Defund — not defend — the Police

A photograph of a protest including a sign that says ‘Defund the police’. Photo credit: The Voice Online: https://www.voice-online.co.uk/news/uk-news/2022/01/31/defund-the-police-say-manchesters-black-community/

This article argues that defunding the police is necessary to address fundamental and systemic problems plaguing British policing. It responds to an article written by Fleetwood & Lea (2022) claiming that ‘defunding the police does not translate well to the UK’.

Originally published in The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice - January 2023. The full article is available here (open access).

Introduction

In 2020, following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis USA, calls to ‘Defund the Police’ gained prominence through a wave of Black Lives Matter protests. As demonstrations spread globally, people on the streets of Britain and Northern Ireland echoed demands to redirect funding away from police and towards affordable housing, community care and economic security. But in a predictable backlash, British media largely dismissed these demands, some portraying such calls as ‘nonsense’, as Labour Leader Keir Starmer did, while others questioned whether ‘Defund the Police’ was relevant to the UK.

Jennifer Fleetwood and John Lea have taken up this latter question, arguing that ‘Defunding the police does not translate well to the UK’ (2022, p.172). They argue that activists in the UK are replicating US demands while ignoring the distinctive political and institutional context of British policing. In their view, activists misread the fundamental problem of policing as one about funding rather than power, fail to see that austerity politics have already defunded the police, and neglect reforms which would more effectively reduce the institutional autonomy of police.

We disagree and assert that Defund the Police is a necessary response to the problems of British policing. We suggest that Fleetwood and Lea have undertaken a reductive analysis of the slogan ‘Defund the Police’ and misunderstand the broader politics that are associated with this demand. In turn, Fleetwood and Lea suggest well-intentioned but flawed solutions that will replicate the same pattern of failed reforms that Black Lives Matters protests have sought to challenge.

At stake here is far more than a mere political disagreement between abolitionist and ‘left realist’ academics. For decades, we have witnessed the classed, racial and gendered harms of policing, and seen how reforms posed as solutions repeatedly fail to constrain police power and often reinforce it. As seen in the recent public outcry over the racist strip search of Child Q, the violent policing of protests like the vigil for Sarah Everard, the ongoing brutality of immigration raids, and the daily harassment of Black youth through stop and search practices, far more needs to be done than tinkering with police bureaucracy and accountability processes. A fair and accurate account of abolitionist work in the UK offers a way through this impasse…

To continue reading, click through to full article available here (open access).