As the Indianapolis community continues to call for the divestment from police and reinvestment into the Black and Brown communities they unjustly target, IMPD responded by proposing an overall $7 million increase in its 2021 budget. In IMPD’s 2021 proposed budget, 82% will be used for officer salaries and benefits, with their focus on the recruitment of more officers.
This is outright unacceptable.
The inherently systemic issues within policing require immediate and permanent solutions. That requires bold action from our elected officials to hold IMPD accountable and fundamentally change the role of police in our community. That role must be smaller, more circumscribed, and less funded with taxpayer dollars.
Money saved from reducing the size and scope of IMPD must be reinvested into community-based services that are better suited to respond to actual community needs. For example, one step forward could be removing police from responses to mental health crises and expanding the existing Mobile Crisis Assistance Teams to include more licensed mental health professionals to serve all of Indianapolis. We must reinvest savings from the current policing budget into alternatives to policing that will keep our communities safe and help them thrive.
Take action and demand change. Contact your councilor ahead of the next Indianapolis city-county council meeting on September 28, 2020 at 7pm.
Not sure who your councilor is? Find your councilor here.
