‘Defund the police’ is a slogan denoting the call for the reallocation or redirection of funding away from police and governmental resources funded by the local municipality. Thus, there is a misconception that defunding the police means abolishing law enforcement, when, in fact, it is not true. Those supporting the action of defunding want to see true reforms in the police force and cut down the ‘rotten trees’ that have been tarnishing the reputation of the institutions. It is important to note that although ‘defund the police’ has gotten popular after the death of George Floyd, the discussions of the need for reform have been ongoing for decades as inequality and exploitation have persisted.
Defunding the police is concerned with rethinking and reforming not only what the law enforcement is doing but also why police is used to gloss over the issues of discrimination. The movement, which has been happening in many cities previously, calls for the concrete identification of police spending that can be used for specific and targeted interventions in local communities (“The end of policing: Alex Vitale,” 2020). The goal of such interventions is to facilitate the establishment of public safety without coercion, racism, and discrimination. Practice has shown that reforms targeting law enforcement can never lead to true changes, but they instead allow to mask the problems of police violence or bureaucracy behind a façade, not addressing the root issues. Because of this, many consider defunding the police as a last resort to initiate change and solve the persistent problems, and the proposed solution is not as radical and negative as it may sound.
References
The end of policing: Alex Vitale. (2020). Democracy Now.