Our current protest environment has given rise to new demands from activists and celebrities to defund police departments, directing funds instead to health and education expenditures. They’re already working.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced on Wednesday that he and the city council have decided to redirect $250 million away from various departments, including $150 million from its police department, to “invest in jobs, health, education, and healing.”
It’s never illegitimate to have a conversation about public, taxpayer-funded budgets. Police have the same basic funding sources as state universities, public libraries, health departments, transportation budgets, and so forth. If arguing about road expenditures can be justified, arguing about police funding can be all the more justified.
However, a conversation must be well-informed and made in good faith.
The petition to which John Legend, Jane Fonda, and other celebrities have signed on dishonestly uses data on police budgets to make its “defund” case.
Citing the Urban Institute’s research, the petition makes a claim that would shock a casual and uncritical reader: Spending on police and corrections has increased 220% over 40 years. It’s not as shocking as it sounds.
According to the Urban Institute, state and local governments spent $115 billion on police and $79 billion on corrections in 2017, for a combined $194 billion. In 1977, they spent $42 billion on police and $18 billion on corrections, for a combined $60 billion. That is quite an increase (it’s actually closer to 223%), but it has less shock value when considered relative to other expenditures, and even less when adjusted for inflation. Indeed, just to keep up with inflation, that same $60 billion for police would require $251 billion in 2017. In other words, in real dollars, spending for police and corrections actually has declined.
But let’s stick with current dollars. Without adjusting for inflation, state and local spending have increased in all categories outlined by the Urban Institute in the last 40 years: 381% increase for public welfare, 216% for health and hospital expenditures, 128% for elementary and secondary education expenditures, and so on. Again, those numbers compare to the 223% rise for police and corrections, putting the law-enforcement numbers well within reason.
Perhaps percentages of increase for police and corrections are too high, and that ought to be part of the conversation, but the number of dollars spent has increased in all cases.
The petition also claims, “Policing and militarization overwhelmingly dominate the bulk of national and local budgets.” The Urban Institute’s data tells another story about state and local budgets.
“As a percentage of direct general expenditures, police spending has remained consistently at just under 4 percent for the past 40 years,” says the Urban Institute’s data summary. States and localities have spent more dollars on police but not devoted more of their budgets. However, spending on corrections has slightly increased as a percentage of general expenditures, rising from 1.6% to 2.6%, over the same period.
The data also show something else. In 2017, spending on police accounted for 1% of state direct general expenditures and for 6% of local direct general expenditures. These numbers may be higher than they should be, but 7% of combined state and local budgets for the entire funding burden of police is not “the bulk.”
Communities across the land will likely follow Los Angeles’s lead. Hopefully, elected officials will gather with police and community leaders to discuss their respective funding priorities. Data should have a voice in those conversations, and for the sake of fairness and truth, it has to be cited honestly.
