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Anaphora Jakai Dickerson

Rhetorical Question 4/19/2022

English III IB/AP

Ms. Justice

Argument of Policy Essay (defunding of the police)

Defunding the police has been a concept known to many that tends to address the overall

equity that police departments portray throughout current culture in the United States of

America. Due to the murders of Geroge Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Elijah Mccain, Ahmaud Arbery,

and countless others, there tends to be an overall theme and question that a vast majority of

occupants in this country have. Why do the police, who have shown maltreatment and horrifying

public policy for years of employment, still get a large abundance of money allocated towards

their department? There is a call for fair and just service that America is needed for, but this has

to begin with the defunding of their budget so this false narrative of “policing” can finally end.

To begin, we must address the over-excessive budget that various police departments get

handed to on a daily basis. Stated in the ACLU ( American Civil Liberties Union) article “Each

year, state and local governments spend upward of 100 billion dollars on law enforcement–and

that's excluding billions more in federal grants and resources”(Fernandez P.5). The increasingly

high budget for the police department is disproportionate to what is needed in the actual state of

our country currently. Splitting the budget into different ways and implementing them into

different spheres of public service would be far more beneficial to the overall population of the

country. There's an instance of a beneficial service happening in Austin, Texas, stated in the

Guardian article, (Levin 2021) “A council member in Austin, Texas, who helped pass a major cut
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to the city’s law enforcement budget is now relocating those dollars to housing programs”(P.3).

As we can see, this is only one of the ways that cutting the police budget will better serve our

people, in the greater scheme of things. With the Texas Police Department having a whopping

budget of 484 million dollars, they have now vowed to cut 150 million dollars from the budget

and reallocate towards other social services. There has been a gradual change in budget

implementation slowly… but this needs to be seen and followed by the countless other police

departments serving around the country.

With respect to police brutality protests, police defunding has also come about from the

War on Drugs. Especially, with the over policing of lower income neighborhoods. We can see an

instance of this predicament in an ACLU essay regarding Drug Policy, it states “ Law

enforcement practices fuel racial inequalities in the criminal justice system. Over the years, the

Drug Enforcement Administration has helped train police to profile highway travelers for

potential drug couriers''(Gunga P. 2). Having to live with this beratement of the psyche can only

force you to create this concept of police defunding. A majority of marginalized groups have

only been exposed to the negatives of police enforcement. This idea has stemmed from these

experiences to create change in the most effective way possible. In an ACLU article, this

beratement has been nothing but scarring for Army Sergeant First Class Rossano V. Gerald, he

states I feel like I'm a guy who's pretty much walked the straight line and that's respecting people

and everything. We just constantly get harassed. So we just feel like we can't go anywhere

without being bothered... I'm not trying to bother anybody. But yet a cop pulls me over and says

I'm weaving in the road. And I just came from a friend's house, no alcohol, nothing. (Harris P.4)”

This is only one of the thousands of instances that have been widespread throughout comedy

skits, television shows, articles, and many more. It shows how many cases of “Driving while
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Black” or “Driving while Colored '' have been taken in effect, but there has been no real change

supplemented to put an end to these acts.

To address the point of view of this belief shared from another majority of Americans,

There tends to be a misconception amongst many people for why police defunding is a

“detrimental” act in our society, which if defunded: it would allow dangerous and violent

criminals to prosper in a policeless society (as seen in the comic strip below). Even though this

may seem as a viable standing statement, it is flawed, put into a harsh context, and creates a

paradox between the allocation of these funds in society. The absurd situation of crime amongst

our societies to increase with the defunding of the police can be completely misleading due to the

exact opposite outcome of this notion. With more policing in neighborhoods--crime becomes

more prevalent in the communities policed. They often have mistrust between the policemen in

their neighborhoods, causing them to take matters into their own hands, like Jay in an article

from the Washington Post. It states “Some residents of high-crime neighborhoods have long

concluded that police are either incapable of keeping them safe or unwilling to do so” and

“opting instead to literally take matters into their own hands (Brunson P.4).” As we can see in

this direct quote, there is a complete contradiction in this statement shared amongst many people

being shown as faulty. We have to first look at how our society is now, in the act of regulatory

policing, and choose how the allocation of these funds can now be put into our society that invert

acts to become more beneficial. That is the reason for defunding the police, not to take away

from them to where they cant protect citizens, but to take a partition of funds away and

regenerate that into our society that can better serve our people.
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This issue of police defunding is not a liberal issue, not a democratic issue, not a

republican issue, or a consertaive issue. It is an issue concerning the overall population of the

United States. In current government affairs, there has recently been a bill brought to the House

in 2021, called the American’s Rescue Plan, which would bring millions in funding to keep the

police officers on the street. But it has been evident that “Chris Wallace called out House

Republicans for voting unanimously to defund the police.(Speaker P.2)” stated in the Speaker

Pelosi’s Press Office. Even though there tends to be a notion where republicans or “the right”

have shown an increasing support for local law enforcement, our House of Representatives can

establish rules that can further our social well-being for all people, or a slight divide, that can

shift political views in a unexpected way “a nascent divide between law enforcement and the

Republican Party, which for years has pledged ‘Back the Blue’ but now finds itself

torn…(Speaker p.4)”.

After giving all this information, why is defunding the police still feasible or possible for

our society? Defunding the police is the only way to establish beneficial change that can happen

right away. These funds taken away from their departments will not only increase productivity in

our societies across America, but they will also provide better relations between our overall

population with our police departments. As we have seen in my essay, not only have the funds

that have gone to public housing, social services, and education provided crucial funding to these

lesser fortunate communities and programs, but they have shown how when spreading equity
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amongst the whole population we can now finally can create true and positive change to our

whole population.

Works Cited

Brunson, Rod K. “Perspective | Protests Focus on over-Policing. but under-Policing Is Also

Deadly.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 12 June 2020,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/underpolicing-cities-violent-crime/2020/06/12/b

5d1fd26-ac0c-11ea-9063-e69bd6520940_story.html.

“Defunding the Police Will Actually Make US SAFER: News & Commentary.” American

Civil Liberties Union, 14 Oct. 2021,

https://www.aclu.org/news/criminal-law-reform/defunding-the-police-will-actually-make-u

s-safer.

“Driving While Black: Racial Profiling on Our Nation's Highways.” American Civil

Liberties Union, 2 Feb. 2010,

https://www.aclu.org/report/driving-while-black-racial-profiling-our-nations-highways.

NYPD Fiscal 2021 Executive Budget - New York City Council.

https://council.nyc.gov/budget/wp-content/uploads/sites/54/2020/05/FY21-NYPD-Exec-Da

shboard-.pdf.

“Page Application - North Carolina General Assembly.” Ncleg.gov,

https://www.ncleg.gov/PAMS/Application/H.
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“Race & The War on Drugs.” American Civil Liberties Union,

https://www.aclu.org/other/race-war-drugs.

“These US Cities Defunded Police: 'We're Transferring Money to the Community'.” The

Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 11 Mar. 2021,

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/07/us-cities-defund-police-transferring-m

oney-community.