In Jackson, Miss., predominantly White GOP lawmakers are diverting funding away from the Black, majority-Democratic city’s local agencies to fund a new spacious courthouse and increase staffing for the Jackson Capitol Police. The move has been criticized, especially in light of the Trump administration’s mobilization of National Guard troops to majority Democratic cities across the country. Rather than support existing courts and police departments, these funding and staffing changes, enacted under the guise of “ensuring law and order,” erode trust between police and the communities they serve. Of these decisions, CPE’s CEO and cofounder, Dr. Phillip Atiba Solomon, said:
The risk of such moves, say national policing experts, is that resources are diverted from the local agencies that are most accountable to communities. The result is separate but unequal systems, according to Phillip Atiba Solomon of the Center for Policing Equity, a group that studies the effects of policing and its alternatives.
“We’re creating, increasingly, systems that remove the resources from local cities and remove local control,” he said.
The full The Washington Post article can be found on MSN.com.