Burn It All Down

Aug 15

Why funding cops isn’t the answer and what we can do instead

by Zelda Mayer

As specialists in fundraising dedicated to putting the people back in philanthropy, we know how funding allocation creates the lived realities of communities. This summer, the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority announced a grant program providing $900,000 in funding for law enforcement and other first responders to respond to substance use disorders and minimize arrest and prosecution. In this blog, we are going to do a deep dive into what this program means for communities and philanthropy as a whole.

About the ICJIA Grant

Recognizing that arrests and prosecution do not effectively reduce substance use or improve community safety, this grant aims to support “deflection models” that support individuals in accessing treatment and services. According to the Notice for Funding Opportunity, “These models are built on police and other first responders’ partnerships with community health and substance use disorder treatment organizations…[This program] provides law enforcement officers and other first responders critical funding to facilitate connections to community-based behavioral health interventions that provide substance use treatment, help reduce drug usage, reduce drug overdose incidences and death, [and] reduce criminal offending and recidivism” (ICJIA).

Supporting substance use treatment instead of incarceration sounds good in theory, right?

Let’s take a closer look at what this actually means.

What’s Wrong with this Picture

1. Those who are responsible for the problem are defining the solutions.

We must recognize the history and context of this grant program. It is important to note that the ICJIA is primarily made up of law enforcement professionals, including sheriffs, chiefs of police, and the acting director of the Illinois State Police. The ICJIA has a track record of both mismanaging grants and being dishonest regarding working relationships with community organizations. The organization secured a nearly $200,000 federal grant earlier this year without approval from several “partner” organizations listed in the agency’s grant application, including one group that had never heard of the program. At least four of the eight “partner” organizations that ICJIA said were “committed to developing and delivering” its new program told Chicago Tonight that they had not committed to implementing the program. And this isn’t the first time the ICJIA has been dishonest in its acquisition and management of funding; in 2014, an investigation by the state auditor’s general revealed the agency had broken basic grant protocols in distributing nearly $100 million in anti-violence grants over four years. The auditors described the program as “grossly mismanaged” and said there was little evidence it helped reduce violence.

We see this issue in big philanthropy as well; the millionaires and billionaires who are the cause of so many problems are defining and solving these issues through their foundations and private philanthropy. Grants like this are connected to the rise of privatization in the ‘80s, which led to both big philanthropy and government services transitioning to grants and RFPs, such as this one. Termed “philanthrocapitalism,” this method often leads to philanthropy mimicking for-profit business methods, incentivizing reduced quality, and weakening community accountability over the use of funds.

2. We need to stop expecting new results from the same actions.

Community policing is more about the police than the community. Although a WBEZ article states that this approach is “the latest chapter in Chicago’s decades-long experiment with community policing,” we disagree with this approach and do not think it will result in improved outcomes for communities. As activist Mariame Kaba writes:

We can’t reform the police. The only way to diminish police violence is to reduce contact between the public and the police...There is not a single era in United States history in which the police were not a force of violence against black people. Policing in the South emerged from the slave patrols in the 1700 and 1800s that caught and returned runaway slaves. In the North, the first municipal police departments in the mid-1800s helped quash labor strikes and riots against the rich. Everywhere, they have suppressed marginalized populations to protect the status quo.

According to Mother Jones, Chicago has the second highest police budget in the US, receiving 37% of the city’s overall budget. Last year, the city received about $1.2 billion from the federal government as part of the CARES Act. Of the $470 million in discretionary spending, $281.5 million — nearly 60 percent — paid for personnel costs for the Chicago Police Department, the Chicago Tribune reported. This money could have been spent to mitigate some of the many challenges facing residents in light of COVID pandemic. Meanwhile, homicides so far this year have risen 33% compared to the same time period in 2019. In other words, more money for the police isn’t helping.

3. This grant is a police problem disguised as a community solution.

Although this grant frames itself as a way to redirect away from criminal legal involvement and towards treatment, in reality this funding will expand law enforcement budgets. In fact, for this grant only law enforcement agencies and other first responders are eligible to apply; private and nonprofit entities are not eligible. WU! attended an info session for an ICJIA grant similar to this one last year; the call was full of sheriff and police departments, and some of the funding ultimately went to those agencies. Politicians and cops don’t need more money and resources; communities do.

A major issue of this grant is that communities don’t have enough voice; it is up to the law enforcement agents to “collaborate,” and as we saw with the ICJIA’s previous track record, that isn’t something we can rely on. As legal scholar and abolitionist activist Dean Spade points out, reforms and initiatives like this grant actually distracts from addressing root causes; while funding could be going to community-led initiatives, more tax dollars are again going to policing while giving the appearance of providing a community solution.

Burn It All Down, Build Something New

We must be open to thinking beyond our current systems and imagine something new. And then build it. This isn’t about destruction for the sake of destruction; this is about stopping what doesn’t work and intentionally creating something better, more humane, and more effective.

What We’re Doing

While Women Unite! works within the current system, we focus our efforts on radical, community-led groups. We support grassroots organizations in navigating the current funding landscape while simultaneously critiquing it and educating our community on why it needs to be rebuilt. We funnel the bulk of our money and services into BIPOC- and women-led organizations, taking the burden of fundraising off their plates. You can see more about where our money goes on our Transparency and Equity page.

What You Can Do

Center community voices: Attend teach-ins from your local abolitionist organizers, listen to and read the work of BIPOC thinkers and activists, and check your privilege and continually check in with what assumptions and complexes you’re bringing to this work.
Challenge big philanthropy by giving what you can: If you can give regularly, become a monthly donor to a grassroots organization you care about; monthly donors allow organizations to count on your support and plan and budget better. We recommend supporting our newest client, Free Root Operation, and their Education Emancipation program working to disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline and our partner, #LetUsBreathe Collective, an alliance of artists and activists organizing to imagine a world without prisons and police. Or give directly to people, and move beyond the confines of nonprofits. Connect with a local mutual aid effort to make sure our neighbors are housed and fed.
Embrace change, not charity: Show up to a protest, call your alderperson, call your mayor, or register people to vote. One simple action you can take right now is telling your Alderperson to defund CPD and redirect the $1.8 billion of public resources to Chicago’s under-resourced communities through Defund CPD.

Every single one of us can push ourselves a bit farther, rethink how we currently do things, draw inspiration from folks who are doing them in new ways, and change our behaviors. We can find those things that work for us, that inspire us, that energize us and commit to them. We can connect with others in ways that create new pathways and new meaning. Let’s stop waiting for cops and billionaires to be the solution and start being the solution ourselves.

Let’s be a part of the transformation that ripples out rather than trickles down.