End The War On Black Communities

Reallocate funds at the federal, state, and local levels from policing and incarceration to long-term community-based safety strategies

The Issue:

The explosion of surveillance, policing, mass criminalization, incarceration, and deportation that has devastated Black communities over the past four decades has been fueled by large-scale investments at all levels of government, accompanied by massive disinvestment from meeting community needs. The U.S. currently spends over $100 billion a year on policing and another $80 billion a year on jails and prisons, at a tremendous cost to the lives of Black people and communities, and to public safety.

The Demand:

Divest from surveillance, policing, mass criminalization, incarceration and deportation.
Invest in making communities stronger and safer through quality, affordable housing, living wage employment, public transportation, education, and health care that includes voluntary, harm reduction and patient-driven, community-based mental health and substance abuse treatment.
Invest in community-based transformative violence prevention and intervention strategies, that offer support for criminalized populations
Uncouple access to services, care, and support from the criminal punishment system.
Provide reparations to survivors of police violence and their families, and to survivors of prison, detention and deportation violence, and their families.

Key Federal Legislation:

People’s Justice Guarantee.
End Racial and Religious Profiling Act.
Stop Militarization of Law Enforcement Act.
End Qualified Immunity Act.
PEACE (Police Exercising Absolute Care with Everyone) Act.

WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?

For much of U.S. history, law enforcement meant implementing laws that were explicitly designed to subjugate Black people and enforce white supremacy. That’s why Black people, along with hundreds of thousands of others, are calling for city, state, and federal governments to abolish policing as we currently understand it. We must divest from excessive, brutal, discriminatory policing and invest in a vision of community safety that works for everyone, not just an elite few.

We know the safest communities in America are places that don’t center the police. What we’re looking for already exists, and we already know it works. We need look no further than neighborhoods where the wealthy, well-connected, and well-off live, or anywhere there is easy access to living wages, health care, quality public education, and freedom from police terror.

We can’t stand by while our city, state, and federal governments continue to fund an excessive, brutal, and discriminatory system of policing. We will no longer be told that what we deserve is not politically viable or logistically possible. We will no longer be deprived of what others have long enjoyed in this country: basic rights, safety, and freedom.

When we talk about defunding the police, we’re talking about making a major pivot in national priorities. We need to see a shift from massive spending on police that don’t keep us safe to a massive investment in a shared vision of community safety that actually works. We know this won’t happen overnight. We’re tired of quick fixes and piecemeal reforms. Ending police violence will require a thoughtful, deliberate, and participatory approach that has already begun.

The exploding COVID-19 pandemic and disparate impacts on our Black community have shown us what happens when the government underfunds public health while overfunding police and military budgets. It’s clear that millions of people now know what Black communities have long understood: We must reverse centuries of disinvestment in Black communities to invest in a future where we can all be connected, represented, and free.

Local spokespeople need to be able to connect with audiences in their hometowns and cities; center shared values; clearly explain what it means to defund the police in the place where they live; and inspire people to imagine what alternatives to violent policing look like.

TALKING POINTS

THE POLICE DO NOT KEEP US SAFE:

Police don’t really solve or prevent most of what is classified as criminal activity. Instead, they often escalate situations and operate primarily to threaten, surveil, and warehouse poor people and Black and brown communities, and to preserve the status quo. The very people who most need safety often feel they cannot call the police because they know this would only worsen the situation—or threaten their lives.

Spending more money on more policing does not automatically lead to less violent crime, but it does lead to a greater threat of police violence, especially toward Black folks.

Piecemeal police reform efforts have proven ineffective and insufficient. They don’t work well enough or fast enough. You cannot root out violent policing with narrow reforms designed to create change over time when our policing system itself is born out of white supremacy and decades of bad ideas gone unchecked.

Right now, cities across the country are rethinking municipal budgets and reevaluating whether the police are doing jobs that could be done better and more safely by other people.

In Austin, Texas, 911 calls are answered by operators who direct callers to police, fire departments, or mental-health services based on their needs.

Other cities like Eugene, Oregon, deploy crisis teams.

Police don’t really solve or prevent most of what is classified as criminal activity. Instead, they often escalate situations and operate primarily to threaten, surveil, and warehouse poor people and Black and brown communities, and to preserve the status quo. The very people who most need safety often feel that they cannot call the police because they know this would only make the situation worse—or threaten their lives.

WHEN WE TALK ABOUT DEFUNDING POLICE, WE MEAN:

Shifting massive spending on policing that does not keep us safe and reinvesting it in a shared vision of community safety that actually works.

This will not happen overnight. It will happen through a thoughtful, deliberate, and participatory process.

That means spending on health and human services that meet our needs and the needs of our communities. Relative to other countries, the United States only spends a tiny amount of money on the human services that keep communities safe, and a huge amount of money on policing.

Ensuring that public safety remains the responsibility of elected officials and communities—defunding police departments does NOT mean private or contract policing.

Investing directly in our communities: This means well-funded schools, good living-wage jobs, affordable housing, and health and human resources.

The safest communities in the U.S. are places that don’t center the police. You can find examples in every single state. Look at places where the wealthy, well-connected, and well-off live: any place where there is easy access to wages, health care, quality public education, and freedom from police terror.

Shifting massive spending on police that do not keep us safe and reinvesting it in a shared vision of community safety that actually works.

TOUGH QUESTIONS

Q: HOW DO WE DEFUND THE POLICE?

Q: IF WE DEFUND THE POLICE, WHAT’S AN EXAMPLE OF AN ALTERNATIVE?

Q: IF WE DEFUND/DISBAND THE POLICE, WHO’S GOING TO KEEP PEOPLE SAFE?

Q: WHY DO WE HAVE TO DEFUND/DISBAND POLICE DEPARTMENTS ENTIRELY? IF POLICE DEPARTMENTS ARE THE PROBLEM, WHY CAN’T WE FOCUS ON SPECIFIC REFORMS?