Defund Police Departments, What That Means

In the wake of George Floyd's death, a movement has started and is gaining a bit of support. Defunding Police departments. This has both political sides fighting (shocker).

Republicans are stepping up their attacks on Democrats who are going along, mostly with calls to defund the police in the wake of George Floyd's death last week. A National Republican Congressional Committee e-mail that came out today had the subject line "Democrats are insane," and they are attacking their efforts to "abolish" the police.

This email comes out as places like Minneapolis, where Floyd died in police custody, New York City and other places are getting on board with it.

Meanwhile the Mayor of Los Angeles has plans to make cuts up to $150 million to the city's police department and will redistribute the money to "black communities  and communities of color."  In San Jose, the mayor says he will not defund police departments, but will call for reforms.

Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden is against defunding police, but this seems to be getting more traction from politicians coast-to-coast.

Democrats unveiled sweeping new legislation today, that if it does pass, aims to increase accountability of police officers by banning certain practices and significantly curbing immunity from legal consequences stemming from any acts committed in the line of duty.

CNN is reporting that there is a growing group of dissenters who believe that Americans can survive without law enforcement as we know it. In fact those dissenters believe that we might be better off without it. It's as straightforward as it sounds: instead of funding a police department, a sizeable chunk of any city's budget would be invested in communities, especially those where most of the policing occurs.

The money that would have gone to the police department would instead go to trained professionals who could address problems that police officers are often called about including mental health, homelessness and domestic violence to name a few. The money could also be put towards schools, housing and food for that community, which would improve the safety of that community as well.

Does defunding the police mean disbanding the police? It depends who you ask. Some supporters want to reallocate some but not all funds away from police departments, others want to strip all police funding and dissolve departments.

Many say this is the only option as training and even body cameras haven't brought about the change that supporters wanted. But will we actually see more and more police departments defunded around the country? That's unclear right now.

CNN has more on this story.