After months of chants, hashtags, and politicians and talking heads debating the term and implications, the hard numbers are in for Fiscal Year 2021, and “Defund the Police” is not happening.
It seemed like a turning point. In May, a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd, sparking protests against racism across the country and an unrelenting demand from protesters in city after city: Defund the police.
But after months of demonstrations, that rallying cry hasn’t translated into reality. While a few major cities like New York and Los Angeles have made large, high profile cuts, more than half actually increased spending or kept it unchanged as a percentage of their discretionary spending, based on a Bloomberg CityLab analysis of 34 of the largest 50 U.S. cities that have finalized 2021 budgets. As a group, the difference between police spending as a share of the general funds fell less than 1% from last year. The city council in Indianapolis is poised to vote on an increase to its police budget in the coming weeks.
New York City made the largest cut to police spending in dollar terms. The reduction came as NYC slashed its total budget as well.
Austin made the most substantial reduction to general fund police spending in percentage terms even as the general fund budget was unchanged.
The reasons for such moves vary by city and state. For some, like Charlotte, North Carolina, residents’ calls to reduce police spending came too late in the budget process to have any impact on the final outcome, and for others, like San Antonio, increases were inevitable because of prior union negotiations. The coronavirus pandemic is also pressuring city councils to scale back plans for all types of infrastructure and services—including police departments—to help make up for an anticipated plunge in tax revenue next year.
“We have not defunded anything in this moment,” said Oluchi Omeoga, an organizer with Minneapolis’s Black Visions Collective, which is working to reimagine policing in the city. “As much as we’ve said that we’ve defunded, as much as there has been a national movement to defund, the police have the same budget that they had three months ago.”
The negligible changes across many U.S. cities run counter to a narrative being pushed by President Donald Trump, who has denounced places including Chicago, Seattle and New York as lawless and beset by violent protesters. He is attempting to paint the 2020 election as a referendum on law and order, by falsely stating his opponent Joe Biden wants to get rid of police. Biden said in August that more investment is needed to properly reform police departments.
Police budgets, along with total spending, have been on an upward trajectory for the last decade. A year passes, the budget goes up. Take Boston, which spent $315.8 million on police in 2012, according to an Urban Institute analysis. In 2017, the city’s general fund spending on police increased to $375.5 million, and by fiscal 2020, the city was spending $414.3 million. This year marks a shift, however: Boston will spend $404.2 million in fiscal 2021.
This is my shocked face… o_oReport
The decision in the Breonna Taylor case is expected soon, so I will just post this in advance.
If the decision is to exonerate the officers, there will be new protests, and some new riots.
And the usual talking heads will interview the shopkeepers who will feign bewilderment as they blubber about their losses.
And there will be calls for more police, more militarization, more of what provoked the riots in the first place.
As the saying goes, we have tried literally nothing, and we are out of options.Report
In Fla the guv is actually trying to make a law that you can’t cut cop budgets. He has a giant new bill that is aimed at stopping mass protests. It’s gonna go down in the flames of dozen court challenges but he’s trying to authoritarian it up.Report
We are seeing the rise of Herrenvolk Oban style populist authoritarian as a significant number of white people exist in full existential panic but demographic decline. Instead of moderating or changing, they decided to insulate themselves. This is going to get a lot worse before it gets better especially because a lot of people refuse to acknowledge that this is what is going on.Report
And people wonder why the Republicans are so eager to control the courts.Report
Forgot to add, the Free Speech Choir will have approximately nothing to say about this. Dave Rubin and Prager will whine about not being able to say the N word, Bari Weiss will never acknowledge it, Sulli will at the most poo poo it and complain about rich people being mean to him.Report
“Respect the Rule of Law!”
“There’s no law against peaceful assembly.”
“There is now!”Report
There’s no law against *PEACEFUL* assembly.
This gathering is not *PEACEFUL*.
Therefore it is illegal.
Therefore we can use force to arrest you for attending.
Q.E.D.Report
There is no law against peaceful assembly.
Except subject to time, place and manner.
And over here.
And at this time. And under these circumstances.
Oh, and that group over there violently protesting in support of the regime? Well, the rules don’t apply to them because reasons.
Yeah, the hallmark of authoritarian regimes is that the law is a supple tool of convenience.Report
You don’t even need to do that, though. You don’t need to appeal to time, place, manner. You don’t need to point out that there was a poker game in the back and poker is illegal unless it takes place in the casino.
You just need to point to the violence.
No contortions necessary.Report
Further, you can even escalate the situation and provoke the violence, and then point at the violence you provoked as a reason for breaking up the assembly.Report
See? There’s no need for contortions at all.
You don’t have pull the “it says WELL REGULATED MILITIA!” crap. Just have a couple of plants throw a molotov cocktail or two and you’re covered.Report
And besides, they set up the Free Speech Zone and published its location well in advance of the event.Report
Really?
He said that if local jurisdictions cut police funding, the state will cut the local jurisdiction’s funding…not quite the same thing.
He’s also working to increase penalties for criminal behavior. But you’re totally right that this will go over like a brick……..o.0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxiTGFvE2Y4&ab_channel=WFLANewsChannel8Report
My suburban city now has four mental health professionals, on call and with city-provided vehicles, paid for out of the police budget. When there’s a call that appears to have a mental health aspect, both a regular officer and a mental health professional are dispatched. So far as I can tell, everyone is happy with the results thus far. OTOH, we’re not having demonstrations where buildings get burned down.Report
It’s gonna go down in the flames of dozen peaceful court challenges
It should be stressed that these court challenges, while fiery, will be mostly peaceful.Report
I was going to edit “fiery but peaceful” into the quote, but decided to go with a different approach. However, after doing so, I left the “peaceful” part in. So that didn’t go so well, but you get the idea.Report
Is it at least happening in blue districts where the Democrats control the House and Governor?Report
I suppose the other argument is that “Defund the Police” doesn’t literally mean “Defund the Police” and it’s disingenuous to think that it would.
The fact that police budgets haven’t been touched isn’t evidence of anything and you’re being dishonest. “Defund the Police” has always been about something else that is orthogonal to police budgets.Report
“Defund the police? No no, you misheard me, I said de-fun the police! It’s a regional dialect. Clearly what I meant was that the officers who are enjoying themselves by abusing suspects and civilians are having fun, and we need to just make sure that those people aren’t on the force anymore! And obviously that means a completely new oversight department is required with a full staff and budget…”Report
During the early days of the current protests, the mayor of Chicago came out against defund the police with the argument that most of the money goes to payroll and they have been able to add a lot of young minority officers to the force and this increases the number of people of color in the middle class. Defunding the police will only lead to less people of color in the middle class because younger officers will be the first cut.
Now why is it easier to create middle class jobs for people of color through the police over other government jobs is an interesting, complex, and probably depressing (in terms of conclusions) policy problem. I would guess the answer has something to do with the fact that American training requirements for being a police officer are lax compared to other countries and the fact that our culture largely still sees police and firefighters as good and other government workers as bad.Report
There is a viewpoint that consistently boggles me. We see it with police, with teachers, and all kinds of stuff.
The point of the police is not to provide middle class jobs to the police.
The point of teaching kids is not to provide middle class jobs to teachers.
The point of the job is not to provide employment.
It’s completely topsy-turvy.Report
When government jobs are the easiest entry point to a middle class wage, as they are for people of color, it is the point.
CPD has been understrength for years, mostly because the city can’t afford full strength numbers. Defunding, while an admirable goal prima facie, is already a de facto thing.Report
I’m juuuuuuust crazy enough to think that the point of the police has something to do with law enforcement rather than merely funneling tax money to preferred constituents.
I mean… this seems pretty obvious to me. Self-evident.
We don’t treat Sanitation Engineers like this. Not phlebotomists. Not programmers.
But we look at the cops and we say “well, the point is to give money to people” rather than some bullshit about protecting/serving?Report
Laws are getting enforced rather strenuously of late, and, as I pointed out, the police force in Chicago is understrength. No one is getting away with anything. When we have too many cops, then it’s time to worry.Report
While I appreciate that we ought to make sure that our police forces are adequately funded rather than defunded, from what I understand, the argument was not “we need to adequately fund the police”.
And, anyways, the argument for this particular sub-thread has to do with the point of the police and what it is.
Personally, I don’t think that the point of the police is to provide employment.Report
A new wrinkle:
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