San Leandro for Social Justice

(Credit: David Rumsey Historical Map Collection)

I'm one of many community activists here in San Leandro and I just put together this post to help address a lot of questions, confusion, and even frustration or anger people may have regarding the recent push to defund the SLPD, or the police in general.

To start with, I hear you. In my city, a slim majority of our elected officials defied the calls from activists to delay the budget vote and review where budget allocations originally marked for SLPD would go. Instead, the mayor and a few city council members felt it was more important to just pass a budget than to do the harder work of revising the budget to help prevent further police violence. If you listen to the meeting (link here) you can hear for yourself that this decision was solely made by 4 city council (including the mayor) members against the wishes of community members that participated in public comment, wrote letters, and have been advocating for justice against police brutality in San Leandro. (3 other council members voted to wait and look at the budget again in order to make appropriate changes.)

As such, the budget cuts to SLPD were decided by them, as well as Chief Tudor, and not the people fighting for social justice. Indeed, speaking for myself, programs like the homeless compact we have here are exactly the kinds of things we want to fund! Instead of armored tanks and lawsuits for cops engaging in murder or misconduct.

I also want to address the greater question around the slogan. Defund the police?? Most of us have been raised all our lives to respect police officers, follow the law, and if we do that then everything will be fine.

But, actually, for a lot of people that has never been true. Black people. Native Americans. Other people of color. They face police brutality and disproportionate rates of incarceration compared to White people, even for the same crimes! They face higher rates of poverty, less quality education, redlining of their neighborhoods, and tossed resumes when they apply for work. They face public and private discrimination, from stereotypes and slurs to outright hostility.

They are also murdered, particularly by police, and almost always without repercussions. How can there be peace in our communities without justice? How can there be freedom for all if everyone is not actually also free?

So, yes, I want to defund the police. Now, I get that may sound scary to a lot of people, but just hear me out. (Credit to Jamie Ford and Julia Davenport-Drake for their original work adapted below.)

Here's an example of how we are already benefitting from defunding the police right now. Until the 1970s, ambulance services were generally run by local police and fire departments. There was no law requiring medical training beyond basic first-aid, and in many cases the assignment of ambulance duty was used as a form of punishment. You can probably guess that throwing people with medical emergencies into the back of a paddy wagon produced less than spectacular health outcomes. Now, imagine how much worse it became when disgruntled white police officers were demoted to ambulance duty in Black neighborhoods.

The response was so problematic (or nonexistent) that in 1967, leaders in one of Pittsburgh’s Black communities, the Hill District, created Freedom House Ambulance Services (FHAS) and approached Peter Safar, a doctor at the University of Pittsburgh, who a few years earlier had lost his 12-year-old daughter to an acute asthma crisis. With a shared purpose of improving emergency medical response, Safar trained 25 black men from that neglected community – many of whom did not have a high school diploma – as emergency medical technicians, skilled in this new thing called CPR.

With two donated police vehicles, FHAS began to save lives at such a rate that they became the gold standard for emergency response training in the US and the model for EMTs we now take for granted in every community. Freedom House paramedics were so dynamic in their ability to respond to the critically ill that the Pittsburgh police department often called them for high acuity cases in White neighborhoods.

Despite the success of FHAS, police and fire departments resisted retraining their personnel, so the city reallocated funds to create a separate EMT service. (A new mayor cut funding to Freedom House in 1975 and seized their assets, but that's another story). When people think defunding the police will lead to anarchy, they’re not understanding that change rarely happens from within, and that resources reallocated to community-based services can not only improve neglected neighborhoods, but create innovations that help us all.

But let’s really dig into the “Defund the Police” slogan. I’m sure some people read it and thought it sounded dumb, scary, crazy, or just did not do a good job at sending a message. Maybe you don’t understand why people support it. Maybe it sounds like something a super far-left radical would say without actually having any idea of what they’re talking about. Maybe you even feel that the police actually do a pretty good job and are being unfairly treated.

Well, let’s break it down. First of all, slogans are meant to be catchy. Yes, we could say something like, “Reduce Funding to the Police and Put it Towards Community Services as well as Stopping the Militarization of Police Departments and Not Letting Police Unions Protect Bad Cops that Murder People.” But that doesn’t really roll off the tongue, you know.

Would it surprise you to know that “Defund the Police” actually means different things to different people? There are some who want to reduce police funding and promote reform. Others want to dismantle police departments and rebuild them better. And then there are others who, yes, want to abolish the police altogether. However, before we get too deep into that, let’s talk more about how effective police are now.

The first thing is that the police are actually SHOCKINGLY bad at solving crimes. They only solve 53.3% of assaults, 34.5% of rapes, and 13.5% of burglaries. On top of that, there’s a huge racial disparity between the crimes that do get solved. (There’s a good article about it here. And don’t get me started on the challenges victims of sexual assault and rape face, including the huge backlog in untested rape kits.)

Next, let’s look at the deaths and assaults that are caused BY the police. Those numbers are a lot higher than you would expect, like sickeningly. There were at least 1004 fatal police shootings just last year, and it has been trending up for several years now. And again, as we all know, there’s a huge racial disparity. (Here’s the statistical article. Also see this resource. Because those numbers are conservative ones, and they don’t even get into the widespread use mostly unnecessary non-lethal police violence.) 

So let’s move now to what do we do with the people that police catch? The answer is that we put a hell of a lot of them in jail. We put so many people in jail that we lead the world in incarcerating our own people! There are 2.2 million Americans in prisons and jails right now (many of them in PRIVATELY held prisons, but don’t get me started on that). To put that in perspective, if they were all housed together and given land, they would be the 37th most populous state. THERE ARE MORE PEOPLE INCARCERATED THAN PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN NEW MEXICO. 

And for what? We don’t rehabilitate them. We don’t teach them. We don’t prepare them for release. After they endure brutal conditions from torture and isolation to slave labor and medieval medical care, we just tell them they’re lucky it wasn’t worse and give them a 1-way Greyhound ticket upon release. (For more information, check out this article. Also, we haven’t even touched on the issue of slave labor in prison – check out the documentary 13th. You can also visit the Marshall Project to learn more about the generally horrific conditions in our prisons.)

You have to admit, that’s pretty fucked up.

But, surely, the police at least act as a deterrent right? If we don’t have police, then people will just realize they can go do whatever they want. It’ll be the Wild West. I mean, of course fewer crimes are being committed when the criminals know they could easily be killed by the police or thrown in jail for a very long time. That just makes sense. Right?

Actually, that would be super wrong. A scientific publication called “The Prison Paradox” from 2017 states that “increased incarceration has a marginal-to-zero impact on crime. In some cases, increased incarceration can even lead to an increase in crime.” You should read the article to understand all the reasons why this is, but the facts are really indisputable. (Another article to check out is this one by Scientific American that cites another study showing the same thing.)

But hey, if you don’t believe me, okay. Would you believe a cop then? Seriously, would you? Read “Confessions of a Former Bastard Cop.” (Link here.) There have been so many whistleblowers on police corruption and this article is one the most compelling. This former police officer talks about the problems with policing and reveals the truth behind the often used acronym ACAB, or All Cops Are Bastards.

Actually, there’s a whole list about the dangers that await cops who reveal misconduct and corruption, who stand against brutality by their colleagues, and try to actually uphold their oath to protect and serve. (Ranker has one here. Also here’s a recent article on this problem too.)

So, after looking at all this, what is your biggest takeaway? Because to me it seems like our current system of law is set up to kill and incarcerate people because, well, apparently we just really like killing and incarcerating people. Our system doesn’t actually solve anything. It doesn’t decrease crime, it doesn’t curb re-offenders, and for fucks’ sake it’s really REALLY expensive. (See this article for just how expensive it is.)

We’ve just been conditioned to think that this is what the law looks like, and we’ve accepted it. We’ve been far too arrogant to learn from literally any other country on why we maybe shouldn’t want to kill someone accused of passing a bad check, and why we should want a smaller prison population with more focus on rehabilitation. Or maybe we knew all along there was a better way, but we’re hurting so much that we want to see other people hurt, too. Hell, maybe we can even look back to the origins of policing in America, which are INCREDIBLY racist when you read about them. (Check out this article.)

So what does work to decrease crime and increase productivity, then? Luckily, lots of things! There are so many lists and most of them center on a few key points, like mental health program access, free daycare, better early-learning, more after-school programs, more community outreach programs, free adult learning, and better access for people in need to receive necessities and help finding jobs. I’m sure you can find more with just a little bit of searching on the internet. (Here’s something to start with and also here. Also, so many of the links above can direct you to even more information.)

Meanwhile, how do we decrease the amount of people the police shoot and kill every year? There are tons of ideas for this as well. We need to make sure that cops have significantly more training, and significantly fewer weapons. There needs to be much more accountability, and there has to be an oversight committee made of local people (not other cops), who can make decisions on hiring and firing and imposing fines. The records for each police officer need to be fully public and easily accessible, and there needs to be a zero-tolerance policy for discharging a weapon without absolute cause. (See this and this.)

And, lastly… we need to defund the police! Not fully, of course, we need some police. We just don’t need them to be everywhere we’re asking them to be right now. Instead of sending the same person who’s trained to shoot an active gunman from 30 yards to a domestic disturbance, let’s send a social worker, or mediator, or counsellor. Let’s save the police for situations that call for someone with tactical gear, not when a man is drunk and passed out in a Wendy’s drive-through. That situation needs an EMT, a professional mental health expert, or an addiction counselor. The police will then just be a special tactical force used only in specific situations, and all the other everyday issues that the cops get pulled into will be handled by different professionals trained in other, less aggressive ways, that can also hopefully help us fight racism at the same time.

I have so many other resources if anyone wants them. In fact, there’s a whole resource guide available here. Hopefully this information helps clarify things for people, maybe wins a few hearts and minds. I know it can be difficult to realize we were wrong about something and change your views when presented with better information. I certainly have had to struggle with my own preconceptions, biases, and stubbornness. Even if, after all of this, you still wouldn’t change your opinion, at the very least maybe you will consider that the rest of us are not coming from a place of bad faith or ignorance. Regardless, thank you for reading all of this.

Tl;dr Defund the Police. Defund the Prisons. Don’t be not a racist, be an anti-racist. Keep learning new things. Black Lives Matter. Women’s Rights are Human Rights. No Human is Illegal. Science is Real. Love is Love. Kindness is Everything.

Credit for original source content to: Jamie Ford and Julia Davenport-Drake. Also to Tasha K.