• AlternatePersonMan@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Ugh, “defund the police” is a terrible phrase if you actually want the movement to succeed. I wish they would have gone with something along the lines of “police reform”. Immediately every conservative glommed onto “now they want to abolish all police!”

    We do need a massive overhaul to police. Unfortunately that means better marketing of the idea of it’s going to happen.

    • IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I could be wrong but “defund the police” was just a discussion point for activists talking amongst themselves. In that context it makes sense. What happened was that this inelegant phrase was seized as a weapon by the right and then every Dem politician had to answer if they supported the idea of abolishing the police.

      I’d imagine that many people would be receptive to the idea of taking some money out of police budgets so social workers and people trained in deescalation can be hired. For example cops aren’t a good fit when dealing with people facing mental health crises because they mostly turn to use of force and make a bad situation worse.

      If you twist this into, “are you in favor of abolishing all police?” then most people are going to say, “hell no, what a stupid idea, you moron”.

      Now any discussion about the rotten state of policing in the US had been effectively hobbled. Discussion is shut down. The right wing wins.

      • Fushuan [he/him]@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        What happened was that this inelegant phrase was seized as a weapon by the right

        I vividly remember tons of memes and posts on reddit, done in leftist grups by leftist people stating the sentence “defund the police”. The right did manipulate the meaning, but saying that they were the sole perpetrators of the popularity of the phrase is silly.

          • Fushuan [he/him]@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            In number? idk, about 1-3 a day that was on the top of r/all with tons of comments, iirc it was when the Floyd protest were happening, alongside the BLM movement (not the organization). I don’t remember it too well, it’s been 3 years already, but I do remember that it was a whole thing with posts, comments, memes and so on.

      • AlternatePersonMan@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        That makes more sense.

        I know the real idea behind it. I just never liked it being summarized as defund. It’s more like restructure. Personally, I would be much more aggressive with an overall. It’s rotten top to bottom.

      • HughJanus@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        this inelegant phrase was seized as a weapon by the right

        Were “the right” the ones at protests holding up hundreds of signs that said “defund the police”?

    • DarkGamer@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Unfortunately police reform doesn’t necessarily imply taking police funds and diverting them to nonviolent responders instead. It’s hard to make that into a catchy phrase that can’t be misinterpreted. I could see cities implementing some rubber-stamp oversight board filled with ex-cops and saying, “see, we reformed the police! They have oversight now.”

      • markr@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        just about every police reform has failed to provide any independent oversight, failed to address the core problems, and generally just poured more money into the already bloated and militarized police force.

      • dragonflyteaparty@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I like “unburden the police”. Take away things that aren’t actual policing. Cops don’t need to be out there doing animal control for example.

        • PickTheStick@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          For better or worse, that aspect is never going away. Places with less funds, like rural counties and cities, rely on their police to do everything that gets called in to 911 and isn’t fire/ems/construction (which, thankfully, they have dedicated teams/people for).

    • HughJanus@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Ugh, “defund the police” is a terrible phrase if you actually want the movement to succeed.

      I feel like these are probably astroturfed movements. Because you can say the same thing about the “antiwork” movement, whose proponents claim to actually want to work.

      The designation of your movement is kind of important.