Is a world without police possible?

G20 Voice / CC

As protests calm in the United States and we look ahead to a post-George Floyd world, many are wondering where we go from here. What are the concrete solutions that could make sure a police killing like this never happens again? 

Among the usual suggestions like body cameras and de-escalation training, one possibility is growing in popularity: defunding the police entirely. 

Is a world without police really possible? Student at Law, Rebecca Amoah has committed her studies to understanding abolitionist theory, and she believes it is. 

“Anti-racism has always been something that I’ve very intentionally built into my academic study and formal education,” said Amoah. “[Abolition] has been a topic that I began researching in my first year at law school.”

Last year, Amoah also wrote a piece for a human rights seminar, which she has now made public on her Instagram account. The piece highlights several abolitionist voices in the context of prison abolition, but Amoah said that there are linkages between prison abolition and police abolition.

“The ultimate objective is abolishing the carceral state,” she said. “That includes immigration detention, juvenile detention, and all forms of punitive criminality.”

London’s hidden racism

While Amoah said her interest in the topic was mainly fueled by her academic studies, the identity she holds as a Black woman also played a key role.

“I have had my own experiences with anti-Black racism, particularly while I was living in London while studying at Western in my undergrad,” said Amoah.

“I had a professor who told me to specifically manage my tone of voice and to be mindful of speaking too fervently on issues of anti-Black racism in class so as not to be perceived as an angry Black woman,” she said. 

“I have been called the N-word multiple times, and been subject to numerous microaggressions.”

Amoah’s sentiments about racism in London echo those of Ward 3 Councillor Mohammed Salih, who said at a council meeting on Tuesday that London was not innocent on matters of race.

“London isn’t innocent and anti-Black racism is here and at times it’s even thrived,” said Salih. “You all can’t see my face right now, but if I could describe it, it’s the face of a Black man who’s joining millions of Black men and women who are grieving. It’s the face of a Black man that says I’m tired, and tired of waiting, and tired of having to have the same conversations about anti-Black racism. It’s the face of a Black man that’s saying enough is enough.”

Premier Doug Ford stated that he does not believe Canada has the same systemic race issues that the United States does. Though both Amoah and Salih suggest that racism and police brutality are very much alive here.

“I think that it’s important that we’re highlighting the Canadian context,” said Amoah, “and the ways in which the police state here in Canada is responsible for the same oppressive tactics and police brutality that we’ve seen in the states but have chosen to remain silent on.”

The argument for defunding the police

Amoah argues that criminality grows out of social and systemic sources, rooted in “colonialism, white supremacy and capitalism,” rather than what she calls the symptoms that we police.

Really, the idea is simple: defund police and re-allocate funding to community services. For Amoah, those community services should be ones that directly tackle poverty.

“By investing and prioritizing funding in healthcare, food security, and income support, we are building strong, safe and healthy communities, particularly Black communities,” she said.

Amoah said by doing so, this could eliminate the need for police. 

If there are instances where crisis intervention is necessary, Amoah suggested that these incidences could be solved by members of the community who would be trained in crisis intervention through a mental health and mental illness lens. 

“Do as much on the backend, in terms of preventive community-based support and infrastructure, to prevent the very conditions that we cast as criminality,” she said. 

How long would it take for change to effect?

A fundamental shift in funding prioritization seems like a years-long process. Amoah argued that these changes could easily come into effect immediately. In Toronto for example, the Poverty Reduction Strategy has been ear-marked for twenty years, something Amoah said there is no need for.

“This does not take a decade, or two, and it’s important to remember that we’ve lived in and experienced the impacts of 400 years of oppressive conditions from the time of the Transatlantic slave trade to now,” she said.

“The time is now, there is no excuse.”

Police services in London make up the biggest portion of the city’s operating budget at 18%. In 2019, the city spent just over $111 million on police services.

“The money is there,” said Amoah. “We have the funds. We are choosing to prioritize them in a way that signals that Black lives do not matter.”

Isn’t police reform enough?

Some suggestions have been made to hold police accountable and better prepare them for de-escalation and racial profiling. Police body cameras have gained popularity, and communities rely on third-party investigations into police misconduct.

1/2 @lpsmediaoffice is fully committed to delivering bias-free policing to all residents and visitors to London regardless of race, colour, gender, sexual orient, religion or citizenship. These expectations of our members are non-negotiable, others need not apply…

— Steve Williams (@S_Williams001) May 30, 2020

In a recent series of tweets, London Police Chief, Steve Williams said, “[London Police Services] is fully committed to delivering bias-free policing to all residents and visitors to London regardless of race, colour, gender, sexual orient, religion or citizenship. These expectations of our members are non-negotiable, others need not apply…I…condemn what occurred in Minneapolis. No human being deserves that treatment for any reason. We are stronger together.​”

London Police even lists accountability as one of their core values.

But Amoah said that these steps don’t go far enough.

“We have empirical evidence that shows that reform, at least in the way that it’s been proposed and implemented, does not work,” said Amoah. 

For example, in 2017 the Right Honourable Justice Michael Tulloch recommended Unconscious and Implicit-Bias Training, which has not been implemented. 

Amoah also asserted that review boards and the Special Investigations Unit are not truly independent, and that transparency for third-party investigations is still lacking.

“The public is unable to hold [the SIU] accountable,” she said. “They know that there’s a wide breadth of knowledge and experience in describing the SIU’s composition, but 20% are not civilians, which means that they are police or have a background in policing.”

The SIU’s official website states that they attempt to maintain balance between those with police backgrounds and those without.

“All SIU investigators are civilians,” it reads. “They come to the SIU from a variety of backgrounds ranging from policing, workplace health and safety, national security and intelligence, immigration, corrections and the legal profession.  By the end of 2009-10, of the Unit’s investigators stationed at the Head Office, eight were of non-policing background while six investigators had a policing background.”

So what happens now?

In the wake of the ongoing protests and years of racial inequality, is it possible that something new is in the air? Could this be a moment of real change? Amoah believes that it is, and said that by making the monetary facts clear to decision-makers, the idea of defunding the police might start to seem plausible.

“Divest, invest, makes sound fiscal sense,” she said. “So by investing in the underlying cause, as opposed to continuing to pour funding into the symptoms, we are actually going to have a long-term cost savings.”

She added that in the age of social media and widespread viewing of police brutality, the pressure to change is stronger than ever.

“People are coming alive to the myth that Canadian exceptionalism is just that, a myth,” said Amoah. “This is the moment.”

In the hopes that people will continue to educate themselves on this topic, Amoah recommends some of the following readings:

Angela Davis, “Masked Racism: Reflections on the Prison Industrial Complex” (2000) Colorlines, online: <https://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/davisprison.html>.