Detasking the Police to Promote Public Safety
Massey Cities Summit Session: Cities and Policing
Akwasi Owusu-Bempah
The killing of George Floyd, an African American man, by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin sparked widespread social unrest and has prompted questions about the role and function of the police in society. More specifically, calls to “defund” the police have grown louder across North America and around the world. Although definitions vary, many proposals to defund the police may be better characterized as the detasking of police. That is, identifying the tasks and functions currently carried out by the police for which they are ill suited, and re-assigning these tasks and functions to more appropriate institutions, organizations and agencies. Among the key areas to be considered with respect to detasking the police include responding to people in mental health crisis, addressing issues of poverty and homelessness, the removal of police officers from schools, a reduction of police involvement in youth programming, the policing of illegal drug use, and traffic enforcement. Along with this shift in responsibilities would be an associated reallocation of funds.
At their root, calls to defund and detask the police emerge from a recognition that having the police perform tasks and functions that could be more efficiently and effectively performed by other institutions and agencies is not fiscally responsible. Perhaps more importantly, because the police wield immense power, including the ability to use lethal force, the unnecessary involvement of the police in non-law enforcement activities has a number of undesirable and unfortunate consequences. The fact that the police have become the agency most likely to respond to people in mental health crisis is case in point; too many people are dying at the hands of the police while experiencing mental distress precisely because the police are not well positioned to deal with them. Similarly, the over-criminalization of Indigenous, Black and other racialized and marginalized groups stems, in part, from the increased presence of police in their lives. The stationing of police officers in underserved schools, for example, increases the likelihood that young people in those schools will be dealt with by the police (and possibly arrested/charged) rather than by teachers or administrators as young people in other settings would be. The countless tickets and fines handed out to the unhoused by the police do little but further entrench poverty and a cycle of criminalization. Policing is clearly not the solution to many societal ills, and too often it contributes to them.
As the grantors of municipal police budgets, our city officials have the power to dictate overall police spending and the ability to direct funds to other municipal agencies as they see fit. In order effectively reallocate funds, however, we need a better understanding of what the police do with our money, how officers spend their time, and what “policing” actually entails. City officials also need the courage and support to think differently.
Akwasi Owusu-Bempah