If people in the USA want to support people of color, to create a more just and peaceful country, or just to save wasted taxpayer dollars, they need to actively be backing growing calls to Defund the Police, and to explain to public fund managers what can mean. of Justice estimates that over 80% of prisoners will return to prison. Many people had already been doing this non-harmful activity illegally before, leading to wasted expenditures of police, court and jail times if they got caught. This allowed them to legally grow and consume small quantities of medical marijuana. Find ways to replace those abusing their power by taking back the power yourself for your community. Massive public costs from enforcing laws against low level and non-violent crime, like drug use, consume budgets of not only police, but courts, jails, and much more. The USA needs to learn lessons from places that treat drug consumption as a health problem, and not a legal problem, such as Portugal. Police Violence: a Crisis of Masculinity? Almost 2.3 million Americans are now in prison, at a cost to taxpayers of roughly $75,000 per year, more than sending them to a year at Harvard. UC Berkeley students support defunding and abolishing the police. There has never been a better time to spend one’s energy on these topics. So, what could solutions to the current situation look like, how could they be paid for, and should relative costs realistically be coming out of police budgets? As of this writing the Los Angeles Mayor has promised to reduce $150 million from the LAPD $3.14 billion annual budget, and multiple groups are already making concrete proposals how to better provide security in areas that would reduce the need for police, such as investments in housing, youth jobs, health initiatives, and will allow those who have suffered discrimination to collect damages. The time to do this has arrived. I’ve watched with dismay and frankly a good bit of anger at calls to defund the police. If elected officials are not doing the right thing, and your community has better solutions, then take action yourself to remove those people from office. Locals now insist the police station should be turned into a community center, and police funding should be cut by 50%. While there are multiple interpretations of “defund the police ,” the basic definition is to move funding away from police departments and into community resources such as mental health experts, housing, and social workers. The Center for American Progress says, “The number of Americans arrested for possession has tripled since 1980, reaching 1.3 million arrests per year in 2015.” Black people are four times as likely as whites to be arrested on marijuana charges, which no longer exist in many states, resulting in billions of dollars in increased revenues for state coffers. The idea that sending people to prison will somehow cure them and make them productive members of society is one of the most harmful false myths out there, and the “tough on crime” empty rhetoric of many politicians leads only to a financial horror show for public (and policing) budgets. Some may have a knee-jerk reaction to “just say no” to this call, but polls show a vast majority of Americans are concerned about improving the lives of people of color across the country. We directed our City Attorney and Police Chief to draw up a plan so people could get a note from a doctor, and go get a medical marijuana card from our local Police Station. When I decided to run for a seat on the Council in the City of Arcata, California, the City was in the midst of a very expensive (and failing) effort to crack down on a group of people serving food to homeless people on the town square. Comments to “ Why we need to defund, not defend, the police ” Tommy says: July 13, 2020 at 8:45 pm Thank you Dr. J for making this blog post. Why Capitalism Was Destined to Come Out on Top in the 2020 Election, U.S. Foreign Policy is a Failure, Whoever’s President, Two Capitalist Parties Compete, Humanity Loses, The AFL-CIO’s Foreign Policy Program: Where Historians Now Stand, An Omaha Stake in the Heart of Orange Satan? Almost half a million are serving time for a drug charge, and another 1.15 million people are on probation and parole for drug-related offences. A Call to Reclaim Our Awareness for the Wild, That’s Not Gangster, That’s Love: Eddie Conway and Jose Saldaña Talking, Nichole Stepehns, Administrative Assistant. Here is why we should all support the call to defund the police: 1. Thank you for posting this in spite of “tough on crime,” “all lives matter,” and “community safety” cop apologists. Over a 10 year cycle after release from state prisons, the US Dept. Portugal now has one of the lowest drug related death rates in the world, and estimates say that if the USA followed suit, it would save millions of dollars. US Cities now looking at concrete figures for reallocating police funds. My election began a communication process whereby the City officials and the volunteer group, Food Not Bombs, sat down and figured out a way where food could be legally cooked in a clean permitted kitchen at the City Community Center, and people could be fed. Any police officer will agree that since Nixon started this failed effort in the late 1960s, illegalized drug consumption levels have largely remained the same. mobilize your family and friends to take action with you The main outcomes of this war have only been to create massive profits for gangs across the USA (with even worse effects in places like Mexico , El Salvador or Columbia). Prisons are more like a university of crime maintained by the state, where as one prisoner stated, “crime, corruption and cold-blooded murder is often encouraged, praised and applauded.” One study using US Government data proved that “spending time in prison leads to increased criminal earnings; a person can make roughly $11,000 more [illegally] from spending time in prison versus a person who does not spend time in prison.”. Local politicians must rethink what win-win solutions could look like. My four years of responsibility for a City and Police Budget, and subsequent time studying public policy in USA and across Europe, have convinced me beyond a doubt that we can do better. So simple logic follows, that such mental health needs should be fully funded, with money coming out of police budgets, since police would no longer be called to provide a service for which they actually have no training or useful capacity. Locals now insist the police station should be turned into a community center, and police funding should be cut by 50%. Jason Kirkpatrick is the former Vice Mayor, Arcata, California. Policing in the U.S. was established to maintain white supremacy. Instead of wasting public money on lawyers and police, the same City money was now being spent on reusable plates, cutlery, and a bike trailer to successfully meet the needs our City had a responsibility to provide. Savings galore if we rethink the war on drugs and rehabilitation. Lastly, I submit a suggestion I was given long ago before becoming a City Council candidate. Opinion: Here’s why we shouldn’t defund the police. Looking back, I wish I had cut the wasted legal and policing expenditures in future years’ budgets, but clearly there was a savings landing in the City legal, courts, policing and jail budgets as a result of this win-win cooperative solution. Our Arcata City Council saw the issue differently, and voted 5-0 to become the first City in the USA to legalise medical marijuana, which we saw as a common sense solution, which would also save money for our police budget. Even SPD Police Chief Carmen Best stated “we had 16,000 bonafide crisis” emergency calls which were actually about issues of mental health, and not police related. ensure that alternative solutions are created, proposed, and heard. Macron’s Incitement: ‘Crisis in Islam’ or French Politics? Here are some steps you can take to make a difference: educate yourself about public budgets, and how they can be improved
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