What's all this "Defund the Police" stuff about?
The Political Orphanage
Andrew Heaton
4.9 • 1000 Ratings
🗓️ 11 June 2020
⏱️ 64 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
"Defund the Police" is the rallying cry of protestors and social media this week. Does it mean abolishing the police, replacing them, or reforming them? Scott Shackford of Reason joins to explain what the phrase actually means, as well as the looming role of police unions in the status quo.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the political orphanage. If you're tired of screaming at people and you want to fix problems, welcome to the political orphanage. |
| 0:10.0 | If you're tired of screaming at people and you want to fix problems, welcome home. |
| 0:15.0 | I'm your host Andrew Heaton and today I am joined by Scott Chackford, who is a associate editor at |
| 0:20.3 | Reason, who is many beats that he covers, but covers specifically policing and criminal justice. |
| 0:25.4 | Scott, it's a pleasure to have you on. |
| 0:26.8 | Hey, thanks for having me. |
| 0:28.4 | And you're out in California that I fled California, but to be clear about this, I fled California but to be clear about this I fled I was explicitly |
| 0:36.5 | fleeing social isolation due to lockdown conditions I wasn't fleeing riots |
| 0:40.5 | because I didn't know they were on the radar yet so I fled but I fled |
| 0:43.6 | pre-riants you've been in California but it sounds like you're doing okay. |
| 0:46.7 | Yeah I'm doing fine I am just a couple miles from the Fairfax neighborhood |
| 0:52.1 | but also between me in the Fairfax |
| 0:55.1 | neighborhood is a is a massive police complex which is not protested and the |
| 0:59.8 | streets are actually blocked off over there right now which is a little bit annoying but |
| 1:03.6 | this neighborhood has been largely free because it has a heavy minority community and |
| 1:09.9 | they have been targeting higher profile commercial areas for protests, so it's been pretty quiet here. |
| 1:16.2 | Okay. And I you know as far as I know my neighborhood's fine, but I did I had originally planned to be gone for two weeks and then the riots happened and I was like you know what I'm just going to take a hot minute and I am I am fairly confident my houseplant is dead. I'm pretty sure that house plate's not going to survive it. You know you know what, if that's the worst thing that happens to me, |
| 1:34.1 | then so be it. |
| 1:35.2 | Well, I wanted to talk to you today about the phrase, |
| 1:39.3 | defund the police. |
| 1:40.7 | I have seen this all over, |
| 1:42.3 | I first saw it on social media, and I've now been reading about it, and I kind of understand the concept more, but I feel like it is invoking so many different things from different parties that I think it's worth exploring what it means and |
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