Before I get into it, I'd like to apologize for any missing spaces. I copy and paste my argument from a Word Doc, and it removes spaces seemingly at random. I try to go back and add them all in but I miss some.
Framework
First, my opponent says that they should get to say specifically how they cut the budget. This should have been in the description.My opponent should only be able to advocate for what’s in the description and resolution, especially since, as the author, they wrote what was in there. Without Holding them to that, the debate becomes misleading, trapping me in a debate I Wasn’t prepared for. If we look at the resolution and description, the onlything my opponent have access to fiating is the cutting of police budgets of mid-size to large cities by 5%. Any other action has to be a result of that,otherwise I lose all ability to negate the resolution on Con, especially since I’ve created my entire negative strategy based on the resolution not being shifted so I could show an alternative story of how police would deal with budget constraints. If my opponent wanted to cite specific budget cutting, that should be put in the description.
Pro’s Case
Reducing Prison Populations
First, my opponent cites where jails are spent on by local governments, but the problem is that the majority are ran by counties. My Opponent is trying to cut mid-size to large city police budgets, this means a county, not city, jail would have zero effect on the budget cuts he’s calling for. He showed that cities spend money on police, and I don’t doubt that, but I doubt that focusing on jails mostly ran by counties will be beneficial in cutting city budgets.
Second, if my opponent calls for prison populations, extend my source that shows they are mostly federal, state, or private and not locally owned.
Third, my opponent says that my argument about rural jail populations is proof we need to cut police budgets, but the problem is that Prois advocating for cuts in mid-size to large cities. This means that rural America That has the rising jail populations get left behind and don’t get the benefits. My opponent further cuts the cities lowering populations and leaves the cities getting worse alone.
Unbundling the Police
First, while this is an extension of the framework and its application to this point, it still stands. Without legislative reworking that my opponent can’t guarantee police jobs will be unbundled and cities will shift the money into social programs. Police departments could cut conflict de-escalation training and give raises to the mayor.
Second, without guaranteeing the creation of entirely new local agencies within these cities, the only way to be able to try and gain access to these services would be to create departments within the police department with more community outreach-based goals. This is going to cost money out of the police budget. This means cuts to the budget are going to make it harder to shift the police to a multi-faceted organization with the ability to employ social services.
Third, police training is lackluster.
39% of agencies require conflict management training. On top of this,departments on average only spend 8 hours training with Tasers, 25% of the necessary time according to the manufacturer. This shows that more resources need to be specifically put into police departments with specific goals. If you cut funding, police departments won’t be able to train to avoid violent confrontation, meaning police will still be just as violent.
Police Militarization
First, extend the framework argument to show that simply cutting funds does not guarantee that 1033 will be where the money is going to be cut from.
Second, my opponent continuously misleads you with how much the police departments spend on this. While the article cites “More than $1.7billion of surplus has been transferred over to police around the country over the past decade,” this does not mean that is what police departments paid forit. While that is the value of the equipment, we have to remember the police department only pays for shipping. My opponent’s use of these financial statistics is to mislead you, but remember, if the source just adds a value to the amount of equipment transferred, then police are not paying that amount, they’re just receiving that for near free.
EU Comparison
First, my opponent citesthat the EU spends less on prisons and this is part of the low crime rate but extend the entire prison debate as reason this doesn’t apply.
Second, my opponent cities cultural and economic factors for crime rates. If that much goes into the issue, then we need to see how we might not be able to make simple comparisons like the one my opponent tried to originally make about police spending. That Means this whole point should be a wash.
Con Case
Civil Forfeiture
I don’t think this point is evidence for the status quo, I think this is evidence for accountability and reform, but Pro is advocating for just cutting the budget in the status quo and hoping police will take it lying down. If this debate was Abolish civil forfeiture, reform the police, create social programs, etc., then this argument would be great evidence that something needs to be done, but when the resolution is to just lower their budget and hope they’ll play nice, then it forces these kinds of actions. We need to take these reformative actions first before simply cutting budgets. Remember, this debate isn’t a referendum on police, it’s a question of if cutting budgets 5% for mid-size to large cities will lead to a better world or not. As long as police have the legally ability to practically mug people, then there won’t be a better world because police will just use this to circumvent the budget cuts.
Privatization
First, my opponent says that if we can simply get rid of the bad cops, then we won’t need privatization.Sure, but if you just cut 5% of the budget, what will happen? This Privatization is a possibility that some cities are playing around with.
Second, my opponent cite the benefits of no qualified immunity and no unions, but there’s two problems with this. First, unions can form in any industry as a lobbying force, so this could happen in the future. This lobbying could then lead to qualified immunity as we see it for cops. If it happened once, then there’s an empiric precedent to say it will happen again. The second issue is that this doesn’t outweigh the two impacts I cited. Security being a luxury and less public accountability are much bigger issues to deal with then a most likely temporary reprieve from unions which would lobby for immunity.
I know a lot of people are calling the topic vague, but I'm really excited for it. Gives me a chance to attack it from two sides.
In that case I apologize - I've been a tad stressed with people who aren't quite as substantive as you are -*cought* Coal *cough* they just like citing experts and expecting that to convince me... and then calling me "opinated" for not instantly agreeing, a tad frustrating I'm sure you might agree
From the Brookings Institution: “Defund the police” means reallocating or redirecting funding away from the police department to other government agencies funded by the local municipality. That’s it. It’s that simple. Defund does not mean abolish policing. And, even some who say abolish, do not necessarily mean to do away with law enforcement altogether. Rather, they want to see the rotten trees of policing chopped down and fresh roots replanted anew. Camden, New Jersey, is a good example. Nearly a decade ago, Camden disbanded (abolished) its police force and dissolved the local police union. This approach seems to be what Minneapolis will do in some form, though the nuances are important.
You actually do agree with me, I said it's the minority of both who spiral the cycle on.
Indeed - however, that's already tried to be implemented.... several times, and across a literal century - in fact - there were three very distinct times of changing the police force - and it hasn't reduced the effect - the entire concept of a police force is a bit too corruptable, and the concept focused on punishing, whenever the best thing for the country is rehabilitating and separation - those are the most empirically sound method of defeating crime (aside from education and equity of income), and the police fundamentally miss that
Police need more situational training and psychological evaluations.
Just... no - that isn't emprically true - MOST criminals aren't violent, thats just a fact of the matter, in fact they are scared of being violent; however, those who have had more interactions with police become more violent - because they are treated no differently from criminals who are violent - its a very direct relationship - even if these cops were all traumatized (which, they aren't that's a very blatant broad stroke) that's not an excuse to be increasingly violent - they should either get help or not be permitted with the safety of others - its that simple
I am left-wing and very pro-BLM but the violence cycle is indeed a cycle.
This is actually not just a racism issue of course (that is an issue with who they are more willingly aggressive with but this is an ancient thing from the beginning of our species to now).
The more aggressive wrongdoers are usually the initial aggressors in any new society. This inspires hostility from the enforcers of peace and order (not always cops in our species' history, sometimes more like antihero mafia).
These enforcers then start to forget that not every criminal is as brutal and fast-to-attack as the one or two who ended up killing or severley wounding one of their fellow policemen/policewomen. They begin to become vigilant, actively and passionately ready to 'disarm and disable' before the average criminal has even got over the initial panic and frustration with the sudden situation they've found themselves in.
This cycle has a next stage. People who are friends and families of the trodden upon, become increasingly hostile to said enforcers. People who would never before have spat at, verbally lashed out, really try and wrestle with and physically overpower the enforcers, suddenly are a lot more willing and ready to do so as they feel it's pure life or death and that these are pure-evil demons apprehending them.
This typically (in civilised societies) leads to reform and 'let's be friends again' from the government and law enforcement in a weaving limbo where the one or two criminals who really are rabid psychopaths, sociopaths etc kill off, severely wound, put-in-a-coma some cops and the partners get PTSD from it and vow to never let one of the criminals get the upper hand in a confrontation again. So on and so forth.
In other societies they never try to be friends again.
It is not nearly as simple as 'cops are the mean ones', I know they can be indeed but the initial aggressors in any society were typically the worst of criminals who traumatised the fellow cops and made them feel a deep need to be fast and brutal in their taking down of any criminal, in fear of what they'll do.
no.. the FBI "CAN" interact with the public, but would you disagree that the public deals with the police force much much more prevalently? Furthermore, the police departments DONT have specialized units for some of the most commonly occurring crime, and treat every shoplifter as if they are a violent criminal - even though criminology teaches you that shoplifters and violent criminals are usually VERY separate - in fact - Police violence has incentivised a lot of violence in criminals
5% or more.
That's why the departments are specialised, so that what others lack expertise at, the others step in and assist with.
FBI does deal with the general population, it's CIA who doesn't.
Uhuh - swat, that's almost it - they are not specialized enough -FBI are not the ones mainly dealing with Citizens, the police are, and the police lack any department specifically for riot control that is properly trained or field-psychologists that help mentally-ill people - they lack fundamental processes that would be best translated into separate units, with the entire idea that there should be a "guard" being scrapped, as its sole point - deterrence and capture of criminals - is doing more harm than good
Also, within the FBI there are several distinct specialisations, one being what the standard agent is; literally it is called 'agent'.
You have:
Agent
Profiler
Explosives expert
Negotiation expert (work closely with profilers but specialise in negotiating with criminals in emergencies whereas profilers specialise in long-term, slow and deep reads on criminals).
Then you have the undercover specialists. Any agent can be undercover but the undercover specialists are specially trained in acting skills, rivalling the average professional actor in fact.
Then you have the IT technician (often could just as easily work for NSA).
The final category is director/leader, who began as other types.
You do have FBI-dedicated medics but you can't truly call them a branch of law enforcement.
That's kind of where my mind went. Like swat. Or dea
There are already specialised cops and equivalent agencies to the general police departments, especially in the US.
People often conflate abolish and defund - and the two certainly don't connect necessarily - you could defund the police to the point that they were abolished, but that likes saying cutting and eradicating are the same because you cut something until it was eradicated" do you see what I mean? Defund means to lower the funding that something gets - not what everybody thinks it is.
now me personally - I would argue that we ought to abolish the police and replace it with much more specialized task forces, kinda like a hospital has different nurses and doctors for different types of injury - anywho - that is distinctly separate from this debate, they are often correlated in the eyes of the public, but it is not always the case. To critique this resolution, I would make it: Resolved: The US Government ought to significantly defund the police
Lowering by how much? This is way too easy for Pro to play semantics with.
That's "abolish the police" not "defund the police." I have noticed some comments on DART saying that defunding the police was the most idiotic idea ever. Let's see if anyone steps up.
Kind of, but it's much harder for con to argue against lowering police funding by a little, rather than against eliminating police funding. I'm not sure I disagree with a reduction in funding. But defunding (as per the definition I read), that seems extreme.
That seems unnecessary per the intro I already gave (you seemed to notice I was not arguing to take away all funding) but I did it. Are you interested?
The definition I read on lexico is, "prevent from continuing to receive funds". You should clarify your definitions to prevent confusion.
Defund means “to withdraw financial support from, especially as an instrument of legislative control.” Nobody has any issue with the word "defund" when people talk about defunding schools or defunding social programs. Is it really necessary I change the title of this debate? What part of my position is unclear to you based on the introduction I shared?
"defund" is not the same as "lowering funding".