I don’t disagree with any of that. But it’s still the case that fundamental reform of US policing will require an increase in personnel costs while all the officers are being trained or retrained. And that’ll probably take a decade, if not longer.Fishnut wrote: ↑Thu Jun 18, 2020 8:18 pmThis piece offers a really good overview of police budgets. It notes that the majority of it goes to salaries (US police are paid more than other countries including the UK and France), equipment (including costly body cameras that have a mysterious tendency to not be turned on when people are being injured or killed) and lawsuits and settlement fees.The piece also references Alex Vitale's book The End Of Policing (currently available for free as an ebook) which argues that police are having to 'over-police' in order to justify their budgets. This can be clearly seen in the BBC3 documentary NYPD: The Biggest Gang in New York? where in some parts of the city (oddly enough, those with majority-black residents) even letting cigarette ash fall to the ground is treated as a criminal offence.Around $230 million is spent per year on NYPD misconduct lawsuits alone, while in 2018 Chicago’s police department spent $113 million on settlements and legal fees to families of those killed or harmed by police.
There may well be savings if some of the roles can be transferred to other services and over policing is reduced. But the priority has to be reform of the police to end the brutality.