As protests for justice for George Floyd continue across the nation, one idea has gained a lot of speed in mainstream media: defund the police. As reported by CNN, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti agreed to redirect up to $150 million in funding from the police to the community, which is a step in the right direction. The bigger change is happening in Minneapolis, Minnesota, as city council members said they plan to both defund and disband their city’s police force in a shift to community-based approaches. Those are two considerably different strategies, but both fall under the umbrella of police reform and defunding.
So, aside from being a slogan that has a lot of potential to go viral on social media (and has already done so on sites like Twitter), what does “defund the police” actually mean? Let’s break it down below.
As background, it’s important to understand that in addition to calls to demilitarize the police (which is important, for example, when it comes to protesters and journalists), defunding the police considers what role the police actually play in daily life and where we could structurally shift budget dollars from the police to other (and new) responders. For example, if someone is having a mental health crisis or otherwise requires a wellness check, a defunded police force may not be involved in it at all. Instead, a (better funded) social worker or trained mental health professional may be on call.
Another example is addiction; if drug use is endangering someone, for instance, a defunded police department may not arrive on the scene, but instead, someone trained to properly respond to the situation and, ideally, provide long-term treatment plans and support instead of punishment.
Even community care is part of the discussion; instead of calling the police because of minor neighborhood disputes or infractions (think: regulations about lawns or parking spaces), representatives in your local community could be trained and prepared to step in as a third party.
What are some advantages of having others fill major roles the police currently occupy? For starters, it’s one way of responding to the police brutality crisis. For another, communities who have been historically targeted by law enforcement may feel uneasy or reluctant to reach out for help, out of fear of being profiled, brutalized, or having prior allegations or histories used against them. It’s also an approach that can deliver better, more specialized care; having someone with a degree in mental health counseling or social work, for example, providing crisis support, may have a better result than an officer who hasn’t completed the same type of degree and licensure.
In an op-ed for The Washington Post, Christy E. Lopez, a professor at Georgetown Law School, sums it up nicely by writing that, as a society, we should “recognize how much we have come to over-rely on law enforcement” and that we systemically go to the police even when “years of experience and common sense tell us that their involvement is unnecessary.”
It’s also a way of reducing the overall power and prestige police currently have in society; if police have less power over people—and especially when it comes to marginalized communities—people may have more opportunities to receive help or noncarceral responses. This change would allow more people to make amends or grow for the future; ideally, without ending up in a system that all too often results in carceral punishment, loss of voting rights, difficulty getting a job or a home, and so on.
So, does defunding the police mean those police departments cease to exist? Well, not necessarily. The movement to abolish the police is alive and well, though not all people who call for defunding the police call for the total abolition of policing as we know it. Defunding the police also doesn’t mean law enforcement would receive literally no money, but instead that large chunks of the budget would shift to those taking on responsibilities currently held by the police. So, for example, mental health professionals or community responders.
Patrisse Cullors, the co-founder of Black Lives Matter, talked to WBUR about reallocating police funds and highlighted an important point. "It's about reinvesting those dollars into Black communities, communities that have been deeply divested from," she explained.
Perhaps the biggest question, aside from what roles to replace the police with, is one of crime. Will crimes go up with a reduced police presence? Will violent crime increase? Practically speaking, we simply don’t know. But we also know that crimes such as domestic violence, sexual assault, and child sexual abuse continue to exist even while police have comparatively large funding budgets.
Not all Democrats are on board with the idea or the slogan. Aside from disagreeing with the sentiment, many on the left are concerned that language like “defund the police” will push voters away. Still, some progressives want to see grassroots and activism movements being taken seriously.
“It is not crazy for Black and brown communities to want what white people have already given themselves and that is funding your schools more than you fund criminalizing your own kids,” New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said according to those in a caucus phone call on Monday, as reported by Politico.