Democrats spent the last four years running away from police reform. “Funding the police” didn’t just help them lose the presidency—it handed a dangerous man an even stronger police and surveillance state.
A little-known legal tool allows states to override progressive policies in cities.
Party leaders have blamed progressive left policies for disappointing electoral results. A close examination of winners and losers suggests otherwise.
Research has shown only that police can be sufficient, not that they are necessary.
While a debate over defunding the police rages in Austin, a new lawsuit reminds its residents that assault cases in the city are routinely ignored.
Mayors of liberal cities love to criticize the president’s incendiary law-and-order rhetoric, but do precious little to check police violence and bloated budgets in their own backyards.
The proposed legislation would expand the city’s public mental healthcare system using funds reallocated from the police budget.
Like her Democratic mayoral counterparts in Portland, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and New York, Lightfoot has condemned police violence outside her borders, while using law enforcement to suppress demonstrations in her own city.
In difficult moments like this, we can’t let bad faith attacks set our community back. What our families need are resources and investment, not more police on the streets.
To decarcerate New Orleans, we must defund the police department.
Under current law, established during the “tough on crime” era, San Francisco mandated at least 1,971 full-time police officers. Voters will now have the opportunity to reconsider that mandate.
From crackdowns on Black students decades ago to more recent arrests during protests against neo-Confederates, the department has served as a tool for enforcing white supremacy.
Social Workers address crises regularly and without an armed police officer standing in front of us. Often, the presence of an armed officer escalates a crisis that could have been better handled by mental health professionals alone.
Making our communities safe requires not only the defunding of police departments, but also dismantling discriminatory laws that target survival activities such as sleeping, sitting, lying down, and eating in public space.
Safe and healthy communities start with less police and more investment in community services that work.
Calls to defund the police must also be accompanied with divesting power and discretion from judges.
The move follows the police killing of George Floyd and more than a week of uprisings, where hundreds of thousands of people around the world have protested against police violence, and abusive police responses to the protests.