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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31759 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 2, 2023

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BLM wanted less police-as-we-know-it, not less money/effort put towards public safety and law enforcement. One of their commonly repeated complaints is that the militarization of police is expensive leading to less money to hire actual people who they believe would be more effective than expensive equipment at improving public safety.

See Campaign Zero, for instance, which lists:

  1. Public Safety Beyond Policing: "Campaign Zero builds and sustains efforts that support communities to redefine public safety and create solutions that do not involve police."
  1. Shrink the Reliance and Power of the Police: "Diminishing the power of police requires a targeted and multi-faceted approach. This involves reducing when law enforcement can be deployed, what actions they can take when interacting with individuals, and defining when and how they are permitted to take those actions."

as their first two policy goals.

(EDIT: That list formats correctly as "1." and "2." in the preview, but not in the post...)

Both of those bullet points are completely compatible with reducing cop presence. Or if not presence, cop interactions - to diminish the overall surface area where police and black Americans interface with each other. The second point in particular gestures towards this.

Yes, the policy proposals I listed because they relate to reducing police presence both are compatible with reducing police presence. They both explicitly talk about reducing the number of police in exchange for increasing the number of people working in public safety.

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