The USA has enjoyed a long stretch of stability and the latest generations are oblivious of any imminent external threats. This has made them a victim of their own privilege and their romanticisation of the ideas of chaos and revolution are overtaking the ideas of law & order. This has been visible since last year, with the protest and the following defund the police campaign. The murder rate in St. Louis, already highest in the US, soared last year; the mayor vows to defund the police. Mayor Tishaura Jones’ budget proposal would close a city jail, divert $4M from police to social programs and cut nearly 100 police jobs.
The murder rate in St. Louis, Mo., is at a 50-year high, the police department has nearly 100 open positions, and the mayor wants to defund the department and close a city jail. Tishaura Jones, the city of St. Louis’ first Black female mayor, campaigned on a pledge to implement progressive criminal justice reforms. The director of the city’s corrections department is also leaving. Jones announced his resignation last week, saying she hadn’t asked him to step down but that she wasn’t happy with the way he was running things.
Corrections Commissioner Dale Glass will be resigning from his position as of June 1.
Read our full statement below, or see the full text on the City's website: https://t.co/67Hw5CgDcf pic.twitter.com/jFnOlHMY2R
— Mayor Tishaura O. Jones (@saintlouismayor) May 12, 2021
According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, St. Louis had the highest homicide rate in the nation in 2020, with 87 homicides per 100,000 people. It’s currently at its highest level in 50 years, even though the population has shrunk over that time. Some city leaders have blamed the increase in violence on the coronavirus pandemic, which would be in line with national trends if it weren’t for the fact that, prior to COVID-19, St. Louis led the country in homicides per 100,000 in 2019, with 65.
The death of George Floyd in May 2020 sparked violent racial protests across the United States. Minneapolis became the epicentre of the demonstrations, with demonstrators and lawmakers alike calling for the city’s police force to be dismantled and defunded. The campaign saw many takers and, as any sane thinking person would have predicted, it has had a disastrous effect. Cities in response lashed their police department’s funding last year and such cities have seen an uptick in certain crimes over the past year, as reported by Fox News.
Cities like Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York City, Portland, Oregon and Austin, Texas have diverted money from police forces to social welfare agencies. As a result of the cuts, some agencies have had to lay off staff, postpone recruitment sessions or scale down their hiring targets.
Interim City of St. Louis Director of Public Safety Daniel Isom explained the mayor’s plan this way: “Funding a comprehensive approach to violent crime is the best approach to reducing murders. This requires both police and partnering agencies adequately funded to support victims and hold offenders accountable. It also requires target arrest and prosecutions to get murderers and shooters off the streets and not filling jails with nonviolent offenders.”
A proposed city budget for next year, which Jones announced in April, would cut $4 million from the police department and reallocate the funds to an affordable housing fund, victim support services, the city’s Department of Health and Human Services and Civil Rights Enforcement Agency, which investigates housing, equal employment and public accommodation complaints.
These policy decisions are like a dice game in poker, and it may spell disaster to St. Louis, given the example of other cities. ‘Defund the Police, shut down city jail,’ St. Louis Mayor orders even as criminals bring the city to a bloody halt.