From xxxxxx <[email protected]>
Subject MPD150: Working Towards a Police Free Minneapolis
Date June 7, 2020 12:05 AM
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[To really “fight crime,” we don’t need more cops; we need
more jobs, more educational opportunities, more arts programs, more
community centers, more mental health resources, and more of a say in
how our own communities function.] [[link removed]]

MPD150: WORKING TOWARDS A POLICE FREE MINNEAPOLIS  
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MPD150
June 6, 2020
MPD150 [[link removed]]

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_ To really “fight crime,” we don’t need more cops; we need
more jobs, more educational opportunities, more arts programs, more
community centers, more mental health resources, and more of a say in
how our own communities function. _

, MPD150/Tori Hong

 

Frequently Asked Questions

Won’t abolishing the police create chaos and crime? How will we stay
safe?

Police abolition work is not about snapping our fingers and magically
defunding every department in the world instantly. Rather, we’re
talking about a gradual process of strategically reallocating
resources, funding, and responsibility away from police and toward
community-based models of safety, support, and prevention.

The people who respond to crises in our community should be the people
who are best-equipped to deal with those crises. Rather than strangers
armed with guns, who very likely do not live in the neighborhoods
they’re patrolling, we want to create space for more mental health
service providers, social workers, victim/survivor advocates,
religious leaders, neighbors, healers, and friends– all of the
people who really make up the fabric of a community– to look out for
one another.

But what about armed bank robbers, murderers, and supervillains?

Crime isn’t random. Most of the time, it happens when someone has
been unable to meet their basic needs through other means. By shifting
money away from the police and toward services that actually meet
those needs, we’ll be able to get to a place where people won’t
need to rob banks.

Sure, in this long transition process, we may need a small specialized
class of public servants whose job it is to respond to violent crimes.
But part of what we’re talking about here is what role police play
in our society. Right now, cops don’t just respond to violent
crimes; they make needless traffic stops, arrest petty drug users, and
engage in a wide range of “broken windows policing” behaviors that
only serve to keep more people under the thumb of the criminal justice
system.

Even people who support the police agree: we ask cops to solve too
many of our problems. As former Dallas Police Chief David Brown said:
“We’re asking cops to do too much in this country… Every
societal failure, we put it off on the cops to solve. Not enough
mental health funding, let the cops handle it… Here in Dallas we got
a loose dog problem; let’s have the cops chase loose dogs. Schools
fail, let’s give it to the cops… That’s too much to ask.
Policing was never meant to solve all those problems.”

To really “fight crime,” we don’t need more cops; we need more
jobs, more educational opportunities, more arts programs, more
community centers, more mental health resources, and more of a say in
how our own communities function.

But why not fund the police and fund all these alternatives too? Why
is it an either/or?

It’s not just that police are ineffective: in many communities,
they’re actively harmful. The history of policing is a history of
violence against the marginalized– American police departments were
originally created to dominate and criminalize communities of color
and poor white workers, a job they continue doing to this day. The
list has grown even longer: LGBTQ folks, disabled people, activists–
so many of us are attacked by cops on a daily basis.

And it’s bigger than just police brutality; it’s about how the
prison industrial complex, the drug war, immigration law, and the web
of policy, law, and culture that forms our criminal justice system has
destroyed millions of lives, and torn apart families. Cops don’t
prevent crime; they cause it, through the ongoing, violent disruption
of our communities.

It’s also worth noting that most social service agencies and
organizations that could serve as alternatives to the police are
underfunded, scrambling for grant money to stay alive while being
forced to interact with officers who often make their jobs even
harder. In 2016, the Minneapolis Police Department received $165
million in city funding alone. Imagine what that kind of money could
do to keep our communities safe if it was reinvested.

What about body cameras? What about civilian review boards, implicit
bias training, and community policing initiatives?

Video footage (whether from body cameras or other sources) wasn’t
enough to get justice for Philando Castile, Samuel DuBose, Walter
Scott, Tamir Rice, and far too many other victims of police violence.
Other reforms, even when noble in intention, simply do not do enough
to get to the root of the issue.

History is a useful guide here: community groups in the 1960s also
demanded civilian review boards, better training, and community
policing initiatives. Some of these demands were even met, but
universally, they were either ineffective, or dismantled by the police
department over time. Recent reforms are already being co-opted and
destroyed: just look at how many officers are wearing body cameras
that are never turned on, or how quickly Jeff Sessions’ Justice
Department has moved to end consent decrees. We have half a
century’s worth of evidence that reforms can’t work. It’s time
for something new.

This all sounds good in theory, but wouldn’t it be impossible to do?

Throughout US history, everyday people have regularly accomplished
“impossible” things, from the abolition of slavery, to voting
rights, to the 40-hour workweek, and more. What’s really impossible
is the idea that the police departments can be reformed against their
will to protect and serve communities whom they have always attacked.

The police, as an institution around the world, have existed for less
than 200 years– less time than chattel slavery existed in the
Americas. Abolishing the police doesn’t need to be difficult– we
can do it in our own cities, one dollar at a time, through redirecting
budgets to common-sense alternative programs. Let’s get to work!

Where can I learn more about this?

We don’t expect one little 8-page zine to persuade everyone. For
people who still have questions, or are just interested in learning
more:

One place to start, especially for friends in Minneapolis, is our
“ENOUGH IS ENOUGH” [[link removed]]
report, available on this website as text, printable PDF, and as
audio.

Beyond that, we’ve tried to collect some of the BEST readings,
articles, and activist tools regarding abolition in our RESOURCES PAGE
[[link removed]]. A few specific recommendations
addressing _other_ frequently-asked questions:

* “But what would a world without cops actually look like? How
would we address violent crimes?” What a World Without Cops Would
Look Like
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* “What about domestic violence and sexual assault?” Multiple
links and resources on our resources page via Transform Harm
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* “I need more details, more evidence-based data, and just more
specifics in general.” Right now, Alex Vitale’s “The End of
Policing” is available as a free e-book
[[link removed]]. A great
next step after reading our FAQs.

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