Re-Fund the Police!

Two years after George Floyd's death, innovative approaches to police reform are flourishing. Just don't use the D-word

- STEVE FRIESS

A SURGE IN VIOLENT CRIME IN MAJOR CITIES across the U.S. has effectively ended the “defund the police” movement that sprung up after George Floyd was killed two years ago. A recent national poll by the University of Massachusetts Amherst found that just 31 percent of Americans now support transferring funds from state and local police departments to community social services, a seven-point drop from a year ago. Meanwhile, with crime a hot-button issue in the upcoming midterm elections, moderate Democrats are more likely to call for additional money for law enforcement than for diverting it—among them, President Joe Biden, who is advocating for a $30 billion increase in law enforcement spending to “fund our police and give them all the tools they need.”

While the politically disastrous rallying cry to “defund the police” may be dead, though, that doesn’t mean all reform efforts have been abandoned. Far from it. Over the past two years, legislators and activists across the country have been testing out a bevy of new approaches to law enforcement aimed at enhancing public safety and making policing more effective, efficient and transparent. The result: Dozens of cities and towns in both red and blue states have become active laboratories for intriguing experiments that shift some non-emergency 911 calls away from armed police responses; supplement police work with ongoing social work and mental health outreach; and focus efforts on preventing violence before police intervention is necessary.