June 6-7 Newsletter

WEEKEND EDITION: JUNE 6, 2020

To imagine what our communities really need to be safe, we need to learn about what's being taken away from them to give to police. 

"The safest communities don't have the most cops; they have the most resources."

-Jillian Johnson, Durham Mayor Pro Tempore

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Introspective:

1. Think about/write about what makes a community safe, comfortable, and/or a "good place to live." Is it because of the many grocery stores? Good hospitals and medical care? Accessible parks, playgrounds and public spaces? Great public transportation? Do police come to the top of your mind? If so, why? If not, why not? 

I've been privileged to live in towns that are safe and comfortable because they have access to all the above and more. The police never come to my mind as a core pillar of what makes those communities safe. These towns have been very white communities. I have lived in one other place that had less access to food, medical care and accessible transport. There were a lot more police, and a lot less white people.More police do not make up for lack of resources. In fact, more police take away from crucial community resources.Read on to see how various US cities distribute their funds.

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Educational: 

2. LOS ANGELES: After acknowledging that the economic impacts from COVID-19 could be worse than the 2008 recession, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcettiunveiled a budget proposalthat furloughs 16,000 city workers and cuts support for homelessness programs by 6%, in a city where the homeless population continues togrow year over year. Meanwhile, "under contracts negotiated by Garcetti and the council...Police officers are scheduled to receive two raises — 1.5% in July and another 3.25% in January." In total, the LAPD is allocated $3.14 billion of the city's $10.5 billion budget. 

3. NEW YORK: New York's police budget is the largest in the country, totaling $5 billion. As Brooklyn College sociology professor Alex Vitale writes in the New York Post, "New York City spends more on policing than it does on the Departments of Health, Homeless Services, Housing Preservation and Development, and Youth and Community Development combined."

4. OAKLAND: The police department "receives nearly half of the city's discretionary spending ($264 million out of $592 million), dwarfing every other expenditure, including human services, parks and recreation, and transportation combined."

5. CHICAGO: "A whopping 39 percent of Chicago's 2017 budget went to police, and still the department got even more money, peaking in 2020 with a 7 percent increase to nearly $1.8 billion. Mayor Lori Lightfoot told reporters that no matter how dire the city's budget shortfall gets as a result of coronavirus, she is 'not ever gonna cut back on public safety.'"

6. MINNEAPOLIS: "The city council and Democratic mayor Jacob Frey passed a $1.6 billion budget for 2020, bumping up the Minneapolis Police Department's funding by $10 million (to $193 million) in order to add an extra class of recruits. But according to the local ABC affiliate, programs and agencies that could actually prevent crime get a relative pittance: $31 million for affordable housing, $250,000 for community organizations working with at-risk youth, and just over $400,000 for the Office of Crime Prevention."

Credit: Luke Darby for GQ - I strongly recommend reading the entire article. 

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Actionable: 

4. Let's tell our leaders to defund the police. That doesn't necessarily mean stripping away all their funding (that's police abolition, we can save that for another newsletter), but rather it calls for the funding to be reallocated to healthcare, employment, housing, and more.

- Black Lives Matter #DefundThePolice petition here. - Minneapolis: Sign this petition.  - New York: Sign this petition. 

5. Make a call to your council members. Reclaim the Block's toolkit walks you through how to call your council member and ask to reallocate city funding. Numbers listed in the document are MN specific, but you can use the template for any call in any city. Their copy below: 

“Hi, my name is ______, and I live at [your address]. I’m calling to ask you to put our city’s resources into the things our community needs most, like violence prevention, housing, resources for youth, and addressing the opioid crisis, instead of hiring 14 more police officers. [Add any other personal details about your experiences with police or what you’d like the city to fund instead of MPD.]”