I've been able to generalize those visuals a bit. I have also listened to the stories of my formerly incarcerated patients. The experience of people in poverty, especially when non-white or vulnerable due to homelessness or mental illness, is that police are to be feared. We are now seeing people die because of interacting with police, but that isn't even the biggest problem. There are far more people who are injured physically, mentally or through inappropriate entry into the criminal justice system. The vast majority of those people are black or brown and this treatment is a big contributor to their remaining in poverty. We are paying police to do this. This violence is on us, all of us who pay their salaries, know what is going on and do nothing to change it.
Which brings up another point: policing and the criminal justice system are huge money making operations, much like healthcare. The dysfunction of both are intimately tied to how the money flows. When things like healthcare or crime-care become large enough, tremendous amounts of money flow into them. The money is used to pay many people and each of those people is dependent on that flow of money. Whole sectors of the economy feed off of those proverbial tits and will vigorously root for more sustenance. With healthcare, the money pays for hospital buildings, those who build them, insurance companies, hospitals, administrators, labs, doctors, nurses, janitors, producers of our disposable equipment and the garbage collectors to haul it away (to name but a few.) Law enforcement and criminal justice have similar support systems that make up their entourage, their cheerleaders, their interested parties. Powerful forces want both of these systems to get larger, not smaller. For both of these systems, many of us both pay for them and are recipients of their revenue. We're all in this.
What to do then? These sorts of things will just get bigger if allowed to do so unfettered. Healthcare is a many headed beast and very difficult to tame. This blog is devoted to exploring its dysfunction, with which I am familiar, and to celebrating its successes. Policing and criminal justice reform are problems that many capable people are working on right now. I wouldn't presume to prescribe a solution. I do know, however, that money can be directed to make changes. Police are paid through city and county budgets, mostly. So are emergency medical technicians and firefighters. (See my blog about pay disparities and the shameful way we don't pay EMT's a reasonable wage.) How that funding is divided depends on local government and voters can have an impact on those choices. Personally, I would love to see expanded payment for EMT's and firefighters to come out of police budgets. Many of the things that police do, dealing with folks with mental health and substance abuse problems, responding to reports of domestic disturbances, are not what they are best suited to doing. People with skill in empathy and finding community resources would be better in these situations and would probably avoid escalation. Someone with these abilities could provide those services and be paid to take on those duties. Nurses, counselors, social workers and community mentors come to mind.
In healthcare one way to increase revenue is to expand the definition of disease. When we change the definition of high blood pressure to 10 points lower than it used to be, we create more patients who need our care. Same with cholesterol levels. In the world of crime and punishment, having excessive numbers of laws defining criminal behavior, especially ones that are only sometimes enforced (thinking of various drug laws, for instance) creates more criminals. Fewer crimes, fewer criminals, fewer police and fewer jails. So decriminalizing certain offenses could reduce costs, leaving more money to create vibrant communities.
Downsizing is painful and there is always huge resistance and predictions of catastrophe when it happens. Downsizing police and incarceration is necessary because the system is bloated and not working. We are buying brutality and racial inequality and we are spending a lot of money for it. All of us need to be part of its transformation and economics are vitally important in making that happen.
(Disclaimer: I've been listening to lots of people who really understand this stuff. Many of these ideas are heavily flavored by those wise folk.)
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