We don’t expect doctors to rescue loose dogs or animal control to give CPR. Why do we expect police to do both – and a lot more? We can significantly reduce police violence. Here’s how.
We Expect Too Much of Police
Police do too much. People call the police whenever something is troublesome:
Neighbors too loud: call the police!
Dog loose: call the police!
Girlfriend left . . . with your clothes: call the police!
Drug overdose: call the police!
You get the idea.
The status quo, where we expect police to be all things all the time, social worker, psychiatrist, animal control agent, negotiator, mediator, EMT, and doctor (often all at once), is bad for police and for people who need special services.
Reduce the Number of Stops
Police, police unions, and pro-police advocacy groups will tell you that police are always on edge: you never know when an encounter will turn deadly in an instant.
The status quo, where we expect police to be all things all the time, is bad for police and for people who need special services.
So, let’s reduce the number of encounters. Two ways to do that:
1. Decriminalize Petty Traffic and Drug Offenses
The decriminalization of small offenses would lower the stakes – and the associated risk – in police/citizen encounters.
Petty Traffic Crimes
Part of the solution is to decriminalize a lot of “malum in se” crimes, such as faulty tail lights or an object hanging from rear-view mirror – those can instead be penalized as petty misdemeanors with fine-only citation – and minor drug crimes.
Some of the common reasons for police-citizen interactions include these:
- Speeding
- Failure to signal
- Crossing a center line
- Headlight out
- Driving with a flat tire
- Weaving between lanes
- License plate not illuminated
- Failure to dim headlights
- Expired registration displayed on front license plate even though current displayed on rear license plate
Drug crimes
And then there’s drug possession. Decriminalization of possession of drugs (rolling back the War on Drugs started by Nixon) would eliminate many police/people interactions. Society hasn’t suffered from Minnesota decriminalizing a “small amount” (less than 42.5 g.) of marijuana which the legislature did in 2011.
2. Create a Community Resource Officer System
Police are trained to use force as a first-line treatment for a wide range of situations. Fewer stops means fewer cops. Let’s use the savings to create a Community Resource Officer Corps.
Creating an agency that responds to things like noise complaints or mental health concerns or wellness checks that are NOT police, but professionals trained for just these matters, allows responders to lead with tools other than force and to free up police to focus on other areas.
Leave a Reply