Evidence Supports the Defund the Police Movement

In 2013, after decades of problems with ineffective and brutal policing, Camden, New Jersey abolished its police department.

Following this, a county wide police force was formed, and former Camden PD employees had to apply for new positions.

We have seen the results, crime and instances criminal cops have fallen sharply.

You can't argue with the numbers:

Camden, considered one of the most dangerous cities in the country just over a decade ago, experienced zero homicides this summer, with violent crime reaching a 50-year low.

As of Monday, homicides were down 43% compared with this time last year.

The benchmark is in line with what cities like Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Detroit are experiencing, following spikes in violence during the COVID-19 lockdowns. For those cities, the reasons behind the decline in homicides can be difficult to pin down.

But in Camden, which officials said did not experience a drastic surge in homicides and violent crime during the pandemic, officials and grassroots groups see the marked reduction in violent crime as the result of a decision to take a multipronged approach to addressing violence that started with the controversial disbanding of its city police department in 2013. 

The proposal to create a countywide police department was a novel one that met with opposition from the police officers who had to reapply for their jobs and a coalition of residents who wanted the public to vote on the matter. Still, the measure was able to garner enough buy-in from residents and across the political spectrum, including then-Gov. Chris Christie, then-State Sen. Donald Norcross, and his brother, Democratic power broker George Norcross.

Christie and the Norcross brothers were right.  (I cannot believe that I just said that.)

A decade later, Commissioner Director Louis Cappelli Jr., one of the architects of the move, credits police as the “main reason” for the decline in homicides.

“The residents of the city no longer fear the police department, as they did when it was a city department,” Cappelli said. “They now look at our officers as partners. They look at our officers as people they can rely on for safety.”

………

Despite the 64% decline in homicides since 2014 — the new department’s first full year in operation — and then-President Barack Obama lauding the reforms during a visit in 2015, the remarkable turnaround in police relations has not come without its critics.

It has critics who believe brutalizing n*****s and s***s is an independent good, even when it makes crime worse.

They are racist idiots.