If people scream at you long enough, you start trying to understand what they're saying. I spent a good portion of 2020 being screamed at while at work.
My favorite conversation with one of these individuals occurred through the fence that surrounded our building for a time. You could actually have a conversation with the people who showed up in the afternoon, the ones who came at night just screamed and threw things. The woman I spoke with was excited by all of the activity downtown, giddily noting that it was just like the French Revolution.
I asked her if she knew who Robespierre was? She thought for a second but did not recognize the name. I asked her if she had ever heard of the Reign of Terror? Again, she had not.
Most of the rhetoric seemed to focus on the idea of “defunding” the police. The argument seemed to be that police are not necessary in society and was usually followed by an assertion or insinuation that policing is a right wing issue or tenant.
Considering these assertions over the last couple of years I’ve come to the following conclusions:
1 - Armed patrol officers serve a core societal function which is necessary for public safety.
2 - That core societal function, due to its necessity in any type of human society, is inherently apolitical.
The concept is illustrated by the type of calls which require an immediate response to ensure public safety, regardless of how the incident is later handled by the society.
-A homeowner hears the sound of glass breaking downstairs, and someone moving through the house.
-A woman stands on a ledge above a busy street, appearing to contemplate jumping.
-A car crash occurs on a highway and blocks a lane, putting the occupants in danger of being struck again.
-A parent at a crowded park realizes that their child is missing.
-A man is being actively beaten and robbed on a street corner.
The ability to respond to these types of calls is essential to the societal utility provided by the police as an institution. Reducing or removing the ability to respond to these types of calls will necessarily degrade public safety, whether or not citizens of that society realize this while going about their daily lives. The people calling about these types of events both need and want assistance immediately.
Any human society in any time period will, based on human psychology and behavior, have incidents that necessitate an immediate response to ensure the safety of those involved. What you call the responders is immaterial. They will have to be armed in some capacity to defend themselves and third parties at the scene (this could be an article in itself but I’ll leave that for another day).
Once the necessary core function has been completed how a society handles the incident afterwards will vary. Take the burglary in progress example above, assuming officers located a houseless mentally ill drug addict inside. Was his motivation to sleep, steal, or sexually assault the occupant? Within this one example we now have multiple criteria that have to be evaluated and dealt with through either the courts, mental health or drug treatment options (if any exist), or completely different means. That is beyond the scope of this article and only highlighted to demonstrate that, however a society (of any kind) decides to deal with its problems, the core societal function of immediately responding to the incident and making the scene safe remains a necessity.
Furthermore, the types of calls that patrol officers respond to can provide policymakers insight into what issues are being inadequately addressed by the society in question (drug use, mental illness, housing, etc). These kinds of issues cannot be truly ignored, as ignoring them up front only ensures that the negative consequences of that choice will be seen at the patrol level.
When you respond to the type of calls discussed above people are frequently extremely thankful for the assistance, regardless of any other factors. In one case officers responded to a man who was being beaten on a street corner, successfully stopping the attack and detaining the attacker.
The man who was being attacked was grateful that the officers rushed to the scene and risked their safety for someone they never met before. While expressing his gratitude he sheepishly mentioned that he’d been in the crowds yelling at law enforcement during demonstrations in 2020.
The paradox of policing is that it involves handling inherently unsafe situations in the safest manner possible. We strive for the best outcome that an imperfect situation allows. When someone needs the police they usually need them very badly, and five minutes ago. Not everyone can have an epiphany brought about by actually experiencing this necessity, but its existence is the reason that societies must focus on what form policing takes, not whether or not it exists.
