Thread by @Andrefor40th

🧵/Alright, here we go - let’s talk about funding/defunding and the police, shall we? First a disclaimer - it’s not possible to get as nuanced as needed via tweets, and although we hope people engage in good faith, we know that some may not.

First I don’t believe fund/defund framing is the best way to have this conversation.

Two things to point out - 1) the Chicago Police Department has only increased on funding year over year. 2) Currently we as a city spend $3 BILLION of your tax dollars on CPD per yr

Just last year, $91 Million of your tax dollars went to police misconduct settlements alone. Generally 40% out of the corporate fund goes to one Department - CPD - out of a total of 36 Departments.

Ask an officer if they see those funds on the ground, and more often than not, they will say they don’t. More on this later.

In our current society, I believe police should serve three core functions - apprehension, investigation, and emergency response when appropriate.

Now what do we as a city call them for aside from that? You name it. Domestic issues, homelessness, substance use disorder, mental health crises, a car is wrongly parked in a permit area, neighbor arguments, etc. Everything under the sun.

The pandemic exacerbated many of the social issues and because we place everything on an officer’s plate, they were forced to work 16 hr days, working weeks on end with no days off, and being deployed randomly all over town. We have officers who are burned out, traumatized..

Who seek mental health support, but because of city insurance, can take up to 10 session before the therapist has to PROVE that the are in medical NEED of more sessions. If there’s a profession that shouldn’t have those restrictions it’s CPD.

We are seeing officers take their own lives because of the trauma associated with being overwhelmed with work and responsibilities that truly aren’t in their job description. These aren’t the results of a lack of funding, they are the results of mismanagement - it’s not safety

Now if we funded the departments that address the responsibilities that shouldn’t go to CPD - homelessness, mental health crises, substance use disorder, youth intervention, violence prevention, jobs, education - you would also create the opportunity for CPD to focus/balance.

That would allow them to focus on their core functions - apprehension, investigation, and emergency response when appropriate. Just dumping money into a mismanaged and overwhelmed workforce doesn’t lead to safety.

What it will do is make our city less safe, raise your taxes, and lead to more misconduct settlements as overworked and traumatized officers make bad calls.

If ANY department took 40% of tax dollars and led to worse results, you would want to audit and inspect it to make sure it was utilizing the funds properly. But because we are talking about safety, the dynamics become more about fear than data.

But to frame it as a funding issue is lazy at best and disingenuous at worse. What some politicians know is that if they talk “tough on crime” rhetoric and say they will do more - like, filling 1600 positions, it sounds comforting to people who are justifiably afraid.

Every decade, the same rhetoric plays, the same results happen, and more money is mismanaged. If the “plan” worked, we would be safe. What we have not done is invested in the other departments to better manage the issues and properly address actual crime.

When we propose doing so, those who benefit from the money or the fear of those they can sway, raise up the narratives to profit, whether financially or politically. Wash, rinse, collect a check, and repeat, while the results remain.

What we can do is invest in people, programs, and departments that help mitigate and prevent the factors that lead some to engage in criminal activity. Doing so keeps us safe and allows CPD to do their job effectively. There’s much more to delve and discuss, but that’s my $.02.

So it is less about #DefundCPD and more about #AuditCPD and a better balance of our city budget.

The framing makes it a harder conversation.