‘Defund the police’ contributed to officer shortage through broken spirits more than tighter budgets

Cries of “defund the police” caused a seismic disruption to law enforcement staffing nationwide, but not in the way anti-cop activists might have imagined while shouting the slogan.

Nearly every major city in the country has a shortage of police officers, despite local leaders opening the budget to keep officers and cadets on the job.

Even when violent crime plummeted and public safety concerns quieted, elected officials continued to raise salaries, offer bonuses and denounce the “defund” chant that animated the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020.

Former police chiefs, researchers and advocates say the fallout from ”defund the police” is less about pulling money from departments and more about how the movement demoralized officers by tarnishing police work as ignoble.

“The profession has lost prestige and honor, at least in terms of the public perception,” said Rafael Mangual, a criminal justice fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

The stain has outlasted the height of the defund era, when Democratic lawmakers made frenzied cuts to police spending after George Floyd, a Black man, was killed by a White police officer in Minneapolis in 2020.

Legislators in New York City axed $1 billion from the police budget in a short time. Los Angeles and Austin, Texas, followed suit by each pulling $150 million from their law enforcement agencies.

The Philadelphia City Council chopped $33 million for police amid the protest fever. The Baltimore City Council and the D.C. Council sliced $22 million and $15 million, respectively, from their appropriations for police.

After the race to defund the police spurred an officer exodus, initiatives to revive and, in many cases, increase funding for law enforcement have failed to reverse the downward trend.

Increasing pay for the New York City Police Department has not prevented the nation’s largest police force from registering its lowest number of officers this century.

The five-figure signing bonuses offered by the Metropolitan Police Department in the District of Columbia barely put a dent in its 50-year low of uniformed officers.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass’ request to lawmakers for more money to hire officers and her message to Black Lives Matter activists that defunding the police is “not going to happen” have not changed the decline of police staffing to levels of the 1990s.

A dramatic spike in crime caused the public to sour on defunding the police by late 2021, according to a Pew Research survey, but the movement’s message unnerved enough rank-and-file officers that they turned in their badges.

“I don’t think that was their goal, to create this organic shortage. I think they wanted to cut budgets. But the result is the same: You’ve got beleaguered and short-staffed police departments,” said Jason Johnson, president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund.

James Craig, who was Detroit’s police chief during the Black Lives Matter protests, said many officers left their jobs after seeing how police brass responded to budget gutting. He said other chiefs shied away from confronting Democratic mayors who supported the demonstrations because they feared for their jobs.

That lowered officer morale during a time of higher crime and greater scrutiny, Mr. Craig said. Officers soon began looking for an exit.

“The lack of support by the mayor and police chief, in many instances, resulted in resignations and retirements,” said Mr. Craig, who headed Detroit police from 2013 to 2021. “A lot of the politicians who stood quiet, they supported the BLM movement, supported their agenda. They didn’t support their police officers, and that was very clear.”

Mr. Craig said his relationship with longtime Mayor Mike Duggan insulated his department from the defund fervor. That may be why Detroit, which did lose many officers during the protests, is nearly back to full staffing this year.

Other departments, such as those in Dallas and New York City, are lowering hiring standards to fill their vacancies. Mr. Mangual called that strategy ill-advised.

He said allowing officers to have visible tattoos and facial hair is one thing, but dropping requirements for fitness, education and, increasingly, past drug use goes too far.

“The median new police recruit is going to be significantly worse,” Mr. Mangual said. “Their level of intelligence is going to be lower. Their emotional stability is going to be lower. You’re going to get more problems. You’re going to get more errors. And, ultimately, it’s going to be this kind of race to the bottom.”

Lower-quality officers could put more police on the radar of tough-on-cop prosecutors. Mr. Mangual said it takes only one interaction to look bad on camera and jeopardize an officer’s career and freedom.

Former Las Cruces police officer Brad Lunsford, who is White, is living through that reality in New Mexico. Mr. Lunsford fatally shot a shoplifter, who was Black, after the man resisted arrest, wrestled with an officer and then grabbed hold of a Taser, according to court documents.

Local prosecutors refused to pursue charges, but the case was later taken up by New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez, a Democrat who received campaign cash from left-wing billionaire George Soros.

The former police officer was found guilty of manslaughter last year, but his legal team secured a retrial because one of the jurors failed to disclose her anti-police biases during the jury selection process.

Evidence presented by the defense said the juror belonged to a group that wanted to defund the police and had marched against police shootings. The Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund, which is assisting Mr. Lunsford, said the charges discourage the men and women in blue.

“Look at the facts of that case and query … how likely it would be for officers to be placed in a similar scenario and what that would mean for them and their family,” Mr. Johnson said. “More than anything, it really scares away people who are currently serving.”

Mr. Johnson acknowledged that police prosecutions are not the first thing a recruit considers but said the criminal trials fuel the idea that law enforcement is not a job for decent people.

Add in the worsening safety on patrol, and someone with other career options could deem policing too risky. The FBI in 2023 found that assaults against officers reached their highest rate in 10 years.

With most violent crimes dropping to pre-pandemic levels, Mr. Johnson expressed concern that local politicians could back off their police hiring plans and accept the reduced staffing as normal.

It would mark another win for the defund supporters, who seem to be having a moment with the mayoral elections of Zohran Mamdani in New York City and Katie Wilson in Seattle.

Mr. Mamdani has committed to maintaining a trimmed-down NYPD, and Ms. Wilson campaigned on hiring more crisis workers and ramping up police misconduct investigations.

Mr. Craig said their spin on “reimagining the police” is a sleight of hand to avoid the political poison of calling to slash police spending.

Both mayors, who are self-described democratic socialists, championed defunding the police when it was en vogue five years ago. They distanced themselves from that position as they prepared to run major cities.

Mr. Mangual said allowing the officer shortage to persist will only backfire when a crisis strikes again.

“It would be a massive mistake for municipalities to conclude that, because crime is trending downward in the last couple of years, that they can get away with understaffed police departments,” he said. “The lesson of 2020 was that it doesn’t take a very big spark for crime to get out of control.”