The Logistics of Defunding the Police
The hashtag #DefundThePolice has gained a lot of traction in the last few days. The honest truth of the matter is that without a real solution in place for how this may work will result in chaos. Yet, seeing that a true issue has emerged — the issue of power — recognizing the issue and taking care of it first, before understanding what “taking care of it” may entail, is pretty admirable in my eyes. When the house is on fire, you put the fire out before you look for a new house. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called Children of God.
I’m here, because I’ve advocated for a new idea of how we police for quite awhile, albeit in somewhat non-public circles. Now is the time to give this idea a chance, publicly.
The end goal of defunding the police will not be a world with no police, it will be a world with police who are funded voluntarily, that have to work to earn the money of those they protect. That’s the end goal, and no, it’s not Utopian to believe it’s possible. The free market has options here that must be seriously considered. For those that have pre-conceived ideas about the failures of free markets, capitalism, or evil men smoking cigars in tall top hats, I humbly ask you to temporarily suspend your disbelief for a moment while we game this out.
So, the logistics:
Today, as a write this, we’re hearing incredible news about how the Minneapolis City Council is going to vote to disband its police force in favor of a “community based public safety model”. The important thing is that if they want this model to work, they need to take actionable steps to install it, now. I have no idea what they are planning, but I fear that it may be more of the same, only dressed up in more friendly clothing. Let me introduce the model to reach their end goal of community-accountable police: Privatized, competitive policing.
Police that are funded voluntarily, not via taxes, are forced to do their jobs, or else their jobs disappear, because people don’t pay people who don’t perform. The problems we see in policing today are merely symptoms that come from the problem of state police: They have a monopoly, and they’re not held accountable by the consumer. Instead, they’re held accountable by bureaucracy, a system which unfortunately does not have the same level of incentive to control an out-of-control police force. Setting the consumer in the drivers seat, as we will see, will only be a net good.
- How do we fund private police?
To me there are three main ways to fund a private police force without theft via taxation, ordered from least to most feasible. A) Funded by life insurance providers, B) Funded by subscription based models, or C) Funded in a similar manner to how ambulances are funded. I do not believe these methods should be pre-determined by the municipalities, but I only offer them in the sake of peace of mind, to the end of showing example of how the private police might go about seeking funding. It’s also worth noting that funding may come from a combination of some or all three of these options.
Funded by Life Insurance Providers (aka Life Insurance Method)
Although I’ve categorized this as the least feasible method, I’ll show why this might be the most powerful method in the long term. The problem is that it takes the most involvement from the every-day man, and also a prerequisite: that the city council chooses to calculate what percentage of sales tax is going to police departments, and instead of deciding to retool those funds towards other purposes, instead decides to lower the sales tax to give those funds back to the taxpayers.
This method involves empowering private security firms (hereby abbreviated as PSFs) to uphold local laws in contract with the state, but look for funding from life insurance providers. The idea behind this is that life insurance providers have a vested interest in protecting the lives of their policyholders. The reason this might not be as feasible in the short term is that citizens now must seek life insurance policies if they are to be protected, assuming that this is the only route that PSFs pursue. The upsides are worth the hurdle, though.
One upside is that the process of choosing a PSF is now on the shoulders of the Insurance Providers, and we can assume proper research will be done to this end. The other upside is that the mass influx of people buying life insurance from these companies will cause premiums (in my estimation) to lower far below the required amount to pay for the extra cost of said PSF contracts.
Funded by Subscription Based Models (aka Subscription Method)
When we see roadside assistance companies, like AAA or Allstate, we see the exact model for how policing could work if the PSFs elect to pursue this method. The citizen pays a small monthly fee (most likely a fee much less than the tax burden that was previously upon his/her shoulders, thanks to the innovation the free market provides towards the end of efficiency and price) and that fee goes towards a guarantee of protection on-demand from the chosen PSF of the citizen. That PSF does a bad job? The market will correct, causing that PSF to fizzle from existence, just as businesses must be allowed to do in order to maintain a healthy market and allow better, more innovative companies to take their place. The PSF begins to act tyrannically, or police unequally? That will be met by dissatisfaction from their patronizing base, once again hurting that PSFs place in the market.
One argument you might immediately think of is “what about the poor? What about those that hadn’t started a subscription before they were invaded?” That question will hopefully be answered by the next method.
Funded in a Similar Manner to Ambulances (aka Dispatch Method)
How, in the very basic of ways, does an ambulance business operate? When someone calls 911, the dispatcher chooses the closest available ambulance and sends them. Is the person who calls 911 required beforehand to give a credit card number? Of course not, but the ambulance company is eventually reimbursed by that person’s health insurance, or via invoice directly to the person. Sure, ambulances have proven to be a very expensive thing here in America, but I believe this is because of the lobbying from ambulance companies, and the subsequent participation of municipalities in actively curtailing new ambulance providers to enter the marketplace. This awful alliance between cronies and state has caused our ambulances to be very slow to scene, to the point where firefighters almost always get there first.
We learn a very valuable lesson from this example: It is incumbent upon the municipality to not play winner/loser with PSFs. The market must decide, and the barrier to entry must be as small as possible.
So, a pro-bono type of system, similar to how ambulances operate, will most likely be present, even if options A, B, or a combination of the two end up being the most pursued method of funding by PSFs. We’re assuming for the time being that 911 dispatch will still be in existence, so this will still work. If 911 dispatch, however, gets defunded, we can realistically expect PSFs to unite to create a common dispatch company funded by themselves, because it is in their best interest to do so.
2. Why is privatization better than state-sponsored?
One common objection to privatization of police has been the fear that it will lead to a violent oligarchy of rich businesses controlling all of the policing power. I hope, with a little bit of thought, this can be dispelled as nonsense. For example, many have insisted that this will end up with a Walmart having a small personal army that it can use to unjustly terrorize its competition, and citizens who owe Walmart money.
Dear Reader, we live in the age of cameras everywhere. We have been met with this conundrum thanks to the fact that accountability is more possible now than it has been at any point in history. Let me ask you this, if you saw Walmart terrorizing people, would you keep going there? Or, if Walmart was using Joe Bob’s Police Force to terrorize people, would you continue your membership with Joe Bob’s Protection Services? Of course you wouldn’t, because consumers don’t like evil companies.
I call to the stand United Airlines. In April of 2017, a doctor was unjustly beaten and dragged off of a flight after the flight attendants randomly chose him to be removed after an overbooked flight. He insisted that he needed to make this flight, but nonetheless, unjust force was used. This hurt United Airlines, severely. Of course, the damage wasn’t permanent, but that’s because United Airlines learned from their mistakes. Approximately $1 billion was lost from the value of this company after this incident.
Why does this not happen to police? Why is it that time and time again, police are found enacting injustice after injustice, only to be recorded, yelled at, and the things continue just as they were right after the incident? It’s because the police’s customers are not the citizens, even as much as they like to pretend they are. The police’s customers are who they get their funding from: you, the municipality. We must recognize the fact that the market reacts much quicker at identifying and punishing injustice, even if that injustice is merely a PR mishap. This is good, this is how we have innovated in so many sections of the market.
I simply ask that we allow this section of the market to finally taste this innovation. It’s time to find a new system. It’s time to fix the inherent problems that come with state-sponsored monopolies.
A problem has been identified, and it’s a problem with authoritarianism. Dear Reader, Dear Municipalities, I urge you, I implore you, choose not more authority to fix the problems that authority has caused. Choose liberty, choose choice itself. Give freedom a chance, and I promise, you will show the world that peace can win, and peace is the best option.
