I totally agree. I don't think any cop is signing up to spend half their time trying to manage the social issue of how we treat our homeless without being given proper education and inadequate training in the matter because no one else will do it. But that's what they are doing, because no one else will. So they will be more than happy to have things like that be transitioned to a better service. Im sure the term defund has a negative connotation in their circles, but that could be attributed to fear of being downsized (job loss), concern that this transition wouldn't be done right (because when, with a judicial system as fractured and varied as that of the USA is anything done right on a large scale) and they'll die because of it, believing that defund means remove funds in order to start the new programs - not start the new programs then scale back.

Like Afghanistan would have been a multiple generation operation if we truly wanted woman to keep their newfound rights, the defund movement will be as well. I don't think anyone has the appetite or attention for that in today's society - which is why I don't think it will happen.

The problem you run into is needing to front load the resources. You cant remove those funds from the police, and then start spending it on social workers/crises intervention specialists, medical, education, because the gap will be too great. That reduced funding to the police will translate to less police, then because the solution isn't in place, the police will still be relied on as the catch all, but with less of them, they will be more likely to use force, which will lead to more lethal force use.

First you need to provide extensive national standardised training for crises intervention and de-escalation to police so they have the resources to better intervene with persons in crises (they will do a lot of this intervention even in the new world order of defunding, because no social worker is going to talk down a guy in crises with a bat without a guy with a gun making it safe first, so it won't be wasted).

Then you need to fund these new resources and allow them to take effect before removing resources from police.

Unfortunately immediately cutting millions of dollars and giving it to social programs and medical field, won't have the desired effect because those fields face significant shortages of employees with their current staffing levels. If you suddenly make thousands of more positions available, you won't have anymore people to go into the job.

No. Defending would result in more use of force. The work would have to be done on the front end to fund the other services, and then removing funding for police once that is no longer needed.

Otherwise you get less police around, which means they feel less safe when they are in violent situations, and they move to lethal force faster.

Extreme ends of the spectrum but a 5 person pig pile is safer for the person being arrested and resisting the arrest than a 1 on 1 fight, because the 1 on 1 fight is more likely to end in the cop fearing they are going to get hurt and shooting the person.