"How Police Unions Became Such Powerful Opponents to Reform Efforts"

I am so glad to see this headline in the New York Times today: How Police Unions Became Such Powerful Opponents to Reform Efforts. I hope it begins to change people's perceptions regarding the obstacles to police reform. Misdiagnose the problem and it's awfully hard to cure it...

I am tired after having listened for decades to too many of my contemporaries and now younger friends, shaped by the politics of the Sixties, putting social justice groups advocating for police reform (like Campaign Zero) and all unions together on "the left" side of the ledger, and the police (including organizations like the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE) on the other. My experience has always been that generally chiefs and other senior police management are closer to to the reformist side of this equation than to the positions of many police unions. The New York Times article fleshes that out.

‎I also understand from friends in law enforcement that there is a problematic culture among a lot of officers that goes beyond the police unions. This problem has probably been supercharged as the culture of "protect and serve" and the concept of police as guardians has given way to a militarized, us-against-them ethos. 

But calls to "Defund the police" are not the answer. "Demilitarize the police" and finally push through with all it takes to make the other necessary reforms are. In Jill Leovy's book Ghettoside, the homicide detectives in the most dangerous communities in Los Angeles were buying their own supplies because they were so financially under resourced. Reform the police ‎then commit more resources, not less to assuring that all Americans can live in safe communities. If any evidence is needed about how cheated of basic security the poorest urban Americans are these days, just check out this Chicago Sun Times article reporting on last weekend's gun violence. It's sickening just to get through the article.