Two years ago in the summer of 2020, the largest racial justice demonstrations in history swept across the globe after Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, murdered George Floyd. In the aftermath, it seemed that Americans were reckoning with whether or not the police are a necessary entity in maintaining public safety, but the issue of police abolition remains contentious for many.

In March of this year, President Biden earned a bi-partisan standing ovation for saying:

We should all agree, the answer’s not to defund the police. It’s to fund the police. Fund them.

In late August, the President traveled to Pennsylvania, where he gave a speech on crime and offered specifics of his Safer America Plan.

The plan includes $13 billion dollars to hire 100,000 officers over the next five years and grants to states and cities to recruit, train, and support police in  “effective, accountable community policing.” Hiring more police and sending more policing dollars to states and localities is certainly reminiscent of the 1994 Crime Bill which Biden championed during his Senate years.

According to FactCheck.org^®, a Project of The Annenberg Public Policy Center at University of Pennsylvania, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported in 2005 that the 1994 crime bill added an additional 88,000 police officers and only contributed to a "modest" drop in crime. The GAO reported that from 1993 to 2000, funds apportioned to hire more police in the crime bill contributed to a "1.3 percent decrease in overall crime" and a "2.5 percent decrease in violent crime rates" from 1993. The report also found that factors other than funds to increase the number of police were much more significant to lower crime rates. Increased employment, better policing methods, an aging of the population, growth in income and inflation are just a few factors the report offers. 

With the news of Biden's recent announcement, Deep Dive cohosts Melissa Harris-Perry and Dorian Warren take a look into the proposal to abolish American police, working together to build a syllabus for their exploration of the issue as "students of abolition."

Guests:

• Judith Browne Dianis, Executive Director of the Advancement Project National Office
• Professor Treva B. Lindsey, author of "America, Goddam: Violence, Black Women and the Struggle for Justice"
• Andrea Ritchie, co-founder of Interrupting Criminalization, author of “Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color” and “No More Police: A Case for Abolition with Mariame Kaba"
• Chuck Wexler, Executive Director of the Police Executive Research Forum offers a defense of police
• Philip Atiba Goff, co-founder and CEO of the Center for Policing Equity and a Professor of African-American Studies and Psychology at Yale University