Some smart proposals from our pages.
 | By Max Strasser International Editor, Opinion |
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On Monday morning, I woke up to a push notification on my phone: A veto-proof majority of the Minneapolis City Council had voted to dismantle the Police Department. My first groggy pre-coffee thought was, “That’s rad.” It was quickly followed by, “How is that going to work?” |
The City Council members in Minneapolis admitted that they didn’t have specific plans. But after George Floyd’s killing and the protests it inspired (and the police department’s response to those protests), they came to believe that the community needed to rethink public safety from the ground up, not tinker around the edges. I hope the Minneapolis City Council — and everyone else thinking about these questions — takes a few minutes to read Hahrie Han’s Op-Ed essay, “What Happened When the Minneapolis Police Lost Legitimacy?” |
Calls to defund — or even abolish — the police are moving into the mainstream. I realize that this sounds pretty radical, maybe even frightening, to a lot of people — especially those who have never had a bad experience with the police. But it deserves serious consideration. |
Hahrie, a political scientist who studies grass-roots movements, describes how, as the police in Minneapolis lost authority and looters and arsonists took to the streets, community leaders put out a call — and people rose to the challenge. A network of volunteer “community defenders” sat on porches looking out for suspicious strangers, gathered to keep watch over their shops and mosques, and searched alleyways for possible fire accelerants. Basically, without squad cars or badges, the people protected one another. And it worked. It’s fascinating and inspiring. |
I don’t think that “community defenders” can or should replace police officers in every case. But I do think that Hahrie’s piece contributes something important to our thinking about when and where there may be civilian alternatives. |
There are tons of interesting and smart proposals floating around right now — and many are being discussed in The Times’s Opinion pages. |
In addition to Hahrie’s Op-Ed, you can read about a raft of sensible reforms from the Times editorial board, like changing police union contracts and demilitarizing police forces. Our columnist Nick Kristof wrote about the need to reimagine policing and cites his reporting on Portugal’s decriminalization of drugs. Philip V. McHarris, a doctoral student at Yale, and Thenjiwe McHarris, a strategist with the Movement for Black Lives, wrote a piece recently praising experiments in some cities like using health care workers, rather than the police, to respond to calls about mental health emergencies. Times readers have written letters to the editor with their own ideas, too, including a few who oppose doing anything drastic. |
What will American police departments look like a year from now? Will fewer officers carry guns? Will social workers respond to 911 calls and community defenders oversee safety at city events? I have no idea — but we are suddenly talking about things that never before seemed possible. |
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