Defund the Police!
What would a public safety and policing look like in a free and democratic society?
A key question to raise up and organize around.
Police would not deploy military equipment and weaponry, would not get training from Israeli armed forces, would not act like an occupying army, would not carry lethal weapons, and would not operate with a contract beyond any popular scrutiny or control and a shadow leadership with more power than elected officials.
Police would be under community control—a democratically chosen citizen review board (100 people, to whom they are accountable.
And budgets would reflect people’s priorities—millions more for education, housing the unhoused, community mental health clinics, drug treatment centers, health care, job creation, guarantees of income…Money taken from the bloated and extravagant police budget.
See the link? Policing, surveillance and prison are the last entitlements, while every social need and priority is hollowed out or eliminated, and the occupying police forces are brought in to manage the predictable crisis.
Defund the Police!
Bill Ayers 