Good intentions don't make a good idea. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street with the point.

No matter how noble its intentions, any idea is ultimately tested by how well it does with reality.

By most measures, the defund the police movement has failed dramatically.

Since 2020, when calls for police reform escalated, the nation's seen a 30% spike in homicides and arise in other violent crime.

Now, cities at once slash police budgets, Portland and Los Angeles, Oakland, are now increasing them, some by up to 12%.

The president's been inconsistent on the issue, but in January argued against cutting funding

for police, but also for supplementing their work with community and mental health services.

The economist sums up why.

Quote, no evidence suggests a relationship between the size of a police force and the number of people its officers kill.

And yet, ample evidence suggests that bigger and better funded forces tend to reduce violent crime.

Biblical position is that people aren't just mental health cases to be cured.

They're moral agents who sometimes do what's wrong.

So, even a healthy society will need more than just police,

but it will never need less.

I'm John Stone Street.