It’s 3 AM, and you hear footsteps echoing through your home. A burglar has just broken in. As the criminal barges into your room, you reach for the phone, but there is no one to call. As you struggle to get help, the crook escapes with most of your money and valuables, leaving your life in shambles and the safe country we thought we had. This scene could become all too real in the future, as Minneapolis begins to cut funding to their police department, and eventually abolish it entirely. The decision has the right goals in mind but is based around the false assumption that the entire system is flawed beyond repair. Police reform is an important cause in our society, and there are many ways to start healing. Removing the people whose job is to keep us safe, and have mostly done so for generations, is not one of them.
Police officers who unjustly kill are usually the only ones who make headlines. The recent killing of George Floyd, a resident of Minneapolis, is not an isolated incident. Throughout the country, many protestors are calling to defund the police.
Amidst these protests of unjust killings, it is easy to forget all the good that police officers do every day. In New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, there were a combined 4192 murders in 1990, but because of stronger police forces applied there in the years afterward, that number went down to under 1000 in 2014 (Daily Wire). The police have saved countless lives and are now being told to stop what they are doing. As crime rates rise this year, the government will look back and wonder why they ever forgot what the police do for us. The grass is always greener on the other side.
In Minneapolis, 800 people are all about to lose their jobs. In these times of uncertainty, where unemployment is at depression-era levels, cutting jobs is not such a good idea. If the police department put officers through extra training centered around conflict resolution and avoiding racial bias and ensured that they check up on their employees, those officers would have a better understanding of how to de-escalate situations and minimize the use of fatal force.
Police brutality is a problem. But crime is also a problem. One that will get bigger soon, without police watching over us. George Floyd’s death was horrible and unjust, and it would be wrong for the government not to respond. However, completely eradicating the police system is too big a step, especially when there are better, safer alternatives.
- Sean S.