What Is ‘Defund the Police’?
“Defund the police” is a phrase used to call for law enforcement reform in the United States. Ideas about defunding the police range from replacing police forces with something else entirely to reallocating police funds to social programs.
Key Takeaways
- There’s a long history of calls in the United States to rethink policing practices in light of their effects on certain communities.
- Some supporters of “Defund the police” want to abolish the police completely.
- Other supporters advocate for reforming how the police are organized or employing alternative methods.
- “Defund the police” as a movement has slowed since its inception, but the message it communicated still resonates in discussions about police behavior, training, conditions for response, funding, and alternative measures.
History of ‘Defund the Police’
Calls to rein in the power of police forces in America go back a long way, with writers, philanthropists, activists, academics, and citizens calling for change amidst misuse or misunderstanding of the power granted to law enforcement. Here are some of the more recent circumstances that have led to increased awareness of the unnecessary force used by some officers and the resulting calls for help from communities subjected to it.
2012-2014
Black Lives Matter, a movement that supports defunding the police, was formed after Trayvon Martin’s 2012 death in Florida. In 2014, the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed Black teenager, led to riots in Ferguson, Missouri. Eric Garner’s death by chokehold in New York later that same year caused pressure for change to build further. His last words, “I can’t breathe,” became a rallying cry at events.
2015-2020
A 2015 U.S. Department of Justice report found racial bias in the treatment of the Black community in the Ferguson Police Department. In 2020, the shooting of Breonna Taylor would also result in protests, and on May 25, 2020, the killing of George Floyd by a Minnesota police officer who knelt on his neck for about nine minutes sparked international protests. Advocacy groups described Floyd’s death as a “breaking point” in relation to defund-the-police initiatives.
2020-2023
The movement’s media attention receded somewhat after Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election. However, it again began making headlines during his term, with legislators introducing bills proposing cuts to certain federal law enforcement program budgets. Debates over policing continued to rage, and some cities in the U.S. began changing their police budgets. The ones that decreased their budgets reverted the reductions in the years following as crime appeared to rise.
Important
There were approximately 1,248 people killed by police in 2023, of which 27% were reportedly Black. About 250,000 civilian injuries are caused annually by police officers, 75,000 of which require hospitalization.
2024-Present
During the 2024 presidential election, party frontrunners Kamala Harris and Donald Trump both took positions on the movement, and various media outlets again began discussing the feasibility and/or need to defund law enforcement.
On the campaign trail, Donald Trump repeatedly stated his pro-law enforcement funding stance, accepting an endorsement from the Fraternal Order of Police while advocating for giving power and respect back to the police. Kamala Harris also advocated for law enforcement funding.
What Effect Has the Movement Had?
The Increase Funding Approach
Reports suggest that most cities have not decreased police funding at all. In many cases, budgets have been increased. A 2022 investigation by ABC Owned Television Stations found that 90% of cities increased spending after 2019. Supporting these findings in 2024 was San Antonio, TX’s increase in budget and patrol officers. The city was in the process of adding 360 more officers in three to five years as of September 2024.
An Alternative to the Police Approach
Alternatively, some cities have made genuine attempts to use funds differently, not necessarily to defund. Durham, NC, demonstrates the merit of this approach.
In 2022, Durham created unarmed emergency response teams called Holistic Empathetic Assistance Response Teams (HEART). Rather than following traditional procedures of sending police officers to deal with non-violent situations, this program:
- Embeds mental health clinicians in Durham’s 9-1-1 center
- Dispatches unarmed three-person teams to non-violent calls for service
- Follow up with those in crisis after the response to help them connect with proper service providers
- Pairs mental health clinicians with police officers in calls with higher safety concerns
The program reported the following for the period between June 2022 and November 2024:
- There were 23,009 HEART responses
- Unarmed community response teams deployed 11,000 times
- Crisis call counselors were engaged in 4,309 encounters
- Clinicians and police (co-response teams) responded to 4,588 crises, of which only 358 were domestic violence incidents
- Care navigation teams followed up on 2,789 mental health incidents
- HEART responders felt safe in 99% of the encounters
- Community response teams and co-response teams resolved 56.78% and 57.92% of their calls, respectively, with less than 1.67% of calls being redirected to the police.
Results like these are encouraging because they reveal that many calls law enforcement responds to do not require armed responses or aggressive policing. Indeed, they suggest that there are ways to address issues other than increasing armed responses.
The Defund Approach
The most prominent issue with defunding police departments is a corresponding increase in crime in some areas. In 2020, Washington D.C. decreased police budgets by $15 million, only to increase them again in 2023 due to a 37% increase in violent crime compared to 2022. Homicides were reportedly up 25% for the same period. Los Angeles and San Francisco faced similar situations when cutting police budgets.
What Happened to “Defund the Police?”
The movement slowed after initially gaining widespread support, generally because it appeared that budget cuts had adverse effects on communities. However, some cities have implemented other changes to the way they respond to calls that involve civilians and/or mental health care professionals with some success.
Did BLM Want to Defund the Police?
Some Black Lives Matter supporters wanted to fully abolish the police, while others advocated for reform to procedures and practices.
What Are the Side Affects of Defunding the Police?
It depends on the area the police department serves. Generally, decreasing police budgets leads to fewer officers, which creates more opportunities for criminals. In the absence of officers, citizens may be forced to deal with situations themselves, which can lead to more unlawfulness. Reallocating police funds might be a better option.
The Bottom Line
It’s difficult to find a city that has taken steps to defund its police due to the direct influence of the Defund movement and kept its reduced budget. Budget reductions have been made for other reasons, such as overspending, but the consequences of defunding the police appear to be negative for the communities where the police budgets were reduced. In some cases, cities have redirected funds to alternative social solutions with promising results.
Not considering the posturing for votes by politicians, calls to defund the police have generally subsided overall as many people have become more aware of the need to address the use of force by the police. There is still debate on what to do about policing—in this regard, the movement was very effective: it has raised awareness and triggered discussion about issues that must be addressed.