Editorial: We must get beyond slogans to find best strategy for protecting communities

Slogans have their place at a public protest or political address. They don't serve so well when it comes time to actually shape public policy. When they become competing rallying cries in a culture war, they can become downright futile.

This is the danger brewing as calls to "defund the police" grow among would-be reformers of police policy only to be met by vows to enforce "law and order."

Don't be taken in. No community will be better by simply eliminating police protection, and as for the simplistic equating of "force" and keeping the peace, well, you don't have to look far to see where that has gotten us.

Indeed, David Brown, Chicago's new police superintendent, may have come closest four years ago to identifying the direction police reform needs to take. Three days after a sniper killed five of his officers and injured nine more at a protest in July 2016, then-Dallas Police Chief Brown said this:

"Every societal failure, we put it off on the cops to solve: Not enough mental health funding ‒ let the cops handle it. Not enough drug addiction funding, let's give it to the cops. Here in Dallas, we got a loose dog problem. Let's have the cops chase loose dogs. You know, schools fail, give it to the cops."

Brown advocates a less confrontational role for police addressing immediate threats to community safety and a more expansive role for the political and social service agencies with the expertise to address deeper, long-term behavioral and societal problems.

Those who would look to the outcomes in Chicago over the past two weeks as either vindication or repudiation of Brown's leadership of the department miss the point as surely as do those who see the unrest nationwide during that time either as cause to eliminate police departments or a need to double down on law enforcement.

That we need some new direction in the relationships between police and our communities is obvious to anyone who reflects on the acts of brutality that persist. A U.S. House bill passed this week attempting to shift some resources and add controls to stem abuse by police acknowledges this, but is surely only the beginning of a conversation rather than a serious response on the scale the problem demands. The Senate's apparent reluctance to take up the House measures is disappointing to the degree it is based on impulsive contrariness but at least offers space for a more comprehensive discussion of the manner in which we should direct resources intended to protect lives and property and maintain peace and harmony in our communities.

That discussion, unfortunately, is not conducive to slogans that sound great at political rallies and street protests, but it's only through such deeper dialogue and the earnest energies of all parties that we can build a foundation that successfully accounts for the complexities of human nature and contemporary society.