Conversation

Replying to

@DavidKimForCA

and

@DavidKim2020

Crime will go up, if we defund the police. Makes no sense.

Replying to

When we say #DefundThePolice, we aren't talking about defunding every police department instantly and completely. Instead, #DefundThePolice is about a gradual process of strategically reallocating funding and responsibility away from the police and toward community-based models

Replying to

and

of safety, support, prevention, services and care for the people. How does crime happen? It mostly happens when someone is unable to meet their basic needs through lawful means. And by shifting money away from the police, and toward services that actually meet those needs, we

Replying to

and

can get to a place where people won’t need to commit crimes. Look at the graphs (

@theglowingstars

). Do you see how much care & services are drastically underfunded right now in LA? Does it make sense that LA City is using more than half of its budget towards the police, when the

Replying to

and

per capita income in some of our neighborhoods is $12K/yr; when our people had 2-3 jobs pre-COVID19 just to make ends meet, and now many of them have no jobs to make ends meet; when people don't have or just lost healthcare coverage; and when we have 7,000 unhoused brothers

Replying to

and

and sisters experiencing homelessness in Skid Row, and 60,000 in LA County? Do we really want to spend more than half of our city budget on policing? Will doing so really do away with crime or is it a way to not give people the care that they need, and to punish them for

Replying to

and

not having it as they've acted in desperation? To really “fight crime,” we don’t need more cops; we need more jobs, healthcare, mental health care and resources,

Replying to

and

along with much other neglected care & services that our people and communities could be healed and empowered by, along w more educational opportunities, more community centers, and more of a say in how our own communities function. We need to acknowledge and realize that

Replying to

and

poverty and social disorganization are the cause of crime, and not the result of crime. We need to throw away this broken-windows policing mentality, which is destroying and killing our communities, as it shifts the burden of responsibility for declining living conditions onto

Replying to

and

the poor themselves, while purporting that the solution to all social ills is more aggressive policing with more arrests, more harassment and ultimately more violence. Aggressive crime control policies (set by local leaders), by their nature, disproportionately target

Replying to

and

communities of color, with broken windows policing and its emphasis on public disorder; and the war on drugs, which is waged almost exclusively in nonwhite neighborhoods. The solution isn't more policing. The solution is ensuring that everyone is cared for and stamping out

5:44 PM · Jun 6, 2020

Replying to

and

inequality in our communities, so that homelessness and public disorder don't rise. Just as how none of our own families would spend more of our family budget on punitive measures than on caring for our family, our country, states and cities need to wake up and realize that

Replying to

and

policing is not the ultimate solution in establishing public order and safety. Cops currently don't just respond to violent crimes. They make needless traffic stops, petty drug arrests (almost exclusively in nonwhite neighborhoods), and continue in their broken

Show replies