https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/10/26/growing-share-of-americans-say-they-want-more-spending-on-police-in-their-area/Since 2020, the views of Black Americans and Democrats have changed more than the views of White and Hispanic adults and Republicans when it comes to decreasing funding for local police. The share of Black adults who say police spending in their area should be decreased has fallen 19 percentage points since last year (from 42% to 23%), including a 13-point decline in the share who say funding should be decreased a lot (from 22% to 9%). The share of White and Hispanic adults who say funding for local police should be decreased also declined over this period, but not as much.
Similarly, the share of Democrats who say funding for local police should be decreased has fallen markedly – from 41% in 2020 to 25% today. By comparison, the share of Republicans who prefer less spending – which was already quite low – has moved incrementally lower. Growing shares of Republicans and Democrats alike now say police funding should be increased in their area.
Among Democrats, Black (38%) and Hispanic (39%) adults are more likely than White adults (32%) to say spending on police in their area should be increased. There is no significant difference across these racial and ethnic groups in the share of adults who say spending should be decreased.
https://www.pewresearch.org/2022/08/30/black-americans-views-on-systemic-change/Black adults were asked specifically about funding for police departments in their communities and if those funds should increase, decrease or stay the same. Those who said funds should decrease shared their views on where that money should go.
About four-in-ten Black adults (39%) say that when thinking about police departments in their area, spending on policing should stay the same, while 35% say it should increase. And 23% of Black adults say funding should be decreased. Black adults differ across demographic groups on what should happen to police funding.
https://www.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/304-24/mayor-adams-releases-executive-budget-fiscal-year-2025-making-significant-sustainable#/0The FY25 Executive Budget enhances safety and doubles down on the Adams administration’s efforts to continue to bring down crime by adding two more police classes this year and putting 1,200 additional police officers on the streets by adding July and October New York City Police Department (NYPD) classes. Now, all police academy classes will be fully funded in 2024. This adds 2,400 new police officers to city streets in the coming year and puts New York City on the path to having a total of 35,000 uniformed officers protecting New Yorkers in the coming years.
While the vast majority of black Americans (and often Americans overall) think the criminal justice system needs to be rebuilt and policing needs to be rebuilt (and there's a lack trust; you can see the overwhelming support for change in the second Pew link), the calls to reduce police funding has become out of touch with what voters want. First of all, policing budgets are often at city/state levels. The mayor of New York has just restored police funding to the 2025 budget. Eric Adams (a former police officer himself) was elected in 2021 when crime was the #2 issue in NYC. In the lead up to the 2022 midterms, governor Kathy Hochul was so worried about crime and re-election that she and Adams teamed up to "clean the subways" in NYC, removing the homeless, and stationing more police officers on the platforms. This was in direct response to the crimes that were occurring on the subway. Secondly, based on the views that have shifted since 2020, Biden calling for reduction in police funding would be an unpopular decision among the public, including among black voters.
While crime is on the way down again, the spike during the pandemic did the "defund the police" crowd no favors. People in places like SF/NY/LA were very worried on public transit. You have incidents like this:
https://abc7ny.com/woman-beaten-in-subway-station-waheed-foster-assault-howard-beach/12268543/The suspect, 41-year-old Waheed Foster, is now charged with felony assault.
In 1995, law enforcement sources say Foster was arrested for murdering his 82-year-old foster grandmother in a brutal beating at the age of 14. Six years later, he was arrested for stabbing his 21-year-old sister with a screwdriver. Then in 2010, he was arrested for attacking three workers at the Creedmore Psychiatric Center, where he was an inpatient. He was on parole until November 2024 at the time of last week's attack.
Gomes says there were no police officers anywhere in the station. She said there was no one to prevent the attack and no one on the scene to respond to it.
"Every day is an incident in the subway," she said. "What happened to all these police officer they said they will have there to protect us? There's like nobody to be found. I don't understand."
Is criminal justice reform needed? Yes. Mental health reform? Sure.
NY has been talking about mental health and criminal justice, but when incidents like the above happen, the tide quickly turns in favor of more police patrols and funding. If you ask local residents if they were at a relatively deserted subway station at 6AM, and they can choose to have a police office on guard, I would bet the vast majority of those local residents would want that. And indeed, that's exactly what the Democrats rolled out leading to 2022.
But here's the kicker. Places where these crimes are happening are typically run by Democrats. So where has the progress been? SF recalled their DA due his stances on restorative justice. In the wake of catalytic converter thefts rampant across the country and in LA, a councilwoman (who has degrees from Harvard and MIT by the way) blamed Toyota for making the part too easy to remove. Imagine a regular resident dealing with thousands of dollars of damage and a Harvard/MIT grad (rich I presume) tells you that it's Toyota's fault, not the thieves? Oh, and she calls her self a socialist. Ah yes, the rich socialists from Harvard and MIT.
The truth is that the left in places like SF/NY/LA can't deliver. For example, SF spent $24B in 5 years on homelessness but didn't have the data to track results. There's a massive amount of talk, but there's little delivery. So when crime ticks up, everyone immediately wants more police funding. That's #1 easiest way to placate voters.
