By: Raz Shamay
Since the killing of George Floyd in late May, the term “Defund the Police” has become an everyday expression, heard amongst all different age groups and ethnicities, but what does the term really mean? When hearing the expression, most Americans have shown their support by seeking and questioning the action that city governments will take to prevent cases just like George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Stephon Clark, Erik Garner, and many more innocent black lives.
Although 41% of Americans are for defunding the police and taking the money to support and fund other departments such as social services, housing, and mental health, presidential nominee Joseph R. Biden Jr., told USA Today “I do not support defunding the police,” whereas Mondaire Jones who is running for Congress in New York, stated that he advocated for, “defunding police and reinvesting this money in health, education, and alternatives to incarceration,” as stated in The New York Times by Giovanni Russonello .
In recent polling’s, Americans have showed where they stand with this issue, wanting a portion of the funding to cover programs relating to “crime prevention techniques,” according to Giovanni Russonello from The New York Times. Kaiser Family Foundation did a poll with 74% of Americans saying that the public suffered from police violence and brutality, the remaining 42% saying it was the prime issue, which then shows that many Americans knowingly see that racism is a colossal issue in the country.
The overall support from protestors against the racial discrimination and injustice is soaring, demands for overturning the way crime is proceeded in America isn’t going away anytime soon. The Kaiser poll done found that Americans were in favor of, “…supporting the banning of chokeholds, while roughly three-quarters supported increasing transparency around police misconduct and making it easier for victims of excessive force to sue departments,” Giovanni Russonello says from The New York Times.
The pressure from the public has done wonders, in the past month city councils across the country have devoted to reducing or redesigning funds for police departments, New York’s city council recently came out with moving $1 billion out from the Police department, which shifted plans and having to abandon hiring over 1,000 new officers. Even though not all of the public protestor’s demands were met, this defunding marked for a massive political shift. There have been different polls taken questioning the public about defunding the police, the only difference between the polls was the wording.
Wording is everything, especially with the varying racial backgrounds present across the states, in an Associated Press/NORC poll that was taken back in June, 25% said yes to reducing money for the police, 53% saying the opposite, and 21% not being sure where they stand on the issue at hand. Similarly, Fox News took a poll at around the same time, but changed the wording, according to Giovanni Russonello from The New York Times, “Would people support taking money away from police departments and putting it toward “mental health, housing, and other social services?” 41% supported it, where 46% were not. As the issue progresses on, debates will continue and begin to form different directions for people to choose where they stand on this topic.
