‘No justice, no peace’: Why the US must defund its police

George Floyd’s murder shows the failure of liberal attempts to reform a racist system, writes Enis Yucekoralp

Protesters gather outside the mansion of governor Tim Walz to demand stricter reform of police legislation in Minnesota (Getty)

In the US, activists and abolitionists have spent years campaigning to end police brutality and the killing of black civilians, but it’s only recently, after George Floyd’s murder by white Minneapolis Police Department officer Derek Chauvin, that defunding, disarming and demilitarising law enforcement has gained widespread traction.

“Decades of police reform efforts have proved that the Minneapolis Police Department cannot be reformed, and will never be accountable for its action,” said council president Lisa Bender, declaring that the council will “begin the process of ending the Minneapolis Police Department and creating a new transformative model for cultivating safety in our city”. Embryonically, things may start to change.

Though it’s only just percolating into the realm of lawmakers and elected US politicians, the concept of defunding the police originally gained currency in 2014 after the protests in Ferguson following the murder of Michael Brown. Proponents state that drastic cuts to hugely inflated state and city law enforcement budgets – plus the demilitarisation and disarming of unaccountable police – is one way to begin eradicating centuries of extrajudicial violence inflicted on black people.