“Defund the police.”
A three-word phrase that has been repeated by activists across the country during protests over the death of George Floyd, who died after a Minnesota police officer kept his knee on Floyd’s neck during an arrest.
The call is not necessarily about completely gutting police force budgets, although some activists and lawmakers have also raised the possibility of disbanding police departments altogether, complicating an already complex message.
Here are five things to help make sense of what “defund the police” means:
1. What is the “defund the police” movement?
Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza explained recently on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that defunding the police is about putting more of a focus on other “resources” outside of policing that are important to communities across the United States.
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“When we talk about defunding the police, what we’re saying is invest in the resources that our communities need,” Garza said Sunday.
State and local governments in the United States spent $115 billion on policing in 2017, according to data compiled by the Urban Institute.
The message is straightforward in this sense: Take a portion of the money generally used in the police budget and redistribute the funds into other resources within the community, especially in marginalized areas.
2. Does defunding the police mean abolishing the police?
While a segment within the movement does promote completely disbanding the police, a larger group supports the reallocation of some funds away from the police department to social services, as well as the push to change practices within law enforcement.
“Are we willing to live in fear that our lives will be taken by police officers who are literally using their power in the wrong way?” Garza told NBC. “Or are we willing to adopt and absorb the fear of what it might mean to change our practices, which will ultimately lead to a better quality of life for everyone.”
3. What are elected officials saying or doing?
A majority of members of the Minneapolis City Council said Sunday they intend to dismantle the city’s police department.
“We committed to dismantling policing as we know it in the city of Minneapolis and to rebuild with our community a new model of public safety that actually keeps our community safe,” Council President Lisa Bender told CNN. The key words here are “as we know it.”
In New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Sunday that the city would move funding from the New York City Police Department to youth and social services.
On the other side of the country, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said he would slash as much as $150 million that was part of a planned increase in the police department’s budget.
President Donald Trump also tweeted his opinion on the subject:
4. What are the police officials and unions saying?
In most cases, police and union officials have long resisted cuts to police funding, arguing that it would make cities and towns less safe.
Washington, D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham said that underfunding a police department could lead to an increase in excess force by officers.
“The No. 1 thing that contributed to excessive force in any police agency is when you underfund it,” Newsham told the Kojo Nnamdi Radio Show. “If you underfund a police agency, it impacts training, it impacts hiring, it impacts your ability to develop good leaders.”
The Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union for the city’s rank-and-file officers, said budget cuts would be the “quickest way to make our neighborhoods more dangerous.”
“Cutting the LAPD budget means longer responses to 911 emergency calls, officers calling for backup won’t get it, and rape, murder and assault investigations won’t occur or will take forever to initiate, let alone complete,” the union’s board said in a statement last week.
5. Where would reallocated funds go?
Patrisse Cullors, a co-founder of Black Lives Matter movement, spoke in a recent interview with WBUR, a Boston public radio station, about other areas where reallocated funds could go to better help the communities they serve.
“And so what we’re asking for is a reinvestment in how to understand what’s needed in our communities,” Cullors said. “Why is law enforcement the first responders for a mental health crisis? Why are they first responders for domestic violence issues? Why are they the first responders for homelessness? And so those are the first places we can look into.”