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Minneapolis is considering bringing in police officers from other cities amid shortages. They've already had around 50% more murders in 2020 than the entire year of 2019 https://www.startribune.com/minneapolis-to-consider-bringing-in-outside-police-officers-amid-shortage/573021751/
In 2019, there were 48 murders in Minneapolis. In 2020, there have been 74 murders so far in Minneapolis.
Some Minneapolis residents are suing the city for falling under what they say is the minimum level of police staffing. It's probably more the political climate than funding leading to attrition though. MPLS cut some police funding but not a lot. https://twitter.com/PaulBlume_FOX9/status/1318279968976232449
There are some rough analogies to be drawn to how demoralizing and demonizing teachers during the most recent wave of ed reform led to tons of resignations and people retiring.
We've seen this in city after city: a viral incident of alleged police abuse, a series of investigations, then de-policing, then mass death. Can anything break that cycle? Is it even desirable? Mass media doesn't seem to care about these lives. https://www.thedailybeast.com/can-probing-broken-police-departments-have-deadly-consequences?ref=author
The problem is the news media is deciding what lives matter based on who does the killing rather than who is the victim. This is what you do when your ideology is based on contempt instead of compassion sadly. https://twitter.com/AmiDar/status/1325973551833370625
I helped elect one of the most progressive reform prosecutors in my state's whole history. Defunding police is not progressive, it's libertarian. Defunding public services does not improve categorically improve them. https://twitter.com/myheadrlyhurts/status/1325974108115361792
And yes it's well proven actually that increased police presence reduces violent crime. It's certainly not the only thing that reduces crime but sudden sharp decreases in policing often associated with more violence https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/2/13/18193661/hire-police-officers-crime-criminal-justice-reform-booker-harris
The reason most murders happen in high-homicide areas is because of disputes (over money, prestige, etc.) You need some writ of state to solve disputes through nonviolent means and adjudication. Poor policing means you have way more violence to solve disputes btw citizens.
If you want to read a good book about this, read Ghettoside. I recognize most of politics Twitter did not grow up in places where this was sort of the norm or face that much violence in their lives, but nothing's stopping you from reading about it. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13153693-ghettoside
There is no progressive industrialized democracy where people are demanding massive cuts to policing, not in the UK, not in Norway or France! The problem with the U.S. is primarily how harshly we punish crimes and make it difficult for people to re-enter society.
Attacking the police categorically by trying to defund them or thin their numbers is just contemptuous politics by another means, no one has shown it is an effective policy model, someone just came up with this slogan and then tried to reverse engineer policy.
