The Minneapolis City Council passed a budget on Thursday that shifts nearly $8 million from the city’s police department to other social services, such as mental health and violence prevention programs.
The problem with this move is twofold. First, it fails to recognize the real problem in Minneapolis, which is a growing crime wave that law enforcement officials are already ill-equipped to face. Second, it sets the city up for additional policing budget cuts in the future, which is bound to exacerbate Minneapolis’s skyrocketing crime rates.
The city council members know all of this. That’s why they recently approved a $500,000 plan to hire an outside police force, and why they held an emergency meeting a few months ago to ask the Minneapolis Police Department why citizens weren’t getting the law enforcement aid they needed. Clearly, the Minneapolis City Council is familiar with both the problem and the solution.
But its leftist members are so determined to make a political example out of their city’s police department that they are willing to put the safety of their city and its citizens at risk. Already, carjackings in the city are up by 537%. Police have recorded 532 gunshot victims this year, as of last Thursday, which is more than twice what the numbers were over the same period last year. Murders have spiked more than 50%. Violent crimes in total have already topped 5,100, the highest level in five years.
Minneapolis is in the midst of a crime crisis, and there is only one thing that is statistically proven to work: preventive and active policing.
Luckily, the Minneapolis City Council agreed not to cut members of the police force, which was its original intention. But removing funds from the police department’s budget will still hamper law enforcement’s ability to do its job efficiently and effectively.
The idea that nonpolice services can dampen this crime wave is ridiculous. Again, the city council knows this, because they poured money into an additional police force when constituents began to raise concerns about the rising crime rates.
This act to defund the police is nothing more than a political stunt meant to draw praise from leftists who support the “Defund the police” movement. It will come at a great cost to Minneapolis residents, who must now deal with the consequences of their city council’s lunacy.
