By Marc Philpart, Center for Health Journalism, July 1, 2020
The United States spends twice as much on policing and prisons as on social services. There’s a better way to keep communities healthy and safe, and people closest to the pain of police brutality are showing the way.
In Oakland, California, with leadership from the Black Organizing Project, the school board passed the George Floyd Resolution to Eliminate the School Police Department. In Minneapolis, the majority of the city council voted to dismantle the police department and invest in a community-based public safety model, while the school board finally listened to youth and parent organizers and canceled its contract that paid for city police to be stationed in schools.
Advocates are focusing their strategies on budget approval processes, which are usually routine. But amid nationwide protests over the police killing of George Floyd and a pandemic that has disproportionately harmed people of color, government leaders are being held to account for budget priorities that spend far too much on racially motivated policing and punishment, and far too little on what communities really need to be safe, healthy, and prosperous.
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