Moreover, history shows that much law enforcement training is not evidence-based and that furthermore, even the best training will fail if the implementation isn't sound. Government-funded de-escalation training is often suggested as a panacea for violent police behavior, but the best solutions are to be found in developing, designing, and implementing alternatives to policing altogether.
CPE wishes also to highlight that the legislation makes no mention of police interactions with Black and Brown youth and the impact these interactions have on their mental health. Black and Brown children are routinely denied the innocence that is regularly assumed of their White peers, a phenomenon known as "adultification"; all too often, adultification leads to immediate trauma for the child, their family, and the community, and a young person's lifelong entanglement with the country's criminal legal systems. While it's important to regulate what police do in situations through training, it's also critically important to reduce the frequency of police contact by building more effective, just, and equitable systems grounded in public health.
Finally, CPE calls on the country's leaders to begin to grapple honestly with the simple fact that increasing funding for police cannot fix the enormous issues that plague our public safety systems today. The United States already exponentially outspends its peer nations on law enforcement; if funding were all it took, we wouldn't be here. What this nation needs is not to spend more money on police, but to invest in the systems of care that will prevent our communities from having to cry out in crisis in the first place.