Democrats must control the crime narrative before it controls them

Democrats can apply the same logic to other areas of criminal justice reform. Americans prefer rehabilitation to mass incarceration, and while a March 2021 Ipsos poll found only 18 percent of Americans favored defunding the police, more than double that (43 percent) supported “redirecting a portion of the police budget for social services” — in other words, a more accurate description of defunding the police. Last week, a non-police pilot program in New York reported increased assistance and fewer unnecessary hospitalizations. As John Pfaff writes for the New Republic, so long as their funding isn’t directly linked with police cuts, these programs are popular.

Source: WP