Domestic Violence and Defunding the Police
Covid-19 and decades of disinvestment in our communities has created a dire situation for people experiencing domestic violence or intimate partner violence. Stay at home orders around the state have forced many into a situation where they cannot leave an abusive environment, while massive unemployment means many don’t have the financial ability to access new housing. Shelters and services have been forced to cut back their operating capacity, while many survivors are wary of putting themselves and their children in environments where they risk catching the virus. The pandemic has highlighted the negative effects of an approach to addressing domestic violence that pours millions of dollars into policing and courts while leaving survivors with few options for establishing autonomy.
Mayor Jim Kenney has increased funding for the Philadelphia Police Department by 120 million since he took office in 2016. Kenney’s proposed 2021 city budget includes massive cuts to affordable housing initiatives, homeless services, and community resources like libraries and pools, while providing over 750 million for the Philadelphia Police Department. Even with Kenny reversing the decision to increase the PPD’s budget by 14 million, this austerity budget, meant to help the city through the financial strain of the pandemic, disproportionately hurts marginalized communities by weakening social services while maintaining the power of the police to brutalize them.
“The major strategy relied on by the women’s anti-violence movement of criminalizing violence against women will not put an end to violence against women -- just as imprisonment has not put an end to ‘crime’ in general.”
Angela Davis at the 2000 conference of
Incite! Women of Color Against Violence
Although anti-violence activists fought for decades to have domestic violence addressed as a social problem and taken seriously by legislators, the measures that came out of the movement put in place policies that give the police and the criminal legal system millions of dollars every year. Policing targets black and brown communities and enables law enforcement to carry out racist agendas while escalating violence. Many survivors don’t wish for their abusers to serve jail time, they just want the support to establish their lives safe from abuse - this means housing, living wage jobs, child care, and other social services. Funding the police directly takes away from these services and imprisoning abusers often takes away critical income for families.
Most importantly, increased funding for police and the criminal legal system has not helped to reduce incidents of domestic and intimate partner violence. COVID-19 has hurt black and brown communities the hardest. The mass uprisings we’ve seen across the country are a testimony to the fact that policing and the criminal justice system are perpetuating violence and murdering our people. Carceral solutions to gender based violence aren’t working and our city needs investment in our communities and divestment from a racist police department.
We fight for a world in which real solutions to violence are fully funded. So much of the violence that exists in our community today has deep systemic roots - it comes from years of oppression that has kept people in poverty and over-policed, without proper access to education, medical care, or mental health support. If we are to honestly resolve these issues, we need an investment in our communities that works to create equitable justice. This means an investment in our public school system and after-school programs, union jobs that protect workers, affordable housing (NOT shelter), accessible inpatient and outpatient mental health treatment, medicare for all, and a green new deal to stop the swell of climate change from further hurting poor communities.
We have an opportunity to fight for this redistribution of wealth in our very own city by demanding that Philadelphia City Council reject the budget proposal and instead prioritize community needs. In cities across the country we are seeing the rise of a movement to defund police departments, and we want Philadelphia to be a part of that change. We need everyone to put pressure on Mayor Kenney and City Council President Darrel Clark to reclaim the 120 million that has been stolen from communities and put towards policing.
+Call and e-mail Mayor Kenney to demand a budget proposal that invests in strong communities, not policing. Demand that he cut the police budget by 120 million. Call him at (215) 686-2181 and e-mail him at james.kenney@phila.gov
+Call and e-mail Darrell Clarke, City Council President, and demand that he make a public commitment to reduce the police budget by 120 million. Call him at (215) 686-3442 and e-mail him at darrell.clarke@phila.gov
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic or intimate partner violence, there are resources available. We have created a flyer with important mental health and DV resources during COVID-19. Please share this resource widely!
