era's abolish the police rallying cry has centered around holding up Camden NJ as a good example of what can happen
ex:
LETS GOOOO!
Two down, countless more to go!
Yes but that's the key point. What is the implementation.
This all feels very vague.
They'll probably look at Camden, NJ as a model.
The header says "reform" but the actual title says "remade" which is way more accurate:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-04/how-camden-new-jersey-reformed-its-police-department
They defunded and dissolved their local PD and completely replaced it. And what do you know? Crime went waaaaaay down, and they've had super peaceful demonstrations this past week. I'm glad more papers and news orgs are holding them up as an example to follow.
I can’t believe people actually want to defund the police? I can get behind reducing the funding - some forces are monumentally overcompensated - but removing funding altogether would lead to outright anarchy.
Look at what Camden NJ did. They actually did completely shred their city police union contract and replaced it with a community policing model through the county. Violent crime went waaaaaaay down as a direct result. Camden was once consistently at the top of the homicide and violent crime per capita lists. Now it's doing quite well.
except...
if you actually read the article...
The transformation began after the 2012 homicide spike. The department wanted to put more officers on patrol but couldn’t afford to hire more, partly because of generous union contracts. So in 2013, the mayor and city council dissolved the local PD and signed an agreement for the county to provide shared services. The new county force is double the size of the old one, and officers almost exclusively patrol the city. (They were initially nonunion but have since unionized.) Increasing the head count was a trust-building tactic, says Thomson, who served as chief throughout the transition: Daily, noncrisis interactions between residents and cops went up. Police also got de-escalation training and body cameras, and more cameras and devices to detect gunfire were installed around the city.
While many departments define “reasonable” force in the line of duty vaguely, Camden’s definition is much clearer. The department adopted an 18-page use-of-force policy in 2019, developed with New York University’s Policing Project. The rules emphasize that de-escalation has to come first. Deadly force—such as a chokehold or firing a gun—can only be used in certain situations, once every other tactic has been exhausted. “It requires that force is not only reasonable and necessary, but that it’s proportionate,” says Farhang Heydari, executive director of the Policing Project. Most important, “they’re requirements. They’re not suggestions.”
An officer who sees a colleague violating the edict must intervene; the department can fire any officer it finds acted out of line. By the department’s account, reports of excessive force complaints in Camden have dropped 95% since 2014.
Like most matters of policing, however, Camden’s success story isn’t that simple. Members of the police force are now more likely to live in the suburbs than in the city of Camden, according to the local NAACP chapter. “Ninety percent of Camden’s population is minority—we have a lot of young individuals who don’t look like us that are getting these jobs,” says Kevin Barfield, the chapter president.
The higher number of officers on the streets was uncomfortable at first, says Nyeema Watson, Rutgers University at Camden’s associate chancellor for civic engagement, who helped connect the new department to local youth in its early days. “You felt that this eye was on you. It took me some time to adjust to having [police] cars stationed on major thoroughfares,” she says. “That still raises the hair on my neck sometimes, but I know their approach is an attempt to say ‘We’re here, we’re visible.’ ”
In a 2015 report, the American Civil Liberties Union praised Camden for its reforms but noted a “significant increase in low-level arrests and summonses.” The department says it’s mindful of overpursuing petty offenses. “We know when we police a city that has 30% of the residents under the poverty line, a $400 speeding ticket or ticket in general would be absolutely devastating financially,” says Dan Keashen, a spokesman for the Camden County Police Department.
Community organizer Ayinde Merrill and other activists are pushing to create a civilian review board for cases in which force is used. Merrill says the May 30 march felt co-opted by police and city leaders: “We didn’t feel as though the police were truly standing with us. If you’re truly standing with us, come and march with us in plain clothes.”
- they didn't "defund," they closed the local PD and rely completely on county officers which the city has a contract with
- it's not community policing at all, judging by the closing comment about civilians trying to create a review board (they wouldn't need to if it was some form of civvie policing), it's a literal normal police department
- they have lots of training on deescalation and strict rules on how much force can be used, you know, those things you read about on era that never really work, DELETE THE POLICE
- in spite of this they still have issues with the police mostly living in the suburbs and not being from the poorer inner city
- I can find no articles that state that Camden gave up military grade equipment, though of course with deescalation a priority they wouldn't be out there using it
Camden is actually a massive success story, they went from being the murder capital to a 40% drop in violent crime and as it says above reduced police complaints 95%
but they did it through reform, and
doubling their police force, not eliminating it
so hey we have an example of what works, good job era highlighting that more police is the solution
