Best Defunding Model We’ve Never Heard Of

By DON ROLLINS

The drive to defund police departments has lost much of the momentum gained in the wake of George Floyd’s real-time murder. Even in Minneapolis, scene to the crime, calls to rethink the efficacy and humanity of armed responses to nonviolent situations have become more muted.

Meanwhile, Black teens and young men continue to be stopped, searched, investigated and incarcerated at nearly the same rate as before Floyd’s death; and still account for 28% of police-related killings, despite making up only 13% of the population. (Mapping Police Violence, Sept, 7, 2021.)

But while the defunding movement may have waned more than waxed since the summer of 2020, it has nonetheless helped shine a much needed light on existing efforts to reform nonviolent policing.

Among the most studied models is CAHOOTS (Crisis Assistance Helping Out on the Streets) a Eugene, Oregon-based extension of that city’s police department since 1989.

Since expanded to include nearby Springfield, CAHOOTS has evolved into a 24/7 crisis support agency on wheels, utilizing trained workers and medics as first responders.

The services range from crisis intervention and mediation, to first aid and non-life threatening emergency medical attention. And all CAHOOTS teams have direct access to the Eugene City Police in the event of a violent or imminently violent incident.

CAHOOTS’ financially-related outcomes are likewise impressive. The program’s relationship-based approach better meets the individualized needs of its clients — especially those living with mental illness and low resources — while saving the two cities and estimated $8 million in public safety incidents, and another $14 million in emergency services.

CAHOOTS also receives praise for its impact on the Eugene and Springfield legal systems, connecting residents with detox centers or housing services, not jails or bail bond conveyor belts.

Another positive is the trust CAHOOTS has earned within the two cities’ communities of color, adding to its cultural awareness and credibility - just one the factors attracting attention from cities several times the size of Eugene and Springfield combined.

But while the CAHOOTS model features a cooperative relationship with police, that’s not to say there is no distance between the two. Describing CAHOOTS’ decision to join the voices calling for eliminating or decreasing police funding, UC-Berkeley professor of African American studies Nikki Jones cites a fundamental tension between harm philosophy and historic policing: “There is harm done to a person as they’re experiencing a mental health crisis. The problem is not that they’re in the street disrupting traffic; the problem is that they’re in crisis. So, to think about it that way, then you’re responding to harm — you’re relating to them through their humanity, which is not what policing does…”

Jones answers other critics of the CAHOOTS paradigm by pointing out the vast difference between the current CAHOOTS budget ($2 million) and the Springfield and Eugene police departments ($90 million). Were the pot more evenly split, might CAHOOTS’ harm and trauma approach produce even better outcomes? It’s a question the program’s coordinators seem willing to pose, despite the inevitable rift its creating.

Its to everyone’s benefit that CAHOOTS has become the gold standard for an authentically progressive, person-centered alternative. City officials in similarly liberal contexts are using CAHOOTS’ theory and practices as building blocks; even some traditional, accountability-resistant police departments can’t deny the potential to save significant tax dollars; and most importantly, lives are being made better, even saved.

It may be the best defunding model many of us have never heard of.

Don Rollins is a Unitarian Universalist minister in Hendersonville, N.C. Email donaldlrollins@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, October 15, 2021

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