THE DEBATE OVER DEFUNDING THE POLICE: A solid majority of Americans oppose abolishing police departments, but there are real differences in public opinion regarding the reallocation of resources.

• Date: 01 October 2020
• Author: Williams, Seth A.

In response to the police killing of George Floyd, protestors across the nation have rallied to demands for local governments to "defund the police." If the purpose of a slogan is to call attention to an idea, then the "defund the police" movement has been a remarkable success: The call has led local governments to reexamine funding for police agencies and alternative structures for safety and justice services in their communities. This outcome tracks with public sentiment: in a June 2020 survey, nearly three-quarters of Americans said police violence against the public was a problem. (1)

If the purpose of the slogan is to win majority support for a specific policy response or series of policy responses, however, it has been less effective and potentially counterproductive. The same survey found that just 15 percent of respondents support abolishing police departments, and fewer than half support reducing funding for police departments and reallocating those funds to other programmatic responses that impact crime and social challenges. (2)

While a solid majority of Americans oppose abolishing police departments, polling does reveal real differences in response to the question of reallocation of resources. Though less than a majority of Americans support funding reallocation, nearly four out of five Democrats support reducing police funding and shifting money to social programs, compared to just five percent of Republicans. As a result, in heavily Democratic local jurisdictions, it is not surprising to see much greater support for changes in funding. For instance, 53 percent of Seattle residents support defunding the Seattle Police Department by half, and 36 percent strongly support such a cut. (3)

These changes and differences in public opinion have important implications for local governments and those who lead and manage their finances. The reality is that "defund the police" means different things to different people. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti recently said, "You ask people what does defunding the police mean--you ask three people, you'll get three different opinions ..." (4) But for budget officials, it clearly means that there is a new debate about just how to fund core functions of local government designed to support public safety and justice. It is a debate in which budget officials need to actively engage.

Decades of Growth in the Number and Funding of Local Police

Before engaging in the current debate it is helpful to start with some history.

Stemming from the "tough on crime" response in the late 1980s and early 1990s, governments across the nation spent increasing sums on criminal justice and police. For local governments, sworn police officers increased from approximately 375,000 in 1992 to nearly 470,000 in 2016. This growth roughly tracks population change; however, the increase in staffing continued even as crime declined significantly from the mid-1990s to present. (5)

As a result, police departments are frequently the largest--or one of the largest--departments in U.S. cities. In good fiscal times, the size of the police force grew with the rest of government. In bad times, police departments were frequently treated as sacred cows. Even as other parts of city government were suffering cuts, police would frequently be the last on the list--if they were on the list at all.

For instance, our work in Memphis, Tennessee in the immediate aftermath of the Great Recession found that the city had increased its police department personnel by 11.8 percent over a five-year period but decreased its non-public safety employees by 17.4 percent during the same period. This resulted in the city government essentially becoming a public safety department that also provided a few other services.

The case for holding police departments out of reductions in force is based more on politics than data. Threatened budget cuts to the police department almost always prompt cries about the likelihood of increased crime. Mayors and city councils are confronted with a simple choice: Would you like to cut non-public safety services, or would you like to risk an increase in crime? As a result, in the years after the Great Recession, the number of local government police officers increased by nearly 3 percent, while non-police employees in local government decreased by more than 5 percent. (6)

When local governments have made reductions to police department staffing, it has frequently taken the form of reductions in civilian employment. This generally resulted in the worst possible outcome for many local governments, as sworn officers were simply assigned to perform duties previously performed by lower-cost civilians. For those police departments, this meant that fewer officers were available for primary patrol, and the cost of performing non-sworn officer functions increased.

In reality, the links between the number of police officers and crime rate reduction are, at best, elusive. Different studies have found different relationships, and data suggest variation by city. (7) Other approaches related to crime prevention, prosecution, and punishment may have as much, if not more, of an impact on crime reduction and often come at a lower cost than sworn police officers.

In recent years, some cities effectively used increases in police department budgets and personnel to drive down crime, while others drove down crime without nearly the same amount of personnel or monetary resources.

Franklin E. Zimring meticulously detailed New York City's experiences in reducing crime in his book The City That Became Safe. Zimring's analysis found that policing strategies played a role in the city's crime reduction but were not responsible alone for New York's unrivaled decrease in crime.

Similarly, when we worked with the City of Memphis, we found that, from 2006 to 2011, among cities of 500,000 or more residents with the greatest violent crime reductions, Memphis had the largest percentage increase in sworn officers (nearly 30 percent), but the lowest percentage change in violent crime rate.

Another complicating factor is that the failure to reduce the size of a police force when crime goes down...