Cops Continue To Bitch About Defunding The Police Despite Little Defunding Actually Happening (original) (raw)

from the getting-paid-good-money-to-complain-about-money dept

It’s that time of the year again. Time for cops to start up their periodic whining about not being liked as much as they thought they were — something that happens any time stats show a crime spike.

The FBI has released its admittedly incomplete national compilation of 2021 crime statistics. “Admittedly incomplete,” because the FBI says as much on its own site:

In 2021, the FBI estimated crime statistics for the nation are based on data received from 11,794 of 18,806 law enforcement agencies in the country that year.

That’s less than two-thirds participation. In addition, some larger cities have yet to report any data to the FBI because they claim they’re still transitioning to the FBI’s new, more detailed, reporting system. Something this incomplete can easily become misleading.

But a few cherry-picked crime stats have become exploitable. A major law enforcement group is claiming (without evidence) the spikes in certain violent crimes can be traced directly to two things most cops hate.

“Defaming and defunding police has cops running for exits, as violence surges and we need them now more than ever,” said Jason Johnson, president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund. “This should be a wake-up call.”

“This report confirms there are two inextricably like public safety crises happening,” Johnson said. “Crime, especially murder, has risen precipitously since the summer of 2020 while law enforcement has been demoralized, debilitated, and in some cases defunded. Homicides are up almost 40% since 2019, while most large police departments are hemorrhaging officers.”

“Defaming.” That’s pretty cute. It’s as if cops believe people’s low opinion of them is generated in a vacuum. Or conjured into existence by politicians they don’t like.

While it’s true there’s been an increase in homicides over the last couple of years, it can’t be pinned on reform efforts that arose during the same period. If, as Johnson claims, cops are “running for the exits,” then they’re basically running from the sound of gunfire, abdicating all responsibility in the face of minimal increases in accountability.

And while there have been a couple of two-year increases in certain violent crimes, crime overall continues to decrease. Violent crimes are up only slightly over their last peak in 2016, something that followed a similar two-year increase starting in 2014 — years where no one was really talking about defunding the police.

Meanwhile, property crime has continued its decade-long downward trajectory.

There is no spike here corresponding to discussions of defunding, or, as another “expert” interviewed by The Center Square claims, the election of “rogue prosecutors” who have participated in things like bail reform and the decriminalization of certain minor violations.

The Center Square also spoke to Cully Stimson, a “former prosecutor and legal expert at the Heritage Foundation,” apparently in hopes of increasing the echo in its chamber. Proceed at your own risk.

Stimson pointed to a recent shift fueled largely by discouraging police and empowering “rogue prosecutors” who are much more lax, often refusing to prosecute entire categories of crimes.

“But what we’ve seen since about 2015 … two things started happening,” Stimson said. “The first, [George] Soros bought-and-paid-for prosecutor Kim Foxx was elected in Chicago and then you saw after the George Floyd murder and other notorious police-involved shootings crime in those cities start to go up. And every major city that has elected a Soros bought-and-paid-for rogue prosecutor, crime has exploded. And not coincidentally, those cities are often the same cities … are also ‘defund the police’ cities.”

When you invoke the phrase “Soros bought-and-paid-for” twice in two sentences, your connection should be cut off and your “contribution” excised by the person who made the mistake of asking your opinion.

Stimson also says talking about defunding the police “emboldens” the “criminal element.” But does it? If it did, you’d expect crime to be rising everywhere it’s been discussed. And you’d expect all crime to rise, not just the most violent acts.

Maybe these crime stats are a reflection on the state of policing in this country. People will report violent crimes. Cops swarm to homicide scenes. But maybe the downward trend in property crime isn’t due to better patrolling but to the fact that fewer and fewer people want to call dispatch after being robbed, wait around a few hours for an officer to show up, and spend 30 minutes being disinterestedly questioned by a cop whose going to file a report that will never be looked at again. The crime is still there. It’s just that people are sick of wasting their time reporting it.

Either way, it ain’t the defunding. That just isn’t happening.

The summer of often-violent demonstrations across the country in 2020 also spurred calls for cities to cut police budgets, an idea that’s grown to be known as the “Defund Movement.”

However, a national investigation by the ABC Owned Televisions Stations found those calls have not transformed into action.

An analysis of budgets for more than 100 law enforcement agencies across the country uncovered the opposite. Ninety percent of cities and counties increased spending for police between the fiscal years 2018-19 and 2021-22.

What defunding is happening is the equivalent of a rounding error.

Of the 10% of agencies who did decrease funding, the cuts were small with only eight agencies slashing the budget by more than 2%; a percentage many local government budget experts deem irrelevant.

No one’s getting defunded. If cops are leaving because people are mean, then they’re cowards. They portray themselves as the adults in every proverbial room, but the moment their judgment is questioned or they’re asked to take responsibility for their actions, they head for the exits.

And as they head for the exits, their defenders are there to blame everyone else for their actions. The same people who claim they look death in the eye, day after day (a message often communicated with t-shirts and truck window decals), can’t even meet the gaze of a little adversity. Good riddance.

Filed Under: crime, defund the police, police