OPINION: Police Hold A Vital Role

"Defund the police" is perhaps one of the worst slogans of any campaign for change I've ever heard.

That particular push seems to have lost its steam, not that those who advocated it have necessarily changed their minds. Certainly there are still calls for reform within law enforcement, even sometimes by leaders in law enforcement. And, for those unafraid of critically examining how communities carry out law enforcement, there are undoubtedly changes that can diminish the wedge that exists between some officers or agencies and the communities they serve.

Amid reactions to the brutal and unnecessary death of George Floyd, the calls to "defund the police" reached their highest pitch. Certainly for the Black community, Floyd's video-recorded death under the knee of a white police officer on the streets of Minneapolis became the most visible example of unjust police brutality. But if George Floyd had been a solitary occurrence, while tragic, it would never have turned into a national -- even international -- clarion call for change. Rather, so blatantly unjust was Floyd's killing that it was impossible for people who had rationalized away so many other deaths to do so again.

The "defund" movement, in only a small way, made its way into Northwest Arkansas.

For example, Fayetteville had planned its new police headquarters for years. Voters in 2019 -- a year before Floyd's death -- approved $37 million to build the new facility near Interstate 49 on Porter Road. The effort for a more secure facility took on new urgency after the December 2019 murder of 27-year-old Officer Stephen Carr as he sat in a patrol car outside the city's downtown police headquarters.

Still, in 2020, a few residents rocked by Floyd's death called on the Fayetteville City Council to quash the project. One resident, for example, said law enforcement agencies are based on violence and cannot be reformed.

The new headquarters is under construction. But law enforcement funding did take a hit when five city council members rejected a $250,000, three-year federal grant to add two police officers to the collaborative arrangement with Fayetteville Public Schools. That arrangement puts officers within the schools, with specific training on interacting with young people as they also provide protection from external threats.

In Arkansas, anyway, that might be the closest the "defund the police" effort came to any success. While many Arkansans recognized that changes to law enforcement agencies can be beneficial, there were no serious discussions about the withdrawal of funding. I think most Arkansans still see a vital role for police officers within their communities.

Last week, the New York Times reported that larger cities across the United States where there was success in targeting police funding are, in many cases, reversing themselves in response to rising levels of crime.

"After slashing police spending last year, Austin, Texas, restored the department's budget and raised it to new heights," the story stated. "Burlington, Vt., the city that Sen. Bernie Sanders once led as mayor, went from cutting its police budget to approving $10,000 bonuses for officers to stay on the job."

Dallas made cuts, but more recently the mayor has pushed to restore the funding and increase the number of officers on the street. In major cities, spikes in violent crime have been a major factor.

As with most debates of public policy, this outcome doesn't mean the concerns expressed as part of the "defund" campaign ought to now be ignored. Rather, it's that the very idea of defunding police was never a realistic path toward affecting change.

Police won't solve the social ills that lead to many of their calls for service. Expecting them to do so is where communities have failed. Until cities, counties and states invest in ways to address root causes of criminal behaviors, there won't be much progress. And certainly, cutting back on policing isn't a solution.

-- Greg Harton is editorial page editor for the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Opinions expressed are those of the author.