Only 18 percent of Americans support the “defund the police” movement, according to a recent USA Today / Ipsos poll.
Opposition to the movement was notably higher amongst Republican and white respondents, although low support remained from Black and Democrat respondents as well, signifying an overall decrease in support of the movement since August.
The poll surveyed 1,165 Americans and had a credibility interval of 3.3 percent.
As the nation gears up to enter a new spring and summer, the impact of last summer still weighs heavily on people’s minds, reflected in the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act that was passed by the House last week. And while the subject of many protests over the summer, disagreement on the true meaning of the “defund the police” movement still persists.
For many, “defund the police” means exactly what it says: to take money away from law enforcement as a result of the country-wide cases of injustice against BIPOC. This more extreme theory would abolish police departments and prompt America to start from the ground up on a new generation of enforcement.
For others, the movement is less about abolishing the police and more about reallocating police department funds to social programs and services.
This dissonance was reflected in the polls. 67 percent of respondents were against abolishing police as a whole, but 43 percent were in support of the reallocation of funds to different programs.
The support for fund reallocation was more favorable among Democrats, with 67 percent in support, rather than Republicans, with only 16 percent of support.
Although reflecting a four percent decrease since August, the overall number of respondents still in favor of reallocation of police funds shows that close to half of Americans support some sort of restructuring in the way that police are trained and respond to a multitude of issues.
Because police are generally the catch-all for any emergency, they are often thrown into a multitude of situations ranging from domestic violence, robbery, breaking and entering or mental health episodes, to name a few.
Some argue that increased training for police and funding for social services could help officers better handle such complex situations. One in four people shot by police in the United States “are those with mental health crises,” said Dennis Kenney, a former police officer and professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.
In addition to not having the training necessary to expertly handle all of the possible emergencies they may encounter, there also already aren’t enough police officers to adequately handle each American citizen’s need.
A 2019 Uniform Crime Report from the FBI said that there was an average of 3.5 full-time law enforcement officers per 1,000 Americans. This accounts for sworn officers and civilian personnel.
Compared to other countries, like Georgia, where there is one police officer for every 214 Georgian citizens in 2006, it’s clear that law enforcement does not have the necessary personnel to handle every issue.
While completely getting rid of the police might not be the most favorable solution, giving funds to social workers and programs who can better respond to calls regarding sexual assault or mental health crises might be able to better handle the problem.
According to a poll done last summer by the Washington Post, “clear majorities across all groups would like to see more social service professionals involved in delivering such things as maintaining order in public spaces, handling community engagement like youth outreach, and responding to people experiencing mental health crises.”
Additionally, jurisdictions across the country have responded to the call to reallocate funds by creating Crisis Intervention Team models within their police departments. This would initiate more training on how to detect crises involving mental health and even initiate separate units to specifically handle such issues.
“Generous police budgets that buy tanks and assault rifles don’t save lives,” said Brandon Dasent, a survivor of the Parkland, Fl. shooting in an article by The Crime Report. “So all of this gear, all this equipment, all this funding, for pretty much nothing,” he said.
While the debate on whether or not “defund” is the correct terminology for real change in American policing, some think that even reallocation isn’t enough.
Frank Figliuzzi, an opinion columnist for MSNBC, voiced in an opinion article regarding the passing of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act that problems will continue to persist in American policing as long as corruption exists among officers.
“The measures in the bill seem to be a hedge against a presumed status quo: that we’ll continue to have police officers who should never have been hired in the first place,” said Figliuzzi.
“While it’s essential, and understandable, for Congress to address the present-day realities of police forces, departments must also take responsibility for whom they let in the door. That means police recruiting needs to change.”
Read more: What ‘Defunding Police’ Really Means to Americans
Emily Riley is a TCR reporting intern.