By Rebecca Boyle
Boulder City Council member Mark Wallach’s dismissal of calls to reallocate police funding towards social services in his guest column printed last last week (https://www.dailycamera.com/2020/06/18/guest-opinion-mark-wallach-reform-dont-defund-police/) should alarm everyone concerned about the pursuit of racial justice and public safety in our city. Perhaps no one should be surprised by his dismissive tone towards the thousands of constituents who have reached out to him and his colleagues, considering that he has not held a town hall while in office. Nevertheless, the erroneous argumentation underlying his piece props up an embrace of an antiquated, ineffective policing model.
To summarize his piece, Wallach argued that policing ensures public safety, and that the funding that police departments receive is better spent on policing than housing or social services, which he characterizes as already “robust.” However, this thesis unravels once the assumptions that support his argument are scrutinized.
First off, Wallach linked our current model of policing with public safety without evidence, arguing that a reduction in the size of the force would jeopardize our safety. The belief that more policing leads to more safety is based on a false mythology surrounding our modern criminal justice system.
Crime rates across the country have decreased since the 1990s, the dawn of mass incarceration and police militarization, yet scholars believe that this reduction in crime could be attributable to a series of other causes (https://theoutline.com/post/7423/no-more-cops?zd=1&zi=7usj3pty). There is insufficient proof behind the claim that more police make us safer, and policy experts are now publicly contesting this myth (https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2019/02/13/marshall-project-more-cops-dont-mean-less-crime-experts-say/2818056002/). Meanwhile, anecdotes like the reduction in crime during a recent police strike in New York City (https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/09/nyc-cops-did-a-work-stop-yet-crime-dropped/) suggest otherwise.
It would actually make sense that our current policing model does not make us safer. Our police primarily engage with the community through proactive patrolling and reactive deployments to address crimes in progress. Both of these operations serve to deter people from committing crimes, yet they do not address the socioeconomic conditions that drive people to consider and possibly break the law.
Meanwhile, these measures fuel the confrontations and police violence that we see in Boulder and across the country, including the time when police confronted Zayd Atkinson while he was picking up trash outside of his home. We need to listen to the Black and brown voices calling out this unjust system, consider how it is insufficient for ensuring public safety for all residents, and explore and invest in alternatives.
Now let’s examine the idea of defunding the police, which Wallach characterized as “draconian,” placing it in the same realm of wrongdoing as the acts of police brutality he cites. Defunding the police means methodically redirecting police funding towards increasing the number of social workers, drug counselors and mental health experts responsible for responding to non-violent emergencies.
Recent polls show that Americans favor this policy approach by a 49 to 30 percent margin (https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1272042192572473344). Wallach criticized the inclusion of housing support in this demand, arguing that Boulder already provides plenty of affordable housing. Here, he confused a system relatively strong in the county with “sufficient.” Sure, the student with an average grade with a C may be valedictorian in a failing class, yet nobody would argue against improvement in this scenario.
Furthermore, Wallach didn’t even address the crux of the “defund” argument: Rather than arm officers with limited or zero training to actually address the determinants of crime, we should invest in social workers who will actually prevent crime by helping those in need before they resort to breaking the law. This isn’t “draconian” – it’s common sense. By shifting our resources towards building a social safety net and system of trained counselors and social workers who can go out into the community and help those in need, we will have a safer city.
Let’s stop clinging to poor arguments that defend a status quo that does not necessarily keep all of us safe. Instead, we should listen to the calls for change, and invest in programs that will actually promote prosperity, harmony, and safety for all residents in Boulder.
Rebecca Boyle is a lawyer and resident of Boulder.
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June 26, 2020 at 12:08AM
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Guest opinion: Rebecca Boyle: Consider, don’t dismiss, your constituents - The Daily Camera
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