JUSTICE
What Does ‘Defund the Police’ Mean to You? South Side organizers discuss defunding and abolition, and envision ways to reallocate resources to communities BY NEFERTARI BILAL This piece is part of a series that explores the various perspectives around defunding the police.
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he killings this spring of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor by Louisville police sparked a wave of protests against police brutality across the country. Black and brown activists and their allies are demanding that police be held accountable, and that municipal funding be redirected from police budgets to mental health services, education, and other social programs. Increasingly, there are calls for more investment in these resources for Black and brown communities, as well as for a larger reconsideration of what “safety” means—who the police criminalize and who they protect. To many in the movement, defunding police means opposing the militarization of the police and rethinking how police are currently used, particularly when addressing the types of crime that advocates argue are results of poverty and racial inequality. Cities including New York City, Los Angeles, Dallas, Austin, Seattle, Portland, and Philadelphia have committed to or adopted forms of defunding. Minneapolis is the sole city that has voted to dismantle its police department entirely, with plans to replace it with a new system of public safety. Often, the word “defund” has been used interchangeably with “abolish,” but they are two distinct ideas. While both are critical of the role of police in society, especially in Black and brown communities, the movement to defund the police calls for reduced police power and police budgets and reinvestment in social services, while still accepting the police as a necessary, if currently oppressive, 10 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
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civic institution. In contrast, the abolition movement ultimately endeavours to create a society in which both the police and systems of mass incarceration cease to exist. Abolition operates on the idea that policing is inherently racist and corrupt, and that police as such can never be trusted to serve Black and brown communities. Abolitionists therefore see defunding police as only a step towards their ultimate goal of making obsolete police and the prisonindustrial complex, but not the end in itself. To get a sense of what the defund and abolition movements mean to South Side community organizers in Chicago, South Side Weekly spoke to four: Vaughn Bryant, Cecilia Butler, Berto Aguayo, and Andrea Ortiz. All of these interviewees believe that police have long targeted Black and brown communities due to racism, which has resulted in the abuse and deaths of people from these communities at the hands of police. They differ in their perspectives on how feasible reform is. Some believe that the police cannot be reformed, and want to abolish both police and prisons. Others think that a traditional police force is still necessary for addressing violent crime, even though they agree that police need to be held accountable for acts of brutality and that more funding should go to social services. Vaughn Bryant is the executive director of Metropolitan Peace Initiatives, overseeing Communities Partnering 4 Peace, which seeks to reduce violence and gang activity by coordinating with community organizations, Chicago Public Schools, and the Chicago Police Department, providing trauma-informed care and using restorative justice practices.
Cecilia Butler is president of the Washington Park Advisory Council, which plans events in the park, while also seeking to create a space for residents to meet and talk with local police, who hold meetings at the local church. Berto Aguayo is a 2019 candidate for 15th Ward alderman and the founder of Back of the Yards-based Increase The Peace, which endeavours to address root causes of violence by hosting block parties and advocating for greater resources to be invested in the community. Andrea Ortiz is a community organizer from the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council campaigning to remove police officers from schools and for the elimination of the city’s gang database.
“We need to be creating those healthy communities that don’t need these cops that think they are saving us, because the only people that can save us is ourselves.”
These interviews have been edited for length and clarity. What is the problem with policing as we know it, and how can it be changed? Andrea Ortiz: I think policing is just inherently racist and anti-Black from its very beginning, whether it was the police that were down South and were slave catchers or the police up North that were union busters. I think no amount of training would change that kind of mentality. We do know what works, and that is investing in communities: making sure that folks have a livable wage, not just a minimum wage, [and] that they have accessible housing, access to food, a good quality education. And also taking resources to help address harm and prevent harm from happening, instead of police, who are reacting to harm and furthering trauma; harming the community without really addressing the harm that's happening due to root causes. Vaughn Bryant: There's a lack of trust between the police and the community. I think it's going to be changed by police knowing the communities they're policing, the communities knowing the police officers as individuals, as human beings versus police officers. I think that when police make mistakes, that they [should be] able to be held accountable by our legal system. That'll help, but I think that ensuring the scope of police work is correct and that we don't send police into situations that are not police matters. Being homeless is not necessarily a crime, and needing mental health services is not a crime. And so we need to make sure police are fighting crime and not issues of poverty.
