If there was any doubt left, last month’s elections sealed the deal. The nationwide experiment labeled “Defund the Police” was an abject failure. Our citizens made it clear that they are sick and tired of politicians who prefer coddling criminals to supporting our police. Sadly, though, it will take years to recover from the disastrous consequences of this movement that decimated and demoralized our nation’s police forces, ignited more crime, and cost thousands of innocent lives.
The election results last month were a knockout blow to the “defund” movement. Kamala Harris was one of the movement’s earliest and strongest supporters. She wanted to “reimagine” policing. In June of 2020, she said, “For too long, the status quo thinking has been: You get more safety by putting more cops on the street—well that’s wrong.”
The American electorate, and hard data, disagreed. Not only was Harris soundly defeated, but she lost to an opponent who had pledged if he were reelected president, “There won’t be defunding, there won’t be dismantling of our police, and there is not going to be any disbanding of our police.”
There were many other notable pro-police and anticrime election results on Nov. 5. Twelve out of 25 George Soros-linked progressive, soft-on-crime local district attorneys across the U.S. were either defeated or recalled—many of them in deep blue jurisdictions. The biggest loser was Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon, who lost by 24 points to tough-on-crime opponent Nathan Hochman. And voters across California, one of the most liberal states in the nation, overwhelmingly approved Proposition 36, which lengthens jail and prison sentences for drug and theft convictions.
This voter outrage should have been expected given the damage done by politicians who catered to criminals at the expense of public safety. Cities across the country cut hundreds of millions of dollars from their police budgets as a knee-jerk reaction to George Floyd’s death in 2020. After being defunded and defamed, officers left the profession in droves. The number of full-time state and local officers dropped by 5.3% between 2019 and 2021, which meant 36,907 fewer officers were serving and protecting our communities.
During this same period, police response times slowed and violent crime in America spiked by 3.8%. In 2020, homicides nationwide rose by 29.4%—the largest single-year increase in more than a century.
There have been many more troubling consequences. At the start of the “defund” movement, many cities across the country abolished their School Resource Officer programs. In the aftermath, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of school shootings—more than 300 in each of the past two years.
Progressive soft-on-crime policies, like no cash bail, have created a revolving -door criminal justice system that has frustrated officers and endangered citizens. Failure to prosecute shoplifters has caused retail theft to skyrocket. A recent nationwide survey found that 40% of retail employees would quit their jobs next year because of “personal safety concerns.”
Youth crime is out of control as well. Carjackings nearly doubled in Washington, D.C., last year, and the average age of those arrested was 15.
And illegal immigration has caused some cities, like Denver, to cut their police budgets so they can shift the money to assist the migrants flooding into their communities.
We can be thankful that many states and localities have realized the errors of their ways and are restoring police funding and reversing failed progressive policies. Minneapolis cut its police budget by $8 million in 2020 only to reverse itself and add $7 million two years later to help fill the ranks of its dwindling police force. After Oregon decriminalized hard drugs like heroin and methamphetamine in 2021, the resulting record-high overdoses and rampant homelessness forced the state to backtrack and end its experiment earlier this year.
With the “defund” movement now on the trash heap of so many other ill-conceived ideas, the antipolice rhetoric that led to attacks on officers by violent individuals has also quieted, with some encouraging results. According to the Fraternal Order of Police, the number of officers shot this year (301 as of Oct. 31) was 7% less than the same time in 2023. And the number of unprovoked ambush-style shootings of officers (71) is on pace to be nearly 40% lower than the 138 in 2023.
The disastrous results of the defund the police movement will not be reversed overnight. We lost too many talented and experienced law enforcement officers. This brain drain will take years to fix. There are still many pro-criminal district attorneys who need to be replaced. And while we have a strong pro-police president soon retaking office, much of the “defund” damage has occurred at the state and local level where more corrective action is needed.
However, we can be grateful that the pro-police, anticrime pendulum is finally swinging in the right direction. And we have learned a valuable lesson: A well-funded and fully staffed police force is essential to keeping America safe.
We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.
This article was originally published at www.dailysignal.com
