\u201cDefund the Police\u201d – painted in bright yellow over six lanes of road. Just down the street,\u00a0\u201cBlack Lives Matter\u201d painted by the Mayor of Washington, DC .\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s within view of the White House.\u00a0\u00a0A short slogan that means what it says, but not what it sounds like.\u00a0\u00a0What it doesn\u2019t mean is abolish policing, though that\u2019s what Trump 2020 wants you to think.\u00a0\u00a0Trump himself tweeted it out:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSleepy Joe Biden and the Radical Left Democrats want to \u201cDEFUND THE POLICE\u201d. I want great and well paid LAW ENFORCEMENT. I want LAW & ORDER<\/em>!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s ironic that the President presiding over the biggest protests since the 1968 Civil Rights and Anti-War demonstrations claims that he wants \u201cLAW AND ORDER\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0But if there is one single political truth to the Trump campaign, it is “Do what Nixon did”.\u00a0\u00a0Nixon was able to tie the 1968 disruptions to the Democratic Party. With that he squeaked out a win over Hubert Humphrey.\u00a0\u00a0The difference:\u00a0\u00a0Humphrey was running as the Vice President to Lyndon Johnson, the President \u201cin charge\u201d of the nation during the upheaval.\u00a0\u00a0That\u2019s Trump\u2019s role now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, what does \u201cdefund the police\u201d actually mean?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The way America handled mental health might give us a clue as to what \u201cdefunding the police\u201d implies.\u00a0\u00a0In the mid-1800\u2019s, Dorothea Dix, a Boston schoolteacher, campaigned for better treatment for the mentally ill.\u00a0\u00a0At the time, mental illness was treated as criminal, and \u201clunatics\u201d where put in jail.\u00a0\u00a0Dix campaigned for more compassionate care in a hospital setting, and by the time of her death, 110 psychiatric hospitals were established in the United States.\u00a0\u00a0They were called \u201casylums;\u201d places of safety for the mentally ill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By 1955, over half a million Americans were in state-run psychiatric hospitals.\u00a0\u00a0In 1962, \u201cBeat Generation\u201d author Ken Kesey drew attention to abuses in those hospitals with his book,\u00a0One Flew Over the Cuckoo\u2019s Nest<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0Medical professionals began to call for community-based mental health services rather than institutionalization.\u00a0\u00a0Over the next decade, the American model moved away from hospitalization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1980, President Jimmy Carter signed the Mental Health Systems Act funding community based services. But with the election of Ronald Reagan, funding for that law was cut, and Reagan turned control of mental health over to the states. The “Reagan way” was to give the states authority and cut the money. Federal funding was slashed by thirty percent.\u00a0\u00a0Most of the traditional state-run hospitals were closed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Reagan never used the phrase \u201cdefund mental health\u201d, but that\u2019s effectively what he did.\u00a0\u00a0He didn\u2019t end mental health care in the United States, but he changed the entire model of care for the mentally ill.\u00a0\u00a0The good news:\u00a0\u00a0the large \u201clunatic asylums\u201d that became warehouses for the mentally ill were closed.\u00a0\u00a0The bad news:\u00a0\u00a0many of those patients ended up as homeless folks on the streets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The massive hospitals were gone, old relics deserted on a hill; their model of care (or lack of care) discarded. The institution was altered. And that\u2019s what \u201cdefund the police\u201d is calling for. There will still be officers enforcing the law. But what \u201cdefunding the police\u201d demands is a radical overhaul of the American concept of \u201cbig city\u201d policing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The institution of policing has suffered from many of our societal changes. The closing of the large mental hospitals, and lack of funding for more community-based care, have put dealing with mental illness squarely on the shoulders of the police. The dramatic increase in drug abuse in our nation, with the criminalization of more and more drugs, has also dramatically added to the police burden. They not only enforce the drug laws, but become the first-responders for drug abuse care, with life-returning drugs to reverse overdoses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And police have taken on the task of anti-terrorism.\u00a0\u00a0Police forces have militarized units, often in camouflaged gear, and with heavy-duty assault vehicles.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s just another task added onto the institution with little increased funding, or training, or even looking at other alternatives for achieving the goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All of these tasks need to be done, but the current institution of policing isn\u2019t necessarily the best model to do them.\u00a0\u00a0And like the giant mental hospital up on the hill I remember from my youth, the institutions of police forces seems unable to be changed.\u00a0\u00a0In part, the unions, who often refuse to police the violations of their own members, cause this.\u00a0\u00a0But there is also an \u201cus against them\u201d culture in many police departments that sees \u201cthe public\u201d as the enemy, and others \u201cin blue\u201d as their only friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Short slogans are easily misrepresented.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cAbolish ICE\u201d from two years ago, didn\u2019t mean let anyone who could get into the country stay here.\u00a0\u00a0It called for a change in the institution, removing the \u201cblack shirted\u201d force that seemed to act with capriciousness and terror in their enforcement of the law.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cAbolish Ice\u201d was shorthand for either reforming the institution, or tearing it down and starting over.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDefund the police\u201d doesn\u2019t mean anarchy, much as the President wants us to think so.\u00a0\u00a0It doesn\u2019t even necessarily mean abolishing our current police departments.\u00a0\u00a0But what it is demanding is that we overhaul what tasks the police are asked to do, and choose other, better ways to deal with our community problems.\u00a0\u00a0Say it that way, and it’s worth looking into.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lunatic Asylums<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Reform<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Altering Institutions<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Slogans<\/h3>\n\n\n\n