Mosaic Policing: What It Is and Why We Need It
Every day more men and women, disproportionately people of color, are killed and attacked by police. We watched while George Floyd died from a police officer’s knee. We watched while Breonna Taylor was shot in her own apartment during a no-knock raid. We watched while Army Lieutenant Caron Nazario was threatened and then mercilessly pepper-sprayed. These are just a few of the countless tragic and unnecessary deaths and assaults that were captured on video, not to forget the many that go unseen. This is our horrifying, despicable reality of what the current police system allows. Every American should be angry and demanding change from this system that regularly murders their innocent fellow citizens.
In what now seems like an endless battle, police regularly push back against reform movements, more oversight, and/or less funding. Police feel like they are under siege from both activists and Democrats. It played a significant part in the vast majority of police unions supporting Donald Trump in the 2020 election and greatly hinders progress on constructive reform efforts. When one considers that these officers are ready to lay down their lives to protect and serve their community, one can understand why good police officers would be deeply defensive and even hurt by accusations that they are part of a systemic problem.
Since George Floyd’s murder last summer, police reform and institutional racism have become international topics. In August, 58% of Americans with 60% of independents supported the types of police reform Democrats are currently seeking. However, today only 18% of Americans, including only 34% of Democrats, support the “Defund the Police” slogan that has become ubiquitous with Democrat’s police reform. This is a miserable drop-off in key support for absolutely imperative police reforms just because of a slogan.
The deep politicization of this issue by both major U.S. political parties has allowed Republicans to demonize policing reforms that would be good for everyone in this country. While offering no reforms of their own, the GQP confuses and angers their constituents about what Democrats actually want to accomplish and muddies the waters of what is a truly clear-cut issue.
We should not have to change how we demand justice and reform from a racist system. (Reuters)
Something that has helped them do that is the slogan “Defund the Police,” which they regularly use to scare the American citizenry with threats of complete societal breakdown. The ideas and reforms that Defund the Police actually calls for are sound, necessary, and important. Unfortunately, this slogan can sound scary to people who do not understand what it means or are inclined to support police whenever they think reforms threaten them. Equally important, the slogan does not accurately portray what Democratic and Progressive police reforms seek to accomplish. I propose we call our popular, sensible, and desperately needed reform something else that actually refers to what we seek to change, that will be more difficult to demonize, and that forces Republicans to admit that they are opposed to sensible police reform, instead of letting them hide behind a losing slogan.
As Democrats, if we want to actually accomplish the reforms we so desperately need, we must do a better job of publicizing the fact that our police reform would be good for police, people of color, and (even though they will never help) for Republicans. The redistributive reform outlined below is not a new idea, but it is one that clearly needs a new name. Enter Mosaic Policing:
Definition — Create a mosaic of agencies to take on the current overreaching and overtaxing duties of police by reassigning the responsibilities police should not be expected to do to new or existing specialized state and government organizations.
Mosaic policing can be the beginning of a solution to the epidemic of state-sanctioned police killing and violence. By dividing the current duties of our police officers and giving some of them to more specialized departments, we can prevent a great deal of death and suffering by innocent civilians. Not to mention the decreased interaction of police with minor offenders would greatly lessen the number of people going to prison or getting a criminal record. Instead of having a police officer be the jack of all trades for state/local law enforcement, they should be focused on keeping their community safe and preventing and solving crimes. Below are several current police responsibilities where a new agency or a reconfiguration of existing agencies should take over a current police task.
1. Traffic Laws: Traffic violations are currently enforced by police officers who are armed and regularly escalate to arrest and killings. Nonviolent offenders, like Daunte Wright, who, in any reasonable system, would be given a ticket, are shot and killed. The risk of escalation in traffic interactions with police, whether it is to arrest, assault, or kill a motorist is far too high for a nonviolent offense. All of this unnecessary suffering and murder could be stopped if a new unarmed agency enforced traffic laws. An unarmed traffic control agency could give out tickets for speeding, expired licenses/plates, running a red light, etc., and would do so without killing anyone. This force would also prevent more people, many of whom are pulled over because they are minorities, from being thrown into our criminal justice system because of a minor offense. If traffic agents enforced traffic violations while unarmed, both the person being stopped and the traffic law enforcer would enjoy a safer, less dangerous interaction.
2. Mental Health Issues: When police respond to mental health crises, generally they have not been trained to help people undergoing breakdowns. They often respond with force and escalation when de-escalation and reassurance are what’s needed. Our failure to put trained professionals in this situation has resulted in people with a mental health illness being sixteen times more likely to die by a police officer than someone without a mental health illness. Instead of sending armed and untrained police officers to deal with complex psychological problems, we need mental health professionals who are trained in de-escalation to answer these calls for help. The LA Sheriff's department has already started a program like this, and an internal study of the program demonstrated that 600 unnecessary uses of force and/or deaths were prevented by having a trained mental health professional as the primary responder, while the responding officer took a secondary role in the call.
3. Homeless people: Due to laws that criminalize sleeping, eating, and soliciting food or money in public, police are often called about or put in situations to “deal” with homeless people. These interactions all too often result in police using force or even killing people simply because they are poor. Would it not make more sense to spend the money currently spent on enforcing these laws trying to help the homeless, getting them medical or mental health treatment, job training, and a place to live? This shift from enforcement to aid is currently being explored by President Joe Biden, who is considering funding for many of these programs. In addition to federal resources, we also need local and state laws to change for the better to prevent police from “dealing” with the homeless when the only law they are breaking is being poor.
4. S.W.A.T. teams: These infamous police teams are heavily armed and equipped units. They were invented to serve a very specific and important purpose: preventing loss of life in the event of a mass shooter or terrorist attack. Unfortunately, many S.W.A.T. teams today are overly utilized and operate with almost no oversight or significant training. This has caused a myriad of problems ranging from the wrong houses being raided to innocent people being gunned down. To get back to their key role as a safety net in the event of true danger to the citizenry, these teams should be separate from the regular police departments, only utilized when absolutely necessary, and rigorously trained to prevent loss of life.
5. Stray dogs, and less specifically, the miscellaneous: In many cities, the police pick up whatever issues the city is unequipped to handle. For example, in 2016, Dallas police were tasked with chasing down and capturing feral dogs. Why? Because there is no one else to do the job. While it may seem trivial, this is a significant problem. Police are not necessarily trained or equipped for this role, and they are definitely not expected internally or by society to do it. Since it is not what they signed up to do, tasks like this could cause police to resent their jobs and the communities they are supposed to be protecting. The fraying of the relationship between police and community is at the heart of all of these issues. Police, when they are equitably and justly doing their jobs, are heroes. We should not ask them to shoulder random problems that are outside of their roles.
By breaking the current responsibilities of police officers into smaller pieces, reassigning some to well-trained and appropriate agencies, and then reassembling the responsibilities, Mosaic Policing would create a safer and more effective law enforcement system.
It is important to say that mosaic policing will not solve systemic racism in our police system. It will not stop the militarization of police. It will not help better educate and train the police force. However, changing the terms we use to discuss police reform will prevent Republicans from being able to fear monger over what should be a bipartisan effort. It would also give structure and guidance to talks about police reforms at the state level, allowing governors and legislatures to pursue a new form of policing. We should not have to change how we demand justice and reform from a racist system. But, if we want to actually pass police reform, we may have to.
