Editorials & Other Articles
In reply to the discussion: If you are explaining, you are losing ... [View all]JonLP24
(29,322 posts)What people railing against this don't realize it is a local issue which I feel I have to constantly explain.
Los Angeles voters just delivered a huge win for the defund the police movement
Los Angeles voters have approved Measure J, also known as Reimagine LA County, which requires that 10 percent of the citys unrestricted general funds estimated between $360 million and $900 million per year be invested in social services and alternatives to incarceration, not prisons and policing.
As of Wednesday afternoon, with a majority of votes counted, 57.1 percent of voters supported the measure, 42.9 percent opposed, according to the Los Angeles County registrar.
The measures passage comes at a moment when activists across the US including in LA have called for defunding police departments. While Measure J isnt directly a defund the police initiative, it was designed as an important first step toward the public health and investment-based model of public safety that animates the defund movement.
A critique often made by police reformers of all stripes is that American cities rely far too heavily on law enforcement to address issues like substance abuse, mental health, and homelessness that would be better handled by social service providers and civilian responders. Thus, they generally agree that some level of funding should be redirected from police department budgets to those alternative service providers.
https://www.vox.com/2020/11/4/21549019/measure-j-police-abolition-defund-reform-black-lives-matter-protest-2020-election-george-floyd
I don't think groups like BLM are interested in leftist-centrist fights in the Democratic Party. They are going to continue organize & in fact they are in Georgia trying to help Democrats win the Georgia Senate races.