We should defund the police
Recently I read an opinion piece from James Gagliano about how we should not defund the police.
He even makes the argument that it could be dangerous. I think this is not true, I find it a bit too
extreme to completely abolish the police, but it should be at least receiving a bit less money. In this
response piece I am reacting to his opinion piece and showing that he does have a point sometimes.
But the problems he addresses can be fixed with some simple solutions. I disagree with James his
opinion and thin we should actually defund the police. I am going to focus on the connection James
makes with the amount of money spend on the police and the crime rates and how dangerous it
could be to one day give the police more money and the other day less.
The first point I want to disprove is the connection James makes between crime rates and defunding
the police. James argues that since we started to defund the police more and more the crime rates
throughout America have been rising. With an exponential growth during the pandemic. James
compares June 2020 with June 2019 and shows how shootings have increased with 130% in New
York City. He makes the argument the reason this incredible surge happened was because in New
York they got rid of a unit which keeps illegal guns from the streets. They got rid of the unit as one of
the projects to defund the police. Off course this has some effect on the crimes rates. However we
are forgetting to address the elephant in the room, the covid-19 pandemic. The pandemic has led to
a lot of people losing their job, with an increase on unemployment of 17,5%, during November 2020
and November 2019, in New York City according to the department of labor of New York State. This
increase has led to more people being homeless or forced to do something illegal to make a living. If
more people live in poverty more people are forced to do something that is illegal, including
shootings. They are forced to do something illegal because they need money to pay rent and feed
their kids and cannot count on the government for this money. So in short the cut of the polices
budget throughout the years does have some impact on the
Recently I read an opinion piece from James Gagliano about how we should not defund the police.
He even makes the argument that it could be dangerous. I think this is not true, I find it a bit too
extreme to completely abolish the police, but it should be at least receiving a bit less money. In this
response piece I am reacting to his opinion piece and showing that he does have a point sometimes.
But the problems he addresses can be fixed with some simple solutions. I disagree with James his
opinion and thin we should actually defund the police. I am going to focus on the connection James
makes with the amount of money spend on the police and the crime rates and how dangerous it
could be to one day give the police more money and the other day less.
The first point I want to disprove is the connection James makes between crime rates and defunding
the police. James argues that since we started to defund the police more and more the crime rates
throughout America have been rising. With an exponential growth during the pandemic. James
compares June 2020 with June 2019 and shows how shootings have increased with 130% in New
York City. He makes the argument the reason this incredible surge happened was because in New
York they got rid of a unit which keeps illegal guns from the streets. They got rid of the unit as one of
the projects to defund the police. Off course this has some effect on the crimes rates. However we
are forgetting to address the elephant in the room, the covid-19 pandemic. The pandemic has led to
a lot of people losing their job, with an increase on unemployment of 17,5%, during November 2020
and November 2019, in New York City according to the department of labor of New York State. This
increase has led to more people being homeless or forced to do something illegal to make a living. If
more people live in poverty more people are forced to do something that is illegal, including
shootings. They are forced to do something illegal because they need money to pay rent and feed
their kids and cannot count on the government for this money. So in short the cut of the polices
budget throughout the years does have some impact on the
