LA County Increases Police Budget By $36M After Crime Skyrockets Following Massive Cuts

Brittany M. Hughes | March 29, 2021
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The problem with left-wing policies is that by the time you realize how stupid and ineffectual they are, the damage has usually been done - and someone has almost inevitably been harmed.

Case in point: Los Angeles County is reportedly increasing their police budget by $36 million in response to a recent spike in crime, less than a year after cutting the budget to appease left-wing “social justice” groups.

The money – far less than the $111 million proposed to help fix the problem, but still - will be split among Los Angeles Police Department, the LA County Sheriff's Department, and the Long Beach Police Department.

The news comes less than a year after LA city officials cut $150 million from the LAPD's nearly $2 billion budget in response to demands from “anti-racism” groups like Black Lives Matter. In November, voters also approved a measure allocating 10 percent of the city’s general fund to non-police public safety efforts.

The cuts brought down the number of police officers working the city street from 9,988 to 9,757. 

But apparently, cutting the police force and trying to solve violent crimes with pixie dust and free hugs isn’t working. According to data trackers, LA County has seen a 34% spike in homicides and a 35% increase in gun arrests this year compared to 2020.

LA Metro CEO Phillip Washington, a black man, says that while he understands the demands for justice reform from groups like BLM, simply cutting the police isn’t…well, cutting it. 

"Our hope is that the public and the board understand that we’re trying as a staff to get to a good balance here in terms of policing on our system, trying to get to a happy medium here understanding both perspectives," Washington said, per CBSLA

"I do understand both perspectives, from a lived experience as an African American male, I understand completely what we are saying about policing, but also as someone who reviews every incident report on the system, I do believe we need some level of security on the system."

Related: Minneapolis Voted To Defund Their Police - And Now They're Whining That Crime Is Skyrocketing

Unfortunately for the victims, it shouldn't have taken months' worth of data and a mounting pile of bodies to know that cutting the police force in an already crime-ridden city probably wasn't going to work out so well - but that's a lesson many cities are now learning the hard way. After slashing $1 billion from the NYPD's budget and watching hundreds of officers resign or take early retirement, New York City is now struggling under an increasing crime wave, ending 2020 with a 97% increase in shootings and 45% increase in murders over the year before.

Likewise, Minneapolis residents began complaining about an increase in crime in urban communities after city officials voted to cut their own police budget by $1.1 million and hire "violence interruptors" to solve crime by non-lethal means.

 

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