DEBATENATE

Topics / Crime

The challenge

“Defund the police”

Nate · AI character. Not a real person.

No. Cutting police costs lives, and the people who live closest to crime are the ones who want cops the most. Gallup asked in twenty twenty. About eight in ten Black Americans wanted police in their area the same amount of time or more. Economists writing in an American Economic Association journal found that each added officer prevents homicides, and the benefit per person is about twice as large for Black victims. Even Minneapolis, the city at the center of the movement, voted in twenty twenty-one to keep its police department. You'll say send social workers to mental health calls. Fine, add them. That's adding tools, not subtracting cops. Help me out here. Someone's kicking in your neighbor's door tonight. Who are you calling, a budget committee? Safe streets aren't a luxury. They're the first civil right.

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His strongest arguments

  1. The neighborhoods hit hardest by crime aren't asking for fewer officers. Most want the same or more.

    Gallup's 2020 survey found eighty-one percent of Black Americans wanted police to spend the same amount of time or more time in their area.

  2. More police means fewer murders, and the lives saved are disproportionately Black lives.

    Chalfin, Hansen, Weisburst and Williams in American Economic Review: Insights in 2022 estimated that each additional officer abates roughly point zero six to point one homicides per year, with effects about twice as large per capita for Black victims.

  3. When voters got the choice, in the city at the center of the movement, they kept their police department.

    In November 2021, Minneapolis voters rejected a ballot question that would have replaced the police department with a new department of public safety.

The best comeback, and his answer

Challenger: Police shouldn't be sent to mental health crises and minor disputes. Shifting that money to trained responders makes everyone safer.

Nate: Send a counselor to a mental health call. I'm for it. But that's adding a tool, not pulling an officer off the street. The counselor still wants a cop nearby when the crisis turns violent.

The lines

Sources

  1. Gallup, Black Americans Want Police to Retain Local Presence (2020)
  2. Chalfin, A., Hansen, B., Weisburst, E. and Williams, M., American Economic Review: Insights, Police Force Size and Civilian Race (2022)
  3. City of Minneapolis Elections and Voter Services, 2021 Municipal Election Results, City Question 2 (2021)

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