Fund the Police

    

Ever since the events of 2020, the public perception of law enforcement took a sharp turn. The deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Walter Wallace, and more absolutely scarred the view of police in today's America. Police officers are incredibly important to ensure our safety and the proper function of society. Lessening their influence, who knows what horrible paths our nation could follow and that seems to be what the left wants. Defunding the police, a common opinion held by leftists, in turn, provides less training, fewer resources, fewer body cameras, and less confidence for police officers. Instead of ripping valuable resources from police department hands, we should provide them with more funding, better education, and support our officers who protect us every day. 

Police officers do more than we see on the news. They provide a sense of safety with their presence, assist citizens in need, run toward danger while others run away, and so much more. While the left skews the story and calls for less policing and defunding, the reality is far from it. According to a study done by Gallup’s Center on Black Voices found that  61% of Black respondents wanted police presence to remain at least the same in their neighborhoods, while an additional 20% wanted more police presence. Turns out that people want something different than what the mainstream media pushes. Removing funding from the police would result in less police presence, putting departments in a tough situation down the road to failure. 

Without a doubt, some police encounters take a turn for the worse. These instances can be found easily in the deaths of, namely, George Floyd, Walter Wallace, and Breonna Taylor. These three deaths tarnished police reputation, as the media used these unfortunate passings as a way to push their agenda. In these encounters, it can be understandable how the police were in the wrong. What is wrong is using a few negative moments to portray all police as the same. Instead of putting down all police and making their jobs harder, it is possible to reform the police in ways that don't involve defunding. 

Turns out, more police presence equals less crime. More police presence requires more funding and more training. According to a study conducted by Jonathan Klick, John M. MacDonald, and Ben Grunwald patrols by the University of Pennsylvania Police Department compared with similar neighborhoods that did not receive additional police presence found that UPPD activity is associated with a 60% reduction in crime. It is obvious that an increased police presence can help to lower crime rates. This extra police presence is noticeable to citizens and allows them to live with a higher sense of security, while also discouraging potential criminals from committing crimes. While a higher police presence is one way of reducing crime there are certainly other ways. Increasing funding will also allow for better and more quality training in police academies. 

A change and increase in training for police officers are vital to helping them interpret, go about, and deescalate potentially dangerous situations. University of Chicago researchers Oeindrila Dube, Sandy Jo MacArthur, and Anuj K. Shah developed a training program named Situational Decision Making (Sit-D). This program helped officers recognize stressful situations, identify cognitive shortcuts, and confirmation bias, and help them to find different interpretations of situations. 

Step 1: Recognizing emotional and physiological responses.

Step 2: Regulating these responses to better think systematically.

Step 3: Considering alternative interpretations of situations.

Step 4: Thinking of various response options.

Step 5: Assessing the consequences of each possible response.

They tested the program out on two thousand Chicago police officers and found that there was a twenty-three percent drop in the use of force by officers, as well as a twenty-three percent drop in charges such as disobeying and officer and disorderly conduct. These results show that more training was beneficial in more positive police encounters. It was also found that eighty percent of the officers who went through the training program liked the program and figured they could implement it on the job immediately. The use of this training program could potentially be implemented throughout the country. Projecting around a twenty percent drop in the use of force could result in a massive culture shift in police departments across the nation. Although implementing a program like this all throughout the United States would cost a pretty penny, and the left may not like that (despite all the good it would do). 

It is obvious that police departments around the nation, and particularly in the large cities need a change. That change is NOT ripping funding away from our valuable law enforcement officers. On the contrary, it is clear that providing officers with the training and resources they need will result in safer communities. Painting our first responders in a bad image will NOT make our nation safer. Doing so will ensure the deaths of George Floyd and others are not in vain. Their unfortunate deaths brought light to issues prevalent in our system. These issues can be fixed, so long as we assist the police in doing so. Our police do so much every day, actively and inactively, to make our communities safe, and to assist people in need. Despite what the left tells us, we need police and they need us and our support.