Thread: How copaganda works. A day after @nytimes dedicated their front page to allow police to *lie* they were defunded, I received an email from an influential progressive w/ a big mailing list. He shared the story. Subject: "Refund the police." I emailed him. What I wrote: 
I write this bc I care about truth & want a future of policy that is smart, cost-effective, rational, & fair. That actually produces health & safety. I write this bc pro-carceral forces, enabled by media like NYT are doing everything they can to perpetuate a failed status quo.
Here is the problem with this "reporting" by the @nytimes & your distillation of it:
1. Not a single police force in the country was "defunded."
2. Therefore, "defunding the police" had no effect on anything, including the need to "refund them."
1. Not a single police force in the country was "defunded."
2. Therefore, "defunding the police" had no effect on anything, including the need to "refund them."
3. Even in the locations where the *conversation* about taking any funds from police became serious, leaders were talking about fractions of percentiles of outrageous police budgets. And leaders quickly backed away from even those smallest of concessions because of fearmongering.
4. Result of calculated fearmongering: Not just nothing "defunded." *Far more funding* over the billions & billions police forces already get, not to mention historic overtime payouts rewarding widespread, mass police violence against protests everywhere & anywhere they occurred.
5. Despite the fact that police were not defunded, they've not only managed to force this lie upon the public in cities & states, conservative & liberal, but have also gotten the public to believe this phantom defunding or even conversation about it led to a "surge" in crime.
6. First, either proposition relies on the mistaken and false presumption that police actually make us safer. They don't. How do we know this?
A) Half century of investing more in policing than any other society in history of the world & we're far from the safest or healthiest.
A) Half century of investing more in policing than any other society in history of the world & we're far from the safest or healthiest.
How do we know this?
B) Police are spectacularly bad at preventing or solving crime. Spectacularly low solve rates when it comes to the most serious of crimes. And more than 50% of survivors of violence don't even call police because of an earned lack of trust and respect.
B) Police are spectacularly bad at preventing or solving crime. Spectacularly low solve rates when it comes to the most serious of crimes. And more than 50% of survivors of violence don't even call police because of an earned lack of trust and respect.
How do we know police don't make us safer?
C) Every time police cite rising crime numbers to justify paying them more money is actually an admission of their failure and an indictment of the inefficacy of their "solution."
C) Every time police cite rising crime numbers to justify paying them more money is actually an admission of their failure and an indictment of the inefficacy of their "solution."
How do we know police don't make us safer?
D) As Danielle Sered notes: the very same characteristics of policing and prison are the exact same drivers of violence: shame, isolation, economic deprivation, and violence itself.
D) As Danielle Sered notes: the very same characteristics of policing and prison are the exact same drivers of violence: shame, isolation, economic deprivation, and violence itself.
7. Second: There was no "surge" in crime. Other than homicides, all major crime continued its steady, 30 year decline in all jurisdictions. Homicides remained at historic lows in terms of total numbers, even though there was a 30% rise between 2019 and 2020. Even more than that:
Here's the thing: Short-run statistics are notoriously volatile & in criminal legal context, used & abused by police to paint whatever picture of the current state of things to further support for them. Homicide rates are down again in 2021. It's all about when you measure from.
8. Third: Its impossible to draw causation from short term stats. The most noteworthy piece of data just released was that all decreases & the one increase (homicides) happened in every corner of the country, in red and blue states, in states with protests, in states without...
...in states that adopted modest forward thinking reforms, & those that didnt, in those where claimed "police morale" is high & low. This fact undermines any attempt by police to tie causation to reforms, protests, or morale, let alone "defunding" which again, *did not happen.*
I'll end with this: defunding the police, like abolition, is not bad policy or crazy. What *is all of those things is continuing to invest even more in our bloated, failed system and not having the patience for change.
And we'll never have patience for change, if media continues to cloud the public's view by serving as stenographers for the police -- actors which have proven themselves time and time again to be the least trustworthy of sources. thenation.com/article/societ…
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
