Reducing the size of the police force will reduce the number of interactions between the police and the citizenry — but not necessarily between the criminals and the citizenry.

According to a story from Forbes back in February,

A new survey of crime data in 34 of America’s biggest cities found a 30% increase in homicides in 2020, a jump researchers describe as having “no modern precedent” and link tentatively to the coronavirus pandemic and racial justice protests that started over the summer.

While homicide rates calculated from this survey topped 2019’s numbers in every month of the year, the biggest increase came after the May protests, with homicides rising 37% compared to 2019 in June through August (the study notes that this increase is statistically significant even taking into consideration a typical increase in homicides over the summer months).

My time and experience as a participant in the mechanism of the criminal justice system left me with one lasting impression that is not something well enough understood by the citizenry at large.

A function of the freedoms we all enjoy as citizens of this great country is that, for the most part, the police in the United States are not empowered to arrest people in order to prevent crimes. Most exercises of police power in the United States come in the aftermath of crimes that have already been committed, and the arrest is the action that begins the process for establishing guilt and accountability for the illegal acts in the criminal justice system.

One aspect of this freedom is that it incorporates a “risk-reward” calculation in criminal activity — “Is the reward from the criminal conduct such that it is worth the risk that I might get caught and go to jail?”

There is an entire segment of the population of the United States that lives according to this calculation because for them crime is easier than work. It takes less time and is usually more financially rewarding for those who don’t want to learn skills valuable to employers. It leaves much more free time every day of every week to do what they want to do rather than what their employer requires them to do in order to earn a paycheck.

When the risk of apprehension goes down, the risk-benefit calculation weighs even more heavily in favor of criminal behavior as compared to finding a job.

“Defunding the Police” makes the “work” of those who choose crime over employment even easier and less risky. ///

Once crime gets bad enough that politicians have to act, they will swing the pendulum so far the other direction that it may get stuck there: arresting people people to prevent crimes, because the population is so fed up with crime that they will accept ANY solution to make everyday life more safe.