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Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

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Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#31

Post by jimbob45 »

nkrisc wrote: post #5

It sounds kind of crazy on the surface but it makes sense - what else would you do if you completely lost faith in the police force to do its job effectively? It would probably seen easier to disband it and replace it with something else than to try and reform such an organization.

- Bodycams

- Mandatory psych evals half-yearly

- Anonymous corruption reporting

- Reduce/eliminate drug penalties

- Eliminate civil forfeiture

- Ticketing revenues no longer fund the department

- Expanded auditing of violent calls

Unfortunately, the greater group of protesters is incapable of understanding nuanced policy or democratic change. I fully expect MN to swing red this election as a result of this.

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#32

Post by arcadeparade »

TrevorAustin wrote: post #4

"Dissolve the organization and start over from scratch" is an under-used solution in American life, even in the private sector. Apparently Camden, NJ did a version of this in 2013 with a fair amount of success: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-04/how-camde...

It didn't work so well in Iraq.

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#33

Post by guerrilla »

frosted-flakes wrote: post #23

What, exactly, does it mean to disband a police department? Fire everyone and hand over policing responsibilities to the state? Permanently or temporarily?

No, that's not the goal of police abolitionists: [1]

1. https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2020/06/police-abo...

Some more references:

1. https://www.8toabolition.com/

2. https://twitter.com/AlexandraErin/status/1268547515038806018

3. https://twitter.com/TravelingNun/status/1268510966116954114

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#34

Post by moron4hire »

macspoofing wrote: post #19
notatoad wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe the suggestion here is to disband the concept of having police entirely, just to disband the current police department.

Fair enough. The devil is in the details of course. But I am skeptical that the crime rates would drop if there is less policing since the crime rates are not caused by police.

An alternative interpretation is that crime rates are so high because police spending is the wrong way to deal with the problem. Money that could be spent on drug treatment programs is instead being spent 10x on a paramilitary organization that openly admits and jokes about its policy is to shoot first and ask questions later.

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#35

Post by limelight »

mikekhusid wrote: post #20
TrevorAustin wrote: post #4

"Dissolve the organization and start over from scratch" is an under-used solution in American life, even in the private sector. Apparently Camden, NJ did a version of this in 2013 with a fair amount of success: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-04/how-camde...

The Camden thing is going around a lot but to me it seems like they did a reorg and actually ended up hiring more police. https://www.tapinto.net/towns/camden/sections/law-and-justic...

Realistically, that's what will come from "abolishing" the police.

That's not necessarily a bad thing! A big problem with existing departments is decades of corruption, poor leadership, and entrenched policies. Tearing the department down and rebuilding it from scratch—even if you end up with a similar size as before—gives you the opportunity to remove the excesses/abuse. You can also do things like hiring more specialized positions and firing all the bad officers (because if the department is gone, the union can't protect them).

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#36

Post by jsdevwork1 »

_bxg1 wrote: post #3

a) I'm incredibly happy to see that the masses still have a voice b) I'm not positive this is the right solution, but it could be, and it will be fascinating to see how it plays out and whether it's something that could work everywhere

It will play out quite predictably: more crime, organized and otherwise.

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#37

Post by _bxg1 »

frosted-flakes wrote: post #23

What, exactly, does it mean to disband a police department? Fire everyone and hand over policing responsibilities to the state? Permanently or temporarily?

The rest of the original title was, "[and] Invest in Proven Community-led Public Safety". That part may be even more interesting, at least on the surface. I'm really curious what it means. Minneapolis could become a testbed for radical new approaches to this problem.

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#38

Post by ravitation »

macspoofing wrote: post #19
notatoad wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe the suggestion here is to disband the concept of having police entirely, just to disband the current police department.

Fair enough. The devil is in the details of course. But I am skeptical that the crime rates would drop if there is less policing since the crime rates are not caused by police.

Historically police department reorganizations have actually often involved increases in "policing," in addition to structural changes in what "policing" looks like...

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#39

Post by ceejayoz »

arcadeparade wrote: post #32
TrevorAustin wrote: post #4

"Dissolve the organization and start over from scratch" is an under-used solution in American life, even in the private sector. Apparently Camden, NJ did a version of this in 2013 with a fair amount of success: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-04/how-camde...

It didn't work so well in Iraq.

That hardly seems comparable.

Re: Minneapolis City Council members announce intent to disband police department

#40

Post by kryogen1c »

im not sure how i feel about this. "fire everyone" is too large a scope, but "charge 1-4 officers with murder" is too small a scope.

both measures are too extreme. firing everyone is only useful if you restructure the training pipeline and system of accountability, but if you do that you dont need to fire everyone.

i suppose a nuanced approach is outside public reactionary purview so this is probably the better option. charging 1-4 officers with murder without changing the leadership accountability, culture, or anything really will have very negative impacts on policing.

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