Editorial: Should Hawaii counties defund police? No: Make warranted decision, not vengeful one

In response to recent cases of police brutality, including the murder of George Floyd, ideas such as “defund the police” have become frequent motifs on social media and from certain politicians. The exact definition of “defund the police” is difficult to ascertain. To some, it means cutting a police department’s budget and allocating funds to other areas. For others, it means abolishing and replacing the department with some other entity to handle public safety.

The problem with these ideas is that they are actually nonsequiturs disguised as viable policy solutions, often laced with moral indignation against those who disagree. Defunding or restructuring the police department wrongfully assumes that those actions would necessarily reduce police misconduct. If the problem at hand is police violence, simply cutting a police department’s budgets or reallocating those resources to different agencies wouldn’t necessarily result in fewer instances of that.

There are, however, actions such as improving police training to focus on helping officers defuse situations, that would have a more targeted effect at fixing certain discrepancies. Ending qualified immunity for officers might also be a piece of the puzzle.

Historically, the greatest obstacle in reining in police misconduct has been union contracts. Like other public-sector unions, police unions have a surprising amount of power over department operation and oversight and often prevent legitimate disciplinary action from being carried out.

To be clear, I’m not opposing or advocating for reducing police funding. During an economic crisis like the one we are currently experiencing, local governments should consider cutting the budget of most agencies. But doing so for an unjustified purpose seems more like revenge or collective punishment than actual policy targeted at solving the issue at hand.

Law enforcement being generally brave and there being a need for some police reforms, perhaps even dramatic ones, aren’t mutually exclusive. After all, was it not merely five months ago that the island mourned the death of two Honolulu Police Department officers? Yet, no profession is perfect, and steps can be taken to reduce instances of police misconduct. HPD has a host of its own corruption issues as evidenced by the investigation surrounding federal conspiracy and obstruction of justice.

However, there is a phenomenon in which those who even slightly disagree with the vague notion of defunding the police, question its merit in reducing police brutality, or suggest that most cops are good, are “canceled” by the mob. “Defund the police” and much of the rhetoric surrounding it are an extension of that cancel culture. It’s easier to tear things, or people, down than it is to think about the repercussion of ideas and actions or to discuss the potential alternatives.

It has become more politically expedient to virtue signal than to ask the tough questions and develop serious solutions. It takes no courage or intellect to pull police-related Lego sets off the shelves or cancel long-running police-related shows compared to actually discussing legitimate solutions. Unfortunately, many people have cowered behind the poorly constructed slogan of defunding the police without knowing what it even means out of fear that asking the wrong questions or making the wrong suggestions would get them canceled.

Despite what social media and some counties’ decisions to disband their police departments might have you believe, defunding the police or abolishing police forces entirely have little public support. Reason is being drowned out in the midst of virtue signaling and mob psychology. If we are to combat corruption and unlawful violence at the hands of police, don’t we have an obligation to get the right solutions instead of throwing around phrases that ultimately mean little?

Melissa Newsham was a student at Punahou School, class of 2019.

“Raise Your Hand,” a monthly column featuring Hawaii’s youth and their perspectives, appears in the Insight section on the first Sunday of each month. It is facilitated by the Center for Tomorrow’s Leaders. CTLhawaii.org