City of Detroit Spends an Inordinate Amount on Police While Strangling Vital Public Services
by Will Froberg
This article is part of a series of articles about policing and its alternatives. To read other stories in this series please click here.
The phrase “Defund the Police” has become increasingly popular in recent months as protests grow against police brutality across the country. In Detroit, marches hosted by Detroit Will Breathe occur almost daily and the phrase can be seen on protestors’ signs and heard in their chants. This leaves many people wondering what exactly Defund the Police means and why people are calling for it.
There is no single answer as to what Defund the Police means. Some people may want to decrease the police budget by a moderate amount, say 20%, and some want to abolish the police. The meaning of abolition can vary from person to person, but one common thread is that abolitionists believe the police cannot be reformed and propose alternatives to policing. There are also those who are calling for the abolition of other oppressive institutions including prisons, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and Customs and Border Protection (CBP.)
Bloated Detroit Police Budget
The Detroit Police Department’s (DPD) budget has been bloated for years. Supporters of defunding the police believe the resources from the police department could be better spent on essential public services such as healthcare and housing.
The City of Detroit has adopted a budget for 2021 that allocates 30% of Detroit’s general fund to the DPD. This fund is used to provide many of the general governmental operations for the city.
In contrast to the DPD’s extremely large share of the fund, the Housing & Revitalization Department will only receive 1.8%. This is disturbing in light of the mass eviction crisis Detroit currently faces, due to high unemployment caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Department of Health will only receive 1.3% of the general fund. When COVID-19 made its way to Detroit, it became clear that this vital service was underfunded, resulting in massive PPE shortages and understaffing.
A summary of these statistics is given in the table below.
Given the massive disparity between the budget of the police department and every other public service in Detroit, the question naturally arises as to why the police are funded so heavily. Is it justified? The answer is a resounding NO.
Locking people up or giving them hefty fines is not the best way to significantly reduce crime. In fact, these tactics can make it harder for an individual to follow the law by putting them in a more desperate economic situation. The article Do Prisons Make Us Safer? published in Scientific American explains how prison time can increase crime:
“There are also good reasons to believe that prisons might actually increase crime. The harsh prison environment could exacerbate mental health problems, make people more prone to aggression, or make them cynical and distrustful of the legal system. Prisons could isolate prisoners from friends and family who might help them find jobs eventually. Or prisoners may learn from other prisoners how to be better criminals.”
A better approach for reducing crime would be to defund the police and invest in proactive services such as education, mental health, housing, etc. These programs improve the standard of living for community members, thereby making them less likely to break the law.
Some Support in Congress
In addition to a mass movement in Detroit to defund the police, there has been some support for relocating resources away from police departments by elected representatives. For example, Michigan Congresswomen and DSA member Rashida Tlaib has proposed several measures to divert resources from the police and reinvest them in other public services. One of these measures, the Reimagining Community Safety Act, would shift money from the Justice Department — usually used to hire more police officers — and instead use those funds for a public safety program run by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
In addition, Congresswoman Tlaib, along with Massachusetts Congresswomen Ayanna Pressley, has introduced the BREATHE Act. This is a comprehensive bill which includes measures to divert taxpayer dollars from the police and use them to fund education, environmental justice, health, housing, etc.
Even decreasing the DPD’s budget by just 10% — the amount Bernie Sanders recently proposed to cut from the Pentagon budget, which was rejected in the Senate — would leave an additional $32.8 million to invest in other services desperately needed by Detroit residents. This amount of money could instead be used to pay the salaries of 781 entry-level social workers in Detroit (according to the average social workers salary in Detroit on Glassdoor.com). These newly hired social workers could respond to calls involving mental health issues instead of the police.
Alternatively, $32.8 million could be used to pay the salaries of 642 entry-level teachers in Detroit. Given that schools are prematurely resuming in-person teaching in Detroit, hiring more teachers, and therefore having smaller class sizes, would be helpful in creating the social distancing needed during COVID.
There are so many public services Detroit residents desperately need. Diverting funds from the excessive police department budget would provide the funds needed to give residents access to these vital resources.
