1/x The narrative on Camden, NJ disbanding its police is dangerously oversimplified. The new force embraced broken windows policing (and more). Local NAACP pushed the new force to embrace deescalation (and more). To the force’s credit, it is increasingly responsive. Here we go:
2/x Camden’s police force was disbanded as part of a political coalition being local Democrats and Republican Gov. Christie. It happened at a time when state austerity measures deeply cut funding and caused a crisis in the city. nytimes.com/2010/11/14/nyr…
3/x The process was explicitly anti-democratic. Camden residents petitioned to have the issue put on the ballot, but the mayor successfully sued her own residents to keep it from being voted on. nj.com/camden/2014/03…
4/x The Metro Police immediately became better funded, hired more police officers, and became much, much whiter and younger. governing.com/topics/public-…
5/x In fact, because the new force paid so little after busting the local union, it became a place that young, white police spent a year or two prior to returning to their own towns. inquirer.com/philly/news/20…
6/x Camden County even had to try to recoup “training” costs from other townships, it had become a state-wide training ground for white cops who did not stay long. (see article above)
7/x There was a decrease in crime from the peak austerity years, but it was a decrease mirrored by many other New Jersey cities who had also state aid for their budget cut by Gov. Christie during statewide austerity. danley.camden.rutgers.edu/2017/01/25/chi…
danley.camden.rutgers.edu/2014/06/11/giv…
danley.camden.rutgers.edu/2014/06/11/giv…
8/x And as you might imagine, the instincts of the newer, whiter force were not good. They went on an explicit broken windows campaign.
9/x There was a dramatic increase in stops for taillights being out, expired licenses, and, comically, riding a bicycle without a bell. Here’s the ACLU: aclu.org/press-releases… 
10/x There was a parallel rise in excessive force complaints. inquirer.com/news/inq/compl…
11/x One incident in 2014 went viral locally, and features community members trying to intervene while officers use choke hold techniques similar to those used to murder George Floyd. Warning: the footage is very disturbing. danley.camden.rutgers.edu/2014/04/07/cam…
12/x Dan Keashen, the director of public affairs at Camden County which runs the Metro Police, replied to community outrage with a press release that declared this “a good arrest”. danley.camden.rutgers.edu/2014/04/08/cam…
13/x The violence by police was paired with tokenistic approaches to community policing — ice cream parties, cops playing basketball, often covered by the news while the issues of excessive force received less attention. courierpostonline.com/story/news/loc…
14/x the most haunting quote I heard in my research about this time was *with the new police force, we all became suspects*. This video captures how heartbreaking it all was:
15/x This is where the story gets less bleak. Community activists led by Colandus Francis and Darnell Harwick of the local NAACP chapter, did public records requests highlighting these issues, and local activists put pressure on the new force to reform.
16/x Over time, the force started moving away from broken windows policing and to the forefront of deescalation training. Excessive force complaints cratered. Diversity slowly ticked back up towards where it was in the old force (it’s not there yet). bloombergquint.com/businessweek/h…
17/x For some residents, the distrust is too deep and the daily interactions with the police have (and continue to be) too scarring. These moves are seen as cooptation to avoid more dramatic reform and there is skepticism that the numbers match what they see on the ground.
18/x And yeah, those folks marched too. tapinto.net/towns/camden/s…
19/x Others are more pragmatic and see it as progress that the police leadership appears to be listening, especially since that wasn’t the case immediately after the Metro Police was formed.
20/20 So please, don’t oversimplify the Camden story. The disbanding was deeply undemocratic. The instincts of the new force were deeply problematic. And the work done by activists and residents mattered — the police force is more responsive. Let's amplify those activists
