Protesters across the US are calling on city leaders to defund the police departments over police brutality against communities of colour
Protesters march past LAPD officers during a demonstration over the death of George Floyd while in Minneapolis Police custody, in downtown Los Angeles, California on June 6, 2020.
Demands on streets from New York to Los Angeles have given higher prominence to the idea, drawing the attention of big-city mayors and on the presidential campaign trail.What do people mean by "defund the police" ? Policing and corrections accounted for about 30 precent of general funding in Atlanta and Orlando in 2017, and nearly 40 percent in Chicago, according to a report from the Center for Popular Democracy, an advocacy group."They don't think the police can be fixed, so they're trying to figure out how to reduce the burden of policing," said Alex Vitale, a sociology professor at Brooklyn College who wrote the 2017 book "The End of Policing.
In New York City, which faces a $9-billion deficit, city council members pushed back against Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio's plans to cut the police budget by less than 1% while slashing youth services by one-third. Council members instead proposed a 5% to 7% cut for all agencies, including police.Comptroller Scott Stringer has proposed a more sweeping overhaul, saying the city could save $1.1 billion over four years by reducing the number of police officers and cutting overtime.
US Representative Val Demings, a potential running-mate to presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, sounded a similar note.
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