Last year the city of St. Petersburg, Florida created a Community Assistance Liaison department as part of the local police department. It will be administered by the Gulf Council Jewish Family and Community Service organization which will hire mental health workers and social workers to respond to non-violent calls to the police. This includes disorderly intoxication, drug overdoses, intoxicated persons, mental health crises, suicide crisis, mental health transport, disorderly juveniles/truancy, and panhandling complaints. Of the 259,800 calls to the police in 2019, 12,700 calls fit the above categories. The program will be fully evaluated after one year. This program was agreed upon by the Mayor, the City Council, the police chief, the local police union (Sun Coast Police Benevolent Association), and local mental health officials. It was paid for by not hiring 25 new police officers over the next 2 years. This type of program has been adopted in many communities across the country and is very successful in reducing the workload of the police who can refocus on what they are trained to do rather than deal with non-violent service calls. When most people read what St. Petersburg has done, they will say that all the major stakeholders in the community agreed to the program and it will be fully evaluated after one year. This is what local governments and communities are supposed to do. There should not be a problem.
But, a problem appears if one refers to what St. Petersburg has done as “defunding the police.” Then many people who initially approved of the reforms are now suddenly opposed to them. They misunderstand the phrase “defunding the police.” The problem is now one of partisan politics. In fact, the Republican dominated state legislature with the support of Republican Governor Ron DeSantis just passed a law which allows the Governor and the Cabinet to overturn any decision made by a local government which defunds the police departments. In fact, the St. Petersburg reform or defunding was mentioned specifically as a case in point when the bill was passed into law. The fact that all local community stakeholders agreed to the new program is irrelevant now.
Every legitimate conservative that I have ever known supports local rule and local control. Now, the Governor and his Cabinet, sitting in Tallahassee can in essence veto budget changes that deal with the police at the local level. Where is the conservative outrage at a power grab by the Florida state government all in the name of partisan politics which takes advantage of the fact that most people across the country misunderstand the concept of “defunding the police?” Again, where is the conservative outrage?
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