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What a 'defund the police' plan in Seattle might look like

Small steps.

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20...dont-alienate-the-communities-you-police.html

“We’ve changed the mandate of our Public Safety Response Team, so they’re much more engaged in proactively doing bail compliance checks and getting more arrests from people who are breaching their conditions,” Ramer told the Toronto Police Services Board during budget discussions. The team is targeting the highest-risk violent offenders, which involves being “much more precise in the way we do our policing so we’re not upending entire communities.” There was a “substantial” decrease in shootings at the end of the year, he noted, attributing some of that to PSRT.

Canada’s largest municipal service, with the blessing of the board, is asking city council next month to approve a $1.076-billion operating budget for 2021 — holding the line at a 0 per cent increase over 2020. PSRT’s proposed piece of that is $11.48 million for 79 uniformed officers, according to TPS budget documents.
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Defunding proceeding at the expected pace in Minneapolis:

Minneapolis will hire dozens more police officers after the City Council on Friday agreed to release $6.4 million to bring on additional recruits.

The unanimous vote came eight days after Minneapolis police requested the funding, saying they had 200 fewer police officers available to work than in most recent years. The additional funding comes at a time when some City Council members and activist groups are pushing to replace the Police Department in the wake of George Floyd's death.
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However, there is some good news:

Minneapolis police plan to update the application for recruits to include additional questions about whether they have ever lived in Minneapolis, whether they have degrees in criminology, social work, psychology or counseling, and whether they volunteer or participate in programs like the Police Activities League.

Deputy Police Chief Amelia Huffman said they hope the change "will help us to really feel confident that we are recruiting the kinds of candidates we want right from the beginning."
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Regarding the recent bridge collapse in Pennsylvania:

In theory, Pennsylvania could be spending billions more to update aging roads and bridges.

But instead, the money is being rerouted to help fund State Police operations. The convoluted funding scheme has long been criticized by Harrisburg. But a new audit has given a more detailed picture of where the money is going.

Pennsylvania has almost 3,000 bridges classified as structurally deficient, though state Auditor General Eugene DePasquale said Thursday that tally has actually been halved since 2008.

Over six years, $4.2 billion that could have helped fix those bridges has instead gone to State Police, he said.

The money mostly comes from the commonwealth’s fuel tax; at 57.6 cents, it’s the highest in the nation.
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https://whyy.org/articles/pa-fuel-tax-meant-for-bridge-repair-went-to-state-police-instead/

Police departments are a black hole in state and municipal budgets, consuming all.
 
Minneapolis police plan to update the application for recruits to include additional questions about whether they have ever lived in Minneapolis, whether they have degrees in criminology, social work, psychology or counseling, and whether they volunteer or participate in programs like the Police Activities League.
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If they were serious about upgrading their recruit pool they would require college degrees. Police work is about the only entry-level job with that level of responsibility that somebody can get with only a high-school education. A BA certainly doesn't solve all problems, but it would indicate that the applicant has at least been exposed to a broader range of people and ideas.
 
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