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U.S. Crime Rates Rise Sharply After Police Budget Cuts

crimen, El American

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Police departments in different cities have seen their resources reduced amid pressures backed and driven by Democrats shouting “Defund de Police” and the budget realignment that came after the crisis generated by the pandemic. Police department funds have been earmarked for social service programs and other issues. Months after these political decisions, different cities report a crippling increase in crime.

In the midst of an increase in violence across the country the least logical thing to do is to defund the Police and try to impose the narrative that law enforcement is detrimental to America, but BLM and Democrats are hell bent on this issue.

In 2020 homicides in Portland were 55, the most murders in the city in 26 years. Homicides from July 2020, after cuts were made to the Police budget, through February of this year, were up 270.6% over the same period last year. In the first two months of 2021 alone, Portland reported 17 murders.

Last year, in June, $16 million was cut from Portland’s police budget. Protesters demanded that the budget cut be up to $50 million. After that cut, from July 2020 through February 2021, 63 homicides were reported. While from July 2019 to February 2020, only 17 homicides were reported.

Then, in March 2021, Portland’s mayor, faced with a difficult security situation and following the budget reduction, requested nearly $2 million in additional funding for the city’s police force and other agencies, citing the shocking increase in homicides and other violent crimes.

In New York, from January through May 5, 2021, murders were up 17.9% compared to the same period last year. As of May 5, 132 people had died in NY compared to 112 at this same time last year, according to Police Department statistics.

In the middle of last year, after several months of pressure from protesters and BLM activists, the New York City Council voted to cut $1 billion from the city’s police budget, those resources were allocated primarily to the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

Last year’s homicide rate in Los Angeles was the highest in more than 10 years and at least 115 people have already died in the city this year as of May 3.

In Los Angeles last July, the City Council voted to cut the Police Department’s budget by $150 million, reducing the number of officers to a level not seen in more than a decade.

In Minneapolis, after Floyd’s death in May 2020, BLM and Democrats began pushing to cut the Police budget. In July, $1.1 million was taken out of the department’s budget to go toward an outreach program targeting those at high risk for gun violence. In December, the City Council approved transferring approximately $8 million from the Police Department to other programs.

Minneapolis has recorded a 114% increase in homicides from the beginning of the year through Aug. 12. There were 45 murders reported during that period, while for 2019 in that period there were 21 reported murders.

Crime has multiple causes: culture, lack of education, poor state of Justice and lack of police effectiveness, among many others. It is a complex and fundamental issue, on which literally thousands of people’s lives depend, that is why making decisions yielding to the pressure of activists and political sectors that do not act from rationality but from feelings, is a fatal mistake. Defund the Police may sound romantic and idealistic for the left and even for people who do not belong to any sector, but it is a serious mistake.

Cutting resources to the Police fundamentally harms the middle and lower classes, who live in unsafe neighborhoods and must use public transportation and arrive home late after work. Defund the Police hurts the underprivileged the most.

Vanessa Vallejo. Co-editor-in-chief of El American. Economist. Podcaster. Political and economic analysis of America. Colombian exile in the United States // Vanessa Vallejo. Co-editora en jefe de El American. Economista. Podcaster. Análisis político y económico de América. Colombiana exiliada en EE. UU.

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