I would love to see more bills where Democrats provide more police funding but tie it to accountability reforms like this one. Seems like a winning move.
American police are funded locally, often with large budgets, and would happily turn away that extra federal funding and associated accountability. Even more, lots and lots of conservative politicians and talking heads would make a point about how they fought off "big government" and "democrat" control of their local police departments, and you'd be hard pressed to convince people not already pissed at their local PD that such a situation is a bad one.
If they had to turn away things like surplus military gear and federal dollars for training in military tactics because they weren't willing to take the accountability measures -- that'd be progress.
Police really rarely needs military surplus gear anyway. Neither do they need training in the military tactics, unless they want to treat policing streets as a battlefield, which is very concerning if they do.
To add on. Even outside the scope of funding. There is an interesting trend in local politicians elected to city council, mayor, etc and having backing of the police union. Any serious action that would cause a culture change that is unwanted by the police could result in loosing the backing of the police union, hence, a good chance of loosing an election. So change on the local level is unlikely to happen.
It is not a recent trend, it is simply a consequence of sufficient voters not able or willing to do sufficient due diligence and voting in the election.
100% of the cops and their family and friends will be voting for the politician that favors them. Will sufficient local voters not associated with cops also vote? Probably not.
Few people want to go to work their jobs, raise their kid, and then also dig into the city budget to find out which politician is proposing increasing retirement benefits for cops that will cause massive increases in spending 30 years down the road.
In many ways, our “democracy” relies on a certain amount of people doing the “right thing”, even though they could get away with worse. Too many people try to get away with stuff, and it will start to unravel.
but, since covid times, many small towns are legitimately in financial distress.. especially around pension commitments.. its a slow-moving train wreck
Yes, they are; out of very roughly $125 billion annually in funding for state and local police, about $20 billion comes from the feds through DOJ programs that support them, and some comes through other federal funding streams.
This is stretching the truth I think. The feds don't just hand out money to your local town's police and buy them things. The local government applies for grants, funds and special programs and then gives it to the police. Which is very different.
It might get muddy when an elected official runs the law enforcement office (such as with elected county sheriffs, etc.), but that is still the local government that is doing the requesting.
That is for the state, and local municipalities to decide - not congress.
Policing is best done at the local level. The police force needs to be local, and beholden to locals. It would be a very perverse system to have a "federalized" police force in every town and city...
>That is for the state, and local municipalities to decide - not congress.
Congress can attach strings, just like they do to tons of other things.
>Policing is best done at the local level. The police force needs to be local, and beholden to locals. It would be a very perverse system to have a "federalized" police force in every town and city...
I don't think you can just take that as a given. Most countries in the world have a federalized/unified police force, the Anglosphere are the weird ones here. But of course there is the RCMP as a counterexample.
Most countries in the world are not the size of the US (both in population, territory and diversity of culture/norms/expectations). And most countries in the world are very clearly examples of how not to do policing...
Many reasons. Maybe I'm a black person in the south who believes my local government is controlled by racists. Maybe I believe the incentives for the prosecutors who are supposed to police the police are completely out of whack because prosecutors rely on police work to do their job. Maybe I just think the police are completely unaccountable and am ready to see a new political strategy regarding policing to be tried.
Either way, federal funding doesn't eliminate local funding, it would just be in addition to if the police agree to some rules.
The problems you describe would only be made worse by moving funding to a centralized, far away and detached federal entity. Accountability - gone. Locality - gone. Trust - gone.
We already have a centralized federalized police force - the FBI. Look what political shenanigan's they have become embroiled in lately. Who's interest are they serving currently? Who are they accountable to? What can be done about systemic issues in this system? Nothing and no-one...
> Maybe I'm a black person in the south who believes my local government is controlled by racists
This is vastly overplayed in modern times, despite what sensationalists would have you believe, but in this alternate reality nothing forbids the federal government from being filled with and controlled by racists either...
Regardless, the solution is very clearly to change the local government, not side-step it for a government that's hundreds or thousands of miles away and unaware of local issues that might be important to residents. Oh how history repeats itself... the US wouldn't be a country today if we hadn't already learned this painful lesson.
More federal government is rarely if ever the solution folks. Your local government already has the power and ability to do all the things it's citizens desire.
I guess I just disagree with your characterization of pretty much everything you said.
The FBI - obviously not perfect, but the political shenanigans seem overblown to me. The mar-a-lago thing was 1. probably justified although I'll reserve judgment until the confiscated files are revealed, and 2. ordered by the attorney general, not the FBI. Based on the news I have read the FBI is far, far, far more accountable than my local police department which is utterly unaccountable because any politician who crosses their union is instantly replaced.
> the solution is very clearly to change the local government
Much easier said than done. Pretty much everyone in my city has nothing but negative experience with the police, but nothing can be done because every politician is scared shitless of them. We elect "police reformer" after "police reformer" and they quickly change their tune once they realize doing anything cops dislike effectively instantly means laws are no longer enforced. We're being held hostage, and there is no local solution.
Who defeated the first iteration of the KKK? It wasn't local sheriffs, it was the feds.
Who brought charges against Ahmaud Arbery's killers? The local PD cleared those lynchers. It needed the Georgia state authorities' involvement.
Local police authorities can be of highly variable quality, and they don't have as much oversight as the higher levels of law enforcement. I'm not inclined to trust in them more just because they're "local". Their closeness often leads to massive conflicts of interest. Trust has to be earned.
Another win would be promoting/funding resources for mental health crises. There are too many reports of unstable people being killed by the police when their families call in for help.
Cops should be dealing with bad guys, not sick people.
Are we "funding police" or are we "funding enforcement?" And should all enforcement funding be viewed through the lens of political reform? Why is that necessarily a winning move?