gracchusdixit

As millions of Americans took to the streets to protest the brutal murder of George Floyd and countless other black Americans at the hands of police officers, who have for decades felt entitled to ignore the laws they are sworn to enforce, some called for “defunding” police departments altogether.  This sparked a predictable outcry on the political right and no less predictable fears on the left that such a suggestion might provoke a backlash, one that could play straight into the hands of Donald Trump.  Indeed, Trump is already casting himself as a cultural caped crusader, denouncing lawful demonstrators as terrorists.  Whether the risk of such a backlash is real, I am in no position to judge.  Worrying about it, however, poses the very real risk of distracting us from more fundamental questions.   

Do the police actually do what they are supposed to do, which is to keep us safe?  What are we really getting in return for the $200 billion dollars we spend every year on policing and prisons, border security and border walls?  No less importantly, what do we truly know about the qualifications, skills, and character of the people to whom we give so much power? 

Whatever else you may think of American law enforcement, there is little doubt that our country is, by any objective measure, grotesquely over-policed.  We have 18,000 local police departments, almost 100 federal law enforcement agencies, more than a million full-time law enforcement officers, and another 400,000 prison guards.  None of this includes a never-counted myriad of part-timers, private subcontractors, and “citizen cops,” many of whom are lawless vigilantes in all but name.  

The most pernicious consequence of this vast apparatus of policing and suppression is that we incarcerate more of our citizens, by far, than any other country in the world.  With less than five percent of the world’s population, we have 25 percent of its prisoners.  By that standard, the “Land of Liberty” is little better than a Gulag state.    

As to the question of what we get in return for the billions we spend, the answer seems to be:  not much.  There is no credible evidence that it has any effect on criminal activity.  Crimes rates in the United States have been declining steadily for more than 20 years.  They were dropping all the while police budgets were being cut; they continued to drop when spending began to rise.  Crime is declining in red states and blue states, and in communities all across the country, without regard for the size or resources of police departments.  Crime, it would seem, has a mind of its own, which pays scant attention to the cops.

What’s more, for all the money we spend on policing, most crimes are never solved, let alone prevented.  A mere 18 percent of the seven million cases of non-violent crimes committed each year are ever “closed”.  Of the million or so violent crimes, fewer than half lead to any sort of resolution.  Even fewer are prevented—because most violent crimes are acts of domestic assault, which happen out of sight, behind closed doors.  When the police finally arrive, if they ever do, it’s already too late.  

In any event, it is by no means clear that police officers are equipped to handle such situations in the first place.  Only 30 percent of police officers are college graduates, as opposed to 34 percent of the general population and 100 percent of public school teachers.  They lack the training or skills to function as social workers, marriage counselors, or psychologists, and yet, they are paid as if they were. The average police officer makes $68,000 a year.  That’s $16,000 more than the average American and $10,000 more than the average public school teacher.  Cops, in short, are under-qualified for the work we expect them to do and overpaid for the work they are actually capable of doing.

This contradiction is usually rationalized by the claim that police officers “put their lives on the line every day” and deserve to be compensated accordingly.  That fairy tale is a fiction in the service of a fraud.  Not only is police work not especially hazardous, it is remarkably safe.   

In 2018, the most recent year for which reliable statistics are available, a grand total of 55 police officers—out of a population of more than a million—died in “felonious” encounters with criminals.   Those deaths were lamentable in every sense, but they do not paint a picture of a uniquely dangerous profession.  Roughly the same number of Americans die each year from lightning strikes, and the number of deaths in the logging, commercial fishing, or roofing businesses makes police work seem like the safest of sinecures.

At the same time, police officers kill more than 1,000 Americans every year.  That’s the “official” number at least.  Since few police departments keep proper records and many deliberately misclassify the fatalities perpetrated by their officers, the real number is double or even triple the official tally. 

Which brings us to the most important question of all:  what do we really know about the psychological fitness of the people to whom we give so much power and deference?  The answer is:  almost nothing.  

Hard as it is to believe, the last serious study of police psychology was conducted in 1917.  It is even harder to believe that researchers exhausted the subject a century ago and thereafter lost all interest.  It is more likely that police departments stonewalled further research, just as they routinely conceal the misbehavior of their officers.  What they can’t conceal, however, is the pathological combination of aggression and aggrieved victimhood that too many of them display and all too often flaunt. 

If you want to understand this pathology, begin by asking yourself why anyone would go into police work in the first place.  

Some no doubt see it as a true calling, a chance to “serve and protect” their communities.  Human nature being what it is, the number of those who feel this noble tug is bound to be small.  Others don the uniform for purely practical reasons, given the fact that a high school kid with few skills and generally bleak prospects would be hard pressed to find a better job.  Being a cop is neither intellectually nor physically demanding, it pays well, and it provides health and retirement benefits that are beyond the reach of most Americans.  

And then there are those who go into policing for more ominous reasons.  Lured by the trappings of authority, they relish the chance to strut and swagger, to throw their weight around and intimidate those who wouldn’t bother to give them the time of day if they weren’t wearing a badge.  Such people are drawn to power and brute force as antidotes to their own insecurities.  They are, at bottom, bullies.  It is no coincidence that the major police unions are enthusiastic supporters of Donald Trump.  Bullies in blue are all too eager to embrace a bully in chief.

In a sprawling and conflicted country like ours, which is difficult to govern on the best of days, policing may be a necessary evil.  But we must never forget that it is an evil, nonetheless.  The police are the armed enforcers we employ to keep our worst instincts in check.  They are not selfless heroes worthy of being lionized.   On the contrary, they frequently overstep their bounds and turn their power against the very people they are sworn to protect.  Accordingly, we should treat the police warily, with suspicion and constant scrutiny.  We should limit their numbers to the bare minimum required to “protect and serve”.  When they break the law, we should hold them to the same standards that apply to everyone else.  And when they cling to the pathologies of racism, aggression, and brutality, we should root them out and, yes, defund them.