“Abdullah is part of a movement to ask for much more. Last month, organizers with Black Lives Matter, K-Town for All, and other activist groups solicited online feedback from more than 2,000 LA residents about how they’d like to see the city spend its money. At that point, Garcetti’s 2021 fiscal year plan called for a $120 million increase to the LA police department’s $1.86 billion annual budget, which meant spending more than 53% of the city’s total discretionary funds on law enforcement. Other city services, including affordable housing, “Vision Zero” traffic safety, and gang prevention programs, were set for cuts, due to the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.” Read more at citylab.com
Re-Imagining Public Security
The old adage was to throw more police at crime and harsher sentences for non-violent crimes. But even though crime has steadily decreased over the last 3 decades, we continue to throw more and more money at “public security” by cutting important social programs that support the most vulnerable of our communities. Instead of having EMT’s, Social Workers, Drug Counselors assisting distress calls. We now have a super militarized police force that is accountable to no one and who is the highest-paid in the world taking mental health calls to disastrous effect. Describe more as a “gang” or “occupying force” police immunity has utterly corrupted the police force and no longer (if they ever had protected) & serve our communities.
We Don’t Need a Police Army, We Need Care Workers & Housing
So re-imagining the mayor’s budget is to look at the needs of each community’s needs. Then reallocating funds based on those needs will better serve the community. No longer allocating 70% of a cities budget to any one department. This way the police will have support when assisting citizens in distress. Instead of sending police to a suicide call, we send EMT’s and a social worker. Instead of hiring police officers in our schools, we should hire more professionals.
Instead of criminalizing homelessness, we create drug treatment centers, transition homes and affordable housing. One of the largest contributors to crime and addiction is homelessness.
