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Defunding the Police

Mikael Wagner
7 min readDec 12, 2024

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Defunding the police is a term that can mean different things depending on who uses it, but at its core, it refers to allocating or redirecting funding away from police departments and toward other community resources and services. It doesn’t necessarily mean abolishing the police entirely, though many activists advocate for abolition as a long-term goal. It’s just not that easy to find a solution without everyone being on board. Many will agree that it’s time to cut the astronomical amount of money that our governments spend on law enforcement and give that money to more helpful services like job training, counselling, and violence prevention programs. Each year, state and local governments spend upward of 100 billion dollars on law enforcement, and that’s excluding billions more in federal grants and resources. Many believe that addressing the root causes of crime — like poverty, lack of education, and inadequate mental health care — can reduce the need for policing.

Growing up in a community where police presence was a source of tension, anger, and a fear of extreme physical abuse, I’ve often wondered: Is there a better way to keep people safe? The call to defund police departments has brought this question to the forefront, and it’s one that demands our attention now more than ever.

Here are a few ideas behind the concept of defunding the police departments:

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Mikael Wagner
Mikael Wagner

Written by Mikael Wagner

Mikael Wagner is a communications project manager with focus on health promotion, public relations , marketing and focus group facilitation.

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