Canadian Politics Today

Since the 2020 Black Lives Matter demonstrations called for police budgets to be defunded, not a single major American city has slashed its police funding. In fact, almost all of them have ballooned spending on police forces. Repeatedly, President Biden has encouraged increased spending on police, recently calling on municipalities to direct their unspent COVID aid toward adding even more cops. The Biden administration requested $388 million in grant funding for police hiring in its 2022 budget proposal, more than double the top figure requested by the Trump administration. New York City even elected a former cop as its mayor, who just a few days ago announced a new PR campaign in support of cops and against the “defund the police” movement.

None of those moves have grappled with the historical ineffectiveness of current-day policing, or why police forces have been unable to convert generous budgets into effective crime-solving activities.
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It’s clear that those record police budgets aren’t keeping crime from happening, or else the alleged record crime wave that has been covered breathlessly by local and national media would not be happening. There is evidence that more resources specifically for investigative work can improve clearance rates, but that’s far different from what today’s police budgets prioritize—mostly presence on the streets.