Torin Bracey chants during a ‘Count Every Vote, Protect Every Person’ rally in Pioneer Square, Nov. 4, 2020. Hundreds of people peacefully marched through Pioneer Square with limited police presence a noticeable difference from the night before, which ended in multiple arrests of protesters. (Dorothy Edwards/Crosscut)
In the midst of the anti-racism protests that followed the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police last spring, a new cry went out: Defund the police! And in the weeks that followed, Seattle city leaders appeared to be listening.
Members of the Seattle City Council, responding to strong advocacy from inside and outside government, pledged to cut the police force by 50%. Cuts did come, but in the end they were less than revolutionary and the debate became muddled and complex.
Proponents of the nation s Defund Police movement have argued that some police funding could be redirected to fund community programs, which would help improve policing, lower police interactions for at-risk populations and lead to better job satisfaction for police and results for taxpayers. (Matt M. McKnight/Crosscut)
Many activists leading the call to defund the police say the answer to disproportionate policing is to take money from the cops and give it to communities. But change is never as easy as writing new lines in a city budget.
In this episode of This Changes Everything’s look at efforts to defund the police, host Sara Bernard and reporter David Kroman examine emerging community programs that are seeking to take the place of police as a way to dismantle the systemic racism that has long been part of the American criminal justice system.
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