A new lawsuit filed in federal court last month alleges that the Baton Rouge Police Department ran a “torture warehouse” where members of its Street Crimes Unit strip searched, beat, and otherwise humiliated people and then released them, often without their being charged with a crime. Soon after the lawsuit was filed, the FBI opened a civil rights investigation into the allegations of misconduct at the now-shuttered warehouse known as “the BRAVE Cave.”
Defunding the police (horrible fucking slogan btw) isn’t about just cutting off police funds and saying fuck it. It’s about redirecting the funds to preventative and less militaristic interventions, including better audit equipment and oversight boards, non-lethal and non-armed social services and mental health interventions, and a refocus on community policing instead of military-style Jack Bauer larping.
Very good.
Those are fine ideas. They need a new slogan then.
I would just add the note that whatever the slogan, however branded the movement, there will be a concerted effort to delegitimize it, both from without and from within.
Defending the police or dismantling existing departments and replacing them whole cloth is very likely the only viable solution when the cultures in and around the institutions are the problems.
People seem to think that the marketing needs to be palatable. I don’t. It won’t matter. It will ultimately come to force. It’s unfortunate but the reality is that it seems like the force of violence is the highest truth in this world. We won’t get reforms through dialogue or nibbling at the edges. These institutions need to be forced to change, and they will resist. It will come down to individuals with strong wills who refuse to back down in the face of violence.