‘Defund the Police’? | Sam Hall
In recent times the Tories have shifted themselves to focus less on law and order and more on individual freedom. Tory MP Crispin Blunt, for example, recently became the first Conservative to co-chair the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Drug Policy Reform, arguing for a ‘tidal wave of investor money’ from North America.
Policy dominated by economics alone was a key feature of the Cameron administration, feeding perceptions that the Tories helped the elite as the wealthier were better placed to mitigate the impacts of austerity. But in an ironic twist of fate it has become rather the Left, beginning in the U.S. with high-profile politicians such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, that is actively campaigning for communities to be left more vulnerable through calls to defund the police.
What many working class communities in fact need and very often want is strong law and order; so that they can operate their businesses effectively (without having their livlihoods destroyed or being themselves robbed), so that they can live in peace, and can obtain justice should this ever be compromised. We shouldn’t be afraid of an effective, well-funded police force that helps mitigate societal problems, whether it be alcohol related problems, or the severe mental health issues that can come from using cannabis. The need for communal security against COVID-19 must also underscore and not undermine the need for the police. In this short essay I will aim to demystify police use of force options and explain why defunding such a vital service is a terrible idea.
Days after Boris’s arrival in No. 10, he scrapped the ‘Threats, Hazards, Resilience and Contingency Committee’ as part of his plan to streamline Whitehall. This decision could not have come at a worse time. Elsewhere at the very time when law and order is desperately needed, there have been calls from the Left to ‘defund the police’ which, amusingly, as it turns out does not actually mean defund the police. It supposedly simply means to reduce their budget and instead divert funds towards other services like mental health. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, for example, is calling for the budget of the NYPD, one the the largest police agencies in America, to be cut by ⅙ of its $6 billion budget. Given Labour leader Keir Starmer’s recent rebuttal of the idea, for which he was criticised by BLM UK, thankfully it would seem that the idea is not going to travel very far in the UK. At least not for the moment.
Yet with the Tories potentially beginning to soften their traditional focus on law and order amidst a time when COVID-19 has underscored its need more than ever, I aim to rebut ideas about defunding the police for readers- by properly examining their options when using force and arguing that whatever the situation might be in the U.S.A, our police in the very least don’t deserve to be lumped into the same group or be gutted of funding at a time when they need it most.
The contemporary context
As much as body worn cameras and the propensity of mobile phones have increased the amount that the police are filmed, it has also led to a proliferation of armchair investigators passing judgment on an event before grasping all the facts. Mark Duggen’s death triggered large-scale riots across England but even to this day his death is contentious. Firearms officers trailed Mark as he picked up an illegal firearm on the day of his death. Tragically, it seems that even though he intended to discard it when the police stopped him, in reaching for the firearm he sealed his fate. The riots that followed were not about a fair investigation but greed, destruction, animosity and crass mob justice that speaks of a public attitude increasingly hardening against the police.
There is a plethera of reasons and statistical evidence why, which I intend to reveal, yet it is once again imperative that we do not legitimise defunding the police at this moment as a good idea. This is important as increasingly we seem to be heading towards two distinct camps: defunding the police or arming the police with TASER and even routinely with firearms. In a debate dominated by American policing, I will argue that British policing is not on the same level as every situation involves different officers, a different environment, different training, and different circumstances that all affect the outcome. Although well-funded, well-trained, and accountable to the law, deaths do happen at the hands of UK police but unfortunately, as I will show, there is no such thing as risk-free use of force.
Another example of the armchair investigators at work and of the differences in scenarios that affect the outcome of a law enforcement operation is the case of Dylann Roof, the white supremacist who was convicted of mass murder in a predominantly black church in the South. Despite gunning down nine people he was given food from Burger King in the hours after being arrested. Proof of white supremacy in American law enforcement? No. As the video of his arrest shows, he fully complied with the officer’s commands, pulling into a safe area that was easy for the multiple officers to control. Instead of resisting or aggravating the situation, he seems to calmly exit the vehicle and is searched by the officers. I’m also no legal expert but I’ll guess that if you starve a suspect it will not help your case in court no matter how despicable they are. I suspect that the food’s main purpose was to gain compliance and more information from the suspect. Contrast this to the incident we’ll explore later in Atlanta, Georgia where a drunk man resisted arrest, wrestled with officers, and then grabbed a TASER and pointed it at them. Every situation involves different officers, a different environment, different training, and different circumstances- all of which in every instance affect the outcome.
Such an enormously variant environmental context is a key part of the reason why British police don’t deserve to be painted with the same brush as their American counterparts. To provide further evidence, the idea of defunding the police in the US is based on the presumption that white officers are more likely to kill black suspects. Unfortunately for this idea, ‘nonwhite officers kill both black and Latino suspects at significantly higher rates than white officers’ according to the following report, suggesting that the situation is far more nuanced than some cliche conceptualisation of white cops roaming the streets looking for unarmed black men to kill. As we’ll see, there are far too many factors at play to paint all British officers, let alone all U.S. officers, with the same brush.
The relevant history
Policing in the UK began with Sir Robert Peel who wanted to create a non-military force to keep the peace in the escalating situation in London. During Victorian times, London’s crime began to escalate; a hub of different groups with little community loyalty compared to in rural areas were shoved together in one city with both extremes of wealth as well as a poor social security and broken families. Clearly a new approach was needed for a way of living that had exceeded the capabilities of old methods.
In 1829 Peel's Metropolitan Police Bill received parliamentary approval. The first black officer was appointed in 1837 and almost 100 years later, in 1915, Britain's first female officer with the power of arrest, Edith Smith, began her career in Grantham, Lincolnshire. From the start, a deliberate decision was made to dress officers in darker colours in contrast to the red coats worn by the Army. From the start, therefore, the first officers were supposed to work with the community rather than as an occupying force. Interestingly, fifty ‘pairs’ of pistols were originally ordered for Peel’s police force. Although this wasn’t intended to be a military force, clearly the founders of modern policing recognized that a variety of force options should be available to officers and that these officers had as much a right to protect themselves as well as the ultimate responsibility to match the criminal’s firepower and protect the public.
Sir Robert Peel’s statue in Bury, England. He served the United Kingdom twice as Prime Minister.
In the U.S. the first modern police force was established in Boston in 1838 in neither dissimilar times nor circumstances. Newcomers from Germany and Ireland raised tensions with locals and they were used as scapegoats for rising crime. Previously along the Eastern seaboard a mixture of ‘night-watch men’ and private security were used. Again, a new method was required for circumstances that outstripped old methods. In the South, however, the economic prominence of slavery meant that it became the primary focus of early policing. From the early 18th Century, groups of men on horseback would hunt down escaped slaves, keep tabs on slave owners, and generally create an environment hostile to slave revolt.
In 1910, the first female officer with powers of arrest was appointed in Los Angeles. Already we see some stark differences between American and British policing. The purposes of police were different according to where in the U.S. you were. In the North there was a desire for more formalised law enforcement to reflect the growing diverse communities that had increasingly less in common and, therefore, needed a communal method of delivering justice that was mutually satisfactory for different groups. It had to be inclusive by its very nature. And early policing in the South was exclusive by its very nature, seeking to keep black people in the social class determined by their skin colour alone. Meanwhile, in the UK policing was comparably more akin to this Northern model and about working with and not against the community, much unlike in the Southern states. Although I cannot find evidence as such, I’ll take a wild stab in the dark and say that guns were routinely carried by police from the start if they had access to them, a common sense measure in a country where civilians have a right to bear arms ingrained in the founding document.
Equipment and dangers
Fast forward to 2020 and there are still significant differences in approaches. Except for Northern Ireland (due to the legacy of the Troubles) UK officers are not routinely armed. Only on occasion, if it gets serious, specially trained firearms officers may attend.
On one end of the spectrum, most of our British officers carry nothing more dangerous than a baton and some pepper spray. Though as I will show, these options in and of themselves are not wholly risk-free. Some will also carry a TASER. However, at the other end of the spectrum are CTSFOs (Counter-Terrorism Specialist Firearms Officers) who use SAS-style tactics, although these officers are a tiny minority. Responsibilities are generally split up into smaller county-size areas in England and Wales with Scotland and Northern Ireland both having a single country-wide organisation.
In the U.S. all officers carry firearms as well as TASER, a baton and pepper spray. Rifles are also stashed in patrol vehicles. Even accounting for the size of the country, there are vastly more police agencies; almost 18,000 including federal police, sheriff departments etc. Another key difference is that law enforcement agencies have access to surplus military equipment- some $1.8 billion worth- thanks to the 1033 Programme which means that the military gear costs police forces a fraction of what it otherwise would do. This is in direct contradiction of what Peel envisaged for the police in the UK because the police was primarily supposed to protect communities from internal and not external threats as the military was.
Blurring the lines between the military and the police only seeks to further distance police officers from the communities they serve and therefore is counter-productive in protecting the community from threats from within, as it makes it potentially appear as if the police themselves are the internal threat. A military force uses military equipment that is designed to give the impression of superiority over the enemy; the very opposite to the effective policing that Peel envisaged.
According to the Washington Post, more than 1000 people were shot and killed by U.S. police in the past year. According to the UK Home Office, a grand total of 13 people had police firearms discharged in their direction between April 2018 and March 2019 in England and Wales- let alone died. Of course, the U.S. is bigger and more civilians have guns, creating a potentially more unsafe environment for police officers to work in, but that still does not explain the discrepancy. The over-simplified answer would be that if we give police guns, they will be more likely to use them. Taking them away would lead to fewer deaths. This is where our mostly unarmed British bobby comes into play.
When talking about use of force in the context of firearms, it is important to have a basic grasp of ballistics and therefore why officers are more likely to aim for the chest, ending up with loss of life. A key part of firearms safety is knowing what you're shooting at and what is behind it. This is important because once you have pulled the trigger, you have zero control over what that bullet will do. If you aim for the leg (a comparatively small and often moving target) you might miss. The bullet could then hit an innocent bystander or another officer. Or ricochet off a lamppost etc. and become even less predictable. Even if you hit the leg, you could still hit a major artery or shatter a bone which would burst an artery anyway.
The chest by comparison is a larger target and therefore harder to miss and also filled with lots of muscle fat and vital organs which will help slow your bullet and also stop your target from doing whatever it is you don’t want them to do. There’s no guarantee that it will stop your bullet which is why if a firearms officer ever points a weapon in your general direction and you’re not the suspect, it’s an excellent idea to get out of their way. So, for any of you wondering why officers do not just shoot them in the legs, that is why. Of course, most UK officers do not carry guns, but does that mean more safety?
Moving down the ‘deadly’ scale to TASER and we hit a snag. Is a TASER a deadly weapon or not? This is very important given recent police shootings in Atlanta, Georgia. A driver failed a field sobriety test and when the officers tried to arrest him, he struggled with them, grabbed one of their TASER devices, and was shot dead shortly afterwards. If he did have a lethal weapon, it is a straightforward case of self-defence. If not, then the shooting was unjustified. TASER themselves say that in more than 99% of cases there was no serious injury from their device. The device being a ‘stun gun’ that temporarily incapacitates individuals using electricity at a distance using two barbs fired from a device.
Amnesty International UK disagrees, calling it a ‘potentially lethal weapon’, highlighting the deaths of 18 people in the UK who died after a TASER was used against them. The Coroner found in two cases the TASER was a significant factor. Similarly, in the U.S. more than 1000 people have died when a TASER was used against them, and in 153 cases it was a significant factor. TASER, therefore, does not necessarily mean 100% safe. Not to mention that for it to work properly both barbs must make a good connection to the person. See this video as an example of why police don’t just TASER every suspect and hope for the best. It is not a perfect solution.
Officers do have other options, including dogs, batons and pepper spray. As cute and cuddly as a police dog can be, German Shepherds (the most common breed used) can have a bite force of 239 pounds per square inch compared to 86 for a human. Combined with a low-slung mass of between 4.7 and 6.2 stone and there is clear potential to cause serious pain and injury. Regarding batons, besides firearms these are probably some of the bloodiest tools an officer can use because like a firearm, it is an impact weapon. A British police officer recently hit a 16 year old in the head with his retractable baton and hospitalised him. Again, there’s no such thing as no-risk use of force.
Lastly on the bobby’s toolbelt, pepper spray. As anyone who has ever chopped chillies thought it a good idea to touch their eyes knows, the chemical capsaicin hurts. Pepper spray is supposed to utilise this to cause extreme and temporary discomfort to gain compliance. It has the advantage over a baton or a dog in the sense that it can be used from a distance, like a TASER or firearm. But it is not without risk - Forbes notes in a 2004 paper from Duke and University of North Carolina cautioned about the other chemicals often used with OC, that “inhalation of high doses of some of these chemicals can produce adverse cardiac, respiratory and neurologic effects, including arrhythmias and sudden death.” Again, no method that the police use to protect themselves, the public, or force compliance will be 100 per cent without risk. Police officers are expected to use their training and judgement to use the appropriate level of force, even if it's grappling or a sleep hold. If they are in potentially unstable and dangerous situations every day, even with formidable training and caution it is impossible their judgement will be unilaterally perfect on every occasion. Even if the armchair BLM investigators do not agree.
This matters a great deal not just in the UK but also the U.S. as cries of defunding the police first began on the Western side of the Atlantic, but like seemingly everything else America does, it inevitably and eventually wond its way onto our society’s shores. Their calls are made on the basis that the police hurt too many people and their community would be better off if those funds were better channelled elsewhere. This is yet another woke and trendy idea to arrive as an American import. It was not that long ago that police cuts were a bad idea, according to the British left. It is convenient in politics to have short memories.
Solution
So let’s spell it out: poor people can’t afford private security like rich people can. Rich private security companies will profit where the police fall. Eventually, the left will demand private security for all. Otherwise known as the Police. In the meantime, it will be the poorest in society who suffer as social workers and psychologists are left to pick up the pieces. This is just another case of leftist intellectual elitism. You might well have a degree in criminology or social work which is impressive. But unfortunately, the crackhead that is coming at you with a knife will not care.
I agree that police use of force should be kept to a bare minimum and that excessive force should be rigorously investigated (though we don’t want a witch hunt, lest people be put off from joining the police in the first place). But the way to achieve this in the long term is more high-quality training given to more police officers. We need officers who are confident in their de-escalation and unarmed combat skills to the extent that they know what they’re capable of in a given situation so they know where their limits lie and they know at what point to reach for a TASER or firearm. We need officers that can shoot a suspect after the suspect reaches but before the suspect pulls the trigger. Otherwise the suspect will get shot simply for reaching for the waistband as Mark Duggan was. Better training and more officers cannot be achieved without funds. That is why defunding the police is such a counter-productive idea.
British police have a comparatively proud tradition of unarmed policing by consent. They do not deserve to be lumped in with their American counterparts on the false presumption that both are institutionally racist. Moreover, a Sky News poll conducted back in 2017 found that 72 per cent of the public wanted police officers to be routinely armed. An entirely new article could be written on the pros and cons of this. But in the meantime #DefundthePolice is yet another terrible American import that drags our proud history of policing through the mud. It is impossible to eliminate the risks associated when police use force as much as we might want to.
Above all, whatever changes the future might bring for our police, it must be led by our consent to be effective and above all, as safe as possible. If the Tories can achieve this, they will once again become the party of law and order and sustain their support from working class communities.
