After George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020, protesters who swarmed the streets across the US shouted the refrain: “Defund the police.” An idea that was once viewed as radical – to redirect money from law enforcement to other city departments and social services – became a rallying cry overnight.
As a result of continued pressure, dozens of jurisdictions throughout the nation promised to reduce their police budgets. While most of them backtracked and increased law enforcement funding in the next year or two, several cities changed policies or added new public safety and homeless services departments.
Milwaukee is one city where leaders diverted money to social programs that had a lasting impact: funding from the police department went toward affordable housing and youth programming. After 2020, Seattle invested part of its police funding into participatory budgeting, a process in which the public votes on how to spend a portion of the city’s finances.
