How the Democrats’ ‘Defund the Police’ Mantra Failed to Work in the US

The 2020 murder of black former convict George Floyd by a white police officer in Minnesota prompted calls by members of the Democratic Party to deny police departments federal funding and re-allocate the money to housing, education, healthcare and other community resources.

Resignations at the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department have been on the rise over the past two years amid growing crime rates and Democrats’ demands to defund police in the US, Fox News reported.

Here’s a closer look into how the "defund the police” mantra has failed to work across the US, including in states that are under the Democrats’ control, in the wake of George Floyd’s death in 2020.

Police Staff Resignations on the Rise in Many US States

Data provided to Fox News Digital by the St. Louis Police Department indicates that the force had 1,035 commissioned employees as of Tuesday.

The data also shows that the number of authorized employees has plummeted each year since 2020. There were a total of 1,205 commissioned employees at the start of 2020, 1,198 in January 2021, and 1,128 in January of this year, according to the St. Louis Police Department.

St. Louis, considered one of the least safe cities in the US, joins a growing list of US police departments where the force’s resignations showed no sign of ceasing, especially after calls to defund the police following the death of 46-year-old unemployed club bouncer and former convict African-American George Floyd in the hands of a white Minnesota policeman in late May 2020. Scores of police officers have already resigned from their departments based in Minneapolis, Atlanta, Chicago, Buffalo and South Florida.

US Police Spending on Rise

Late last week, ABC News reported that despite the “defunding” claims, police funding has actually increased in many US cities, among them Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Houston.

The broadcaster referred to an ABC Owned Television Stations survey that examined the budgets of more than 100 cities and counties and found that 83% spent at least 2% more on police in 2022 than in 2019.

Of the 109 budgets that were mentioned in the survey, only eight agencies cut police funds by more than 2%, while 91 agencies increased law enforcement funding by at least 2%. In 49 US cities or counties, police funding has increased by more than 10%, according to the research.

Police Budget Rise-Related Statistics

The survey showed that the top five increases in budgets since the 2018-19 fiscal year were all in cities in California, including Sacramento, Bakersfield, Riverside County and San Diego, with each reporting more than a 25% increase.

The research also revealed that the Los Angeles Police Department's budget has been up by 9.4% since 2019, while the budget of police departments in San Francisco and Philadelphia have soared by 4% and 3%, respectively.

In Chicago, police spending has increased by 15%, and in Houston, where the homicide rate almost doubled in both 2020 and 2021 before starting to subside this year, local government officials have increased police spending by nearly 9% from 2019 to 2022.

US in Grip of Violent Crimes

With police department resignations currently increasing across the US, violent crimes are on the rise in the country’s major cities this year following a massive national murder spike in 2021 and 2020. Such crimes are typically defined as reports of rape, sexual assault, robbery, assault and murder.

According to crime data from Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, Seattle and Washington, D.C. obtained by Fox News, violent crimes have soared anywhere in the US from nearly 5% to up to 40% compared to the same time frame in 2021.

The broadcaster also cited FBI data as showing that violent crimes had reached unprecedented numbers in the past two years, with murders rising by almost 30% in 2020 as compared to 2019. In 2021, homicides continued to increase in major US cities as the Council on Criminal Justice released at the time a 5% increase in homicides compared to the year of 2020.

In August, Texas Governor Greg Abbott of the Republican Party said that “in communities across the country, like in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, so many other places, it is this remarkable, incredible, outbreak of crime.”

"You typically see where these crimes are taking place, there has been a de-emphasis of the role that law enforcement plays. […] It could be a reduction in law enforcement,” he added.