Policing is one part of the criminal legal system that is totally backward, budget-wise. As Black people are being disproportionately impacted by food insecurity, housing crises, lack of healthcare, and more, the exploitation is abundantly clear.
For example, officials in Houston used a rise in crime during the pandemic to justify why millions in relief funds from the CARES Act went to police. This happened despite the fact that the pandemic was a factor in the increase! It reveals faulty logic.
If it’s known that bad conditions lead to these problems, why put more money into policing to “fix” them instead of resources that could prevent them in the first place? Police spending doesn’t stop crime, but meeting people’s needs can. The exploitation goes even deeper, too.
Nationally, crime has been falling for decades, but funding for police has tripled despite analysis that shows there’s no correlation between spending on police and falling rates. Black America is faced with a choice about how to fix this – and there are plenty of good ideas.
Movements to “defund the police” acknowledge that we shouldn’t be paying the police more and more to kill us while we lack healthcare, housing, and food! We pay taxes to have our needs met, not to have our lives threatened!