Defund or Reform Police?

 

What's in a name?

Or a word.

There's so much controversy about "defunding" police as if that means cutting budgets, firing cops. This was in response to so many examples of police brutality, killings, etc. that seem totally unjustified for a civil society. 

One example https://www.democracynow.org/shows/2021/9/2?autostart=142.0

What the "defund" money was meant to do, was to cycle it into social services that can eliminate some of the problems creating situations that lead to the incidents. 

Some police forces need reforming in their hiring, education and training practices. Examples of unjustified brutality, racism, and what I'd call testosterone overload blocking non-violent solutions need to be dealt with. 

I was married to a policeman a lifetime ago. It is a hard job. I'm not anti-police. I am anti-police who shoot people in the back, beat a handcuffed man, rape a woman, confiscate money they find, etc. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/stephen-lara-nevada-asset-forfeiture-adoption/2021/09/01/6f170932-06ae-11ec-8c3f-3526f81b233b_story.html

It is a shame that there isn't more information about good policing like the cops, when a mother was taken to a hospital. They made dinner for her kids and stayed until a relative arrived to take over.

Or like the story from the photo above when Trooper M. Hernandez changed the young woman's flat tire on I-530N heading to Little Rock. She would have had to wait over an hour for a tow on a busy and dangerous highway.  

 

I wish the people who talk about defunding the police would talk reform. Bad cops need to go. Cops need to be well trained in conflict resolution, psychology, sociology while still know that there is a time to shoot to protect themselves and others.