Author Alex Vitale discussed the “defund the police” movement Monday in an interview with The Hill.TV’s Rising.
Vitale said the message behind the movement is not about calling for “no police,” but rather focussing on shifting municipal budgets from police into “community identified needs.”
“This is not about attacking individual police officers, as many problematic officers as there are, this is not about police accountability this is about political accountability,” Vitale said.
“This is about the decision by elected officials to turn our social problems over to police to manage,” he added. “Failing schools? Give it to the police. No mental health services? Give it to the police. Mass homelessness? Use the police to kick homeless people out of the subway … this is about rethinking our public political priorities and expressing that through a budget process that tries to lift individuals in communities up instead of criminalizing them.”
Vitale is the author of “The End of Policing,” which was published in 2017.
Calls to defund the police have been amplified amid protests over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody.
Floyd died after an officer knelt on his neck for nearly 9 minutes as Floyd said he couldn’t breathe. The officer, Derek Chauvin, was fired and charged with second-degree murder.
Three other officers were also fired and charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder.
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