SneerClub

I spent ages writing a comment that I accidentally deleted (>_>) so apologies if this is a bit too long:

I've read that a lot of violent urban crime in the US takes place in poor, majority-minority or majority-black neighbourhoods. Those neighbourhoods are "overpoliced and underprotected" areas where cops rarely respond to crime reports & rarely go unless they are conducting a raid in SWAT gear, & people rarely make crime reports either because they don't expect the police to do anything or expect them to make things worse if they do turn up.

Increase police funding, decrease police funding, it doesn't change the approach the police take to those neighbourhoods & it doesn't change the social, political or historic factors that determine the relationship between neighbourhoods and the police.

& re: defunding, surely a libertarian should understand that government money is not a bottomless bucket....Some (not all) cities facing budget issues have increased police funding while cutting mental healthcare, social services or other parts of the safety net. this has 2 effects

• 1. more people fall through the safety net, resulting in more crime. Poverty/adverse childhood experiences/untreated (mental) health problems => drug addiction & crime => traumatized, impoverished, addicted, parents who have to fight just to stay out of jail & keep custody of their kids => adverse childhood experiences as their kids grow up with absent, neglectful or bad parents &/or are farmed out to relatives, foster homes, shelters for homeless youth or juvenile detention with all the potential for abuse, trauma and induction into crime that those environments offer => the cycle continues. People talk about "virtuous spirals" in economics and sociology - well, this is the opposite.
• 2. Police become first responders to every social problem as funding for emergency services and social services are cut - some crisis lines also automatically call the police. Police appear at scenes of poverty, homelessness, overdose or illness where their training is basically useless & where all they can really do is put someone in a jail cell or give them a fine. Worse than that, because of the "thin blue line" mentality (& "killology" style training), police turn up heavily armed at scenes where someone is suicidal, in severe distress or just behaving strangely, believing that it is better for them to kill that person than to be injured themselves. In "overpoliced and underprotected" areas, cops come in heavily armed, wearing kevlar or swat gear, & act more like an occupying military than police. Disabled & mentally ill people - particularly disabled or mentally ill black people - have been brutalized and killed by the police in these areas because their difference is seen as a sign of danger by trigger-happy police. And people who are the subject of repeated callouts due to mental health issues, addiction or minor crimes are treated with contempt by cops. All coppers aren't bastards to everyone, all the time, but the people who see the most of them see the worst of them.

As a non-American unversed in American political rhetoric, "defund the police" always struck me as a weird call for action. Read without nuance it basically means "don't pay for policing", not "reduce the relative funding going to LE in favor of other funding".