Defunding Modern Law Enforcement.

During the 2021 Atlanta, Georgia mayoral race, two contenders, Felicia Moore and Kasim Reed, both pledged to hire hundreds of additional police officers. Moore vowed to hire 250 officers whereas Reed promised 750 new personnel. (1) This was not a surprising campaign issue, as since 2019, the murder rate in Atlanta increased by approximately 60 percent. (2) Nationally, a Pew Research poll showed that about 47 percent of adult Americans desired increased quantities of police personnel in their respective communities. (3)

Similar personnel enhancements were indicated throughout various urban areas. Washington, D.C. authorized an $11 million supplement to bring on 170 additional officers between 2021-2022. This change followed a $15 million budget cut in 2020, which dropped its hiring in 2021 from its typical 250 officers to less than fifty. The budget decrease interrupted the normal hiring process, leaving the department more than 200 officers short of its authorized strength. (4) The second largest department in the United States, the Chicago Police Department, is currently approximately 1,000 officers below its maximum authorized strength. During hearings on the department's almost $2 billion budget proposal in October 2021, leaders stated a desire for a pipeline of up to 1,000 recruits moving through the system to maintain the steady flow of maximum police academy classes to make up the deficiency and keep up with attrition. (5)

Efforts to decrease police budgets, scale back staffing, or divert resources elsewhere saw defeats across the country in the form of both propositions and campaigns during the November election cycle. (6) The results were not all favorable for police departments and advocates. One example was a proposed proposition in Austin, Texas--population 961,000. Proposition A sought to establish minimum staffing levels for the city and add additional training and compensation for officer proficiency in foreign languages. In 2021, the public voted and defeated the measure by a more than 2:1 margin. (7)

During the aftermath of 2020 violence in certain American urban regions, U.S. Senator Tim Scott stated, "One thing you cannot do in police reform is leave the impression that somehow we're going to demonize police officers." (8) In the wake of the protests calling for changes in the role and ultimate defunding of urban law enforcement in the United States, it is valuable to generally examine the appropriateness of the movement to defund and redefine the American policing paradigm. The evolution from Colonial volunteers or part-time watchmen into modern police departments was a journey of almost two centuries. While the nation's law enforcement function originated from the European influence of the British, transformation through time made it uniquely American--federally, among the states, and among communities. (9)

As protests occurred in 2020, it appeared as though there was no clear mission for the police function. While the slogan of 'to serve and protect' sounded appealing, it involved the performing of various functions that were influenced by an array of shareholders, governmental officials, businesses, residents, and others whose service expectations of law enforcement varied and conflicted periodically. From a basic night watch responsibility to enhance urban public security among cities, such as the Boston Night watch of the 1600s, the roles and duties of local law enforcement agencies expanded as time; technology; social morals and values; criminal interests; and capabilities evolved. (10)

For many, the local law enforcement function was perceived as a critically necessary community service, whereas others interpreted it as a historic element within the government function inflicting social oppression. Among localities, regarding the law enforcement function, there was an absence of a clear understanding of what could be realistically accomplished with respect to organizational capabilities. For instance, it is difficult to successfully argue whether homicide rates would decrease as the result of increased law enforcement funding. Concerning crimes that might be deterred by an increased law enforcement presence, many incidents committed by a determined criminal may be displaced instead of deterred.

Law enforcement was a service classified as a public good. Although the recipients of the service were not charged monetary amounts for using the service, it still necessitated funding to operate functionally and organizationally. Deterring crime and maintaining societal order were costly pursuits both federally and among the individual states. Among urban areas, the costs were dramatic. In the fifty largest cities, the total expenditures for police (non-capital budget allocations) were $25.8 billion in 2020, against $237.6 billion in total budgets, accounting for almost 11 percent of all budget expenditures. Excluding the most drastic discrepancy (New York, with a $6 billion police budget against a $95.3 billion city budget) alone, police departments account for almost 14 percent of budget allocations in 2020. (11)

Despite the amounts of money spent toward abating crime and attempting to preserve societal safety as a means of establishing public good, crime persisted in society. Recidivism rates for federal prisoners over the 2010-2018 study were 49.3 percent, roughly the same as studies conducted from 2005-2013. (12) At the state level, the Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics found more than 80 percent of prisoners released in 2005 were rearrested by 2014. (13) Given such notions, coupled with the calls for defunding or altering the very nature of policing, what would be the potential effects of such change?

Justice System Economics and Funding Concepts

Mankiw and Doss, Guo, and Lee indicated that any economic system must address three primary questions: What to produce, for whom to produce, and in what quantity to produce? (14) Andrews and Entwistle completed these questions by the addition of two more queries involving the questions of how to produce and when to produce. (15) These primary questions were applicable to both the generating of goods and services. Law enforcement organizations provided services within society that were deemed forms of public goods. (16) A public good is one through which society receives some form of benefit wherein its consumers are not directly charged fees for service use. (17) Instead, its costs are paid through taxation of the general public. (18) Typically, a public good is neither rivalrous nor is excludable. (19) Essentially, Samuelson indicated that a public good was a good "which all enjoy in common in the sense that each individual's consumption of such a good leads to no subtractions from any other individual's consumption of that good." (20)

Haskel and Westlake indicated that capitalistic economic systems addressed scalability, sunkenness, spillovers, and synergies. (21) Among these, scalability impacted the potential of justice system entities to increase or decrease amounts of service within society. Such a notion is commensurate with the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) regarding its definition of scalability. Specifically, the OJP defined scalability as "how well a system can be adapted and expanded to meet increased demands. (22) Marzell and Brewster discussed that law enforcement organizations and police functions were scalable entities with respect to public service. (23) Doss, Sumrall, and Jones reported that monetary funding was necessary for securing necessary police resources toward fulfilling public safety roles. (24)

Although monetary funding was necessary for supporting justice system operations and law enforcement, Reid indicated that funding already lacked toward the provision of adequate policing among various law enforcement entities. (25) Despite being the recipients of tax monies to support their respective operations, McElreath, et al. reported that justice system entities competed against other state functions and organizations (e.g., higher education and so on) for allocations of limited monies among public budgets. (26) No guarantees exist that justice system entities, including law enforcement, will always receive or maintain sufficient funding. The contemporary advocating of reducing and defunding law enforcement organizations may impact the ability of justice entities to fulfill the policing mission of maintaining societal order and diminishing crime. As such, funding reductions within the justice system may decline the scale of law enforcement and its corresponding societal influences. This article considers the potential of police defunding with respect to fulfilling the public safety mission.

Scope and Limitations

The scope and limitations for this article represented a consideration of law enforcement funding within the United States of America. Thus, it may be inapplicable for other nations. It also considered a perspective of defunding that was catalyzed by societal events, and not necessarily any defunding influences that were generated from societal attrition among communities. This article also viewed defunding from the perspective of policing, and not from the worldviews of other components of the justice domain (e.g., corrections, juvenile justice, and so on). Therefore, readers must be mindful of the defunding assessment contexts presented herein.

Funding Considerations

Funding of any emergency services organization, including law enforcement, is necessary for ensuring that the primary policing missions of deterring crime and maintaining societal order are performed throughout localities within the nation. (27) Although taxation is a primary method of funding law enforcement entities, multiple revenue streams exist whereby monies are generated to support justice system organizations and their respective missions. (28) Doss, Sumrall, McElreath, and Jones indicated that various...