budget Control Act, “sequestration” of defense funds cut spending across the board without any analysis of what was or was not essential to national security. That was monumentally foolish. Budget cuts can only be made responsibly on the basis of what missions and capabilities are essential and which can be abandoned.
The same analysis has to be done if a city or town government is going to reduce its police budgets.
There are a lot of questions that Mr. de Blasio and the other political budget-cutters should have to answer before they cut police budgets. So what are you guys going to cut?
Budget cutting has to mean, in part, reducing the number of sworn officers that the city employs. You can’t expect a smaller number of police to perform the same functions to the same extent as a larger force. Police aren’t like the military. If they’re overworked or underpaid — as most are — they can quit and find other jobs in or out of law enforcement.
It’s fine to have civilians writing parking tickets. But do you want to reduce the number of sworn officers pulling cars over for moving violations? Too many people drive under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Officers have to be ready to arrest someone for a DUI and other serious traffic offenses. Disrespect for police means that every traffic stop has the potential to erupt in violence.
With fewer officers, you may need to conduct fewer patrols of city streets and residential neighborhoods by day or night. Residents and business owners aren’t going to be happy about that. You may want to reduce the number of school liaison officers in elementary and high schools but you don’t want to be responsible for another mass shooting at a school that an armed officer might have stopped or even prevented.
You may choose to have fewer officers available to respond to 911 calls at all hours. When we lived on a small farm in Loudoun County, Virginia, my wife once called the sheriff’s office when I was out of town. A deputy got there within 10 minutes. On the other hand, I have a close friend who lives in the ritzy McLean, Virginia. When someone was trying to force his way into my friend’s house, it took the town police more than 30 minutes to respond to his wife’s 911 call.
How long is too long for a citizen to have to wait for police to respond to a 911 call?
Police don’t have a lot of busy work taking up large parts of their day. Officers on patrol are expected to shift instantly from sheer boredom to top speed to deal with real emergencies. Most can do so and act professionally under extreme stress.
Do you want to cut the training budget? Mandatory training may reduce the time cops are on the street, but it’s necessary to teach officers new procedures or about changes to the law.
George Mason University Professor Alex Tabarrok has conducted many studies of how police presence and practices affect crime rates. In the months after the April 2015 death of Freddy Gray while in the custody of Baltimore police, Mr. Tabarrok, in an article published the following month, wrote that there was a sudden drop in arrests while Baltimore’s murder rate about doubled.
As Mr. Tabarrok’s articles and studies show, police presence reduces crime. That’s not a theory: It’s a fact.
The budget-cutters need to face reality. Yes, there are bad cops among the vast majority of good cops. Racism and unnecessary violence can’t be tolerated. The bad cops can be weeded out and fired. It doesn’t mean that good cops should be forced to do their jobs with inadequate resources.
• Jed Babbin, a deputy undersecretary of Defense in the George H.W. Bush administration, is the author of “In the Words of Our Enemies.”
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