The efforts to "defund police" would solve some of the same problems that police currently address through other means. This would weaken the influence of police unions. For example, spending more to treat drug addiction as a disease rather than paying police to address possession as a crime.
Instead of "defund", maybe a better word, then, is "reform", or "reorganize"? Or maybe define that it is "police unions" who should be defunded, not the entire bucket called "police"?
I am just curious at this choice of word that seems to be the clarion call, which means entirely different in the dictionary than what is being implied! :-/
No because the goal is to have public safety organizations that don't have any of the personnel, historical lineage or goals of the police. By poor analogy, the goal isn't to clone facebook its to make a twitter,Instagram,telegram,etc. Different orgs with different goals with different people ultimately focused on public safety.
So the new org should have all new personnel, new goals that do not overlap with those of the police ("serve and protect", from what I understand), yet focused on public safety.
I am now genuinely curious to know how this is to be achieved, and what safeguards/guarantees are to be encoded so the new org does not devolve into the existing police.
So lets take one example lets say you have a late night restaurant devoted to providing drivers who would possibly drive drunk a place to sober up and people who are homeless a hot breakfast. Let's call this place "Waffle House". How exactly would those people become police as currently constituted. How exactly would an organization dedicated to providing satisfying justice without prisons become the police as currently constituted? The police as currently created barely solve crimes(30% clear rates) and don't really appear to be interested in justice. You seem to think its hard to imagine an organization dedicated to public safety that's not like them. They're so bad at it I ask the other question how could an organization dedicated to public safety ever be like the police.
Because "Divert police funds" isn't as catchy. Just like "Black Lives Matter" doesn't imply "other lives don't" - when it comes to shorthand political phrases in America, it's best to look at what the common usage is.
(BTW some people actually do want to eliminate the police)
"Defund the police" in the 'mainstream' such as there is one, means to reduce funding for law enforcement and shift that funding to public health, social workers, and community programs, in a way that reduces the scope of calls police will get, and reduce the number of calls police are required to respond to.
Police Unions are not publicly funded, so defunding them doesn't make sense. Renegotiating collective bargaining agreements with unions does. "Smash Police Unions" has a nice ring to it.
The efforts to "defund police" would solve some of the same problems that police currently address through other means. This would weaken the influence of police unions. For example, spending more to treat drug addiction as a disease rather than paying police to address possession as a crime.