Boston mayor moves to reallocate $12 million from police department's overtime budget

Boston is taking a step toward calls to defund the police.

On Friday, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh declared racism a "public health crisis" in the city, and announced an initial $3 million investment to help combat it. That, along with $9 million more, will be taken from the Boston Police Department's overtime budget and reallocated to community health and business programs, Walsh proposed as part of next year's budget.

Coronavirus has disproportionately affected black people in Boston and throughout the U.S., and helped expose how systemic racism affects public health, whether that's through discriminatory treatment or livelihoods that put people of color at greater risk of disease. But "the impacts go far beyond the current crisis," Walsh said Friday, and announced a proposal for the city council to cut 20 percent of the police department's overtime budget to address public health shortcomings. The $12 million will be divided up to support trauma response and counseling, community and small business investments, housing security, and mental health crisis support.

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Walsh's move is what advocates for "defunding the police" are asking for, albeit on a small, first-step scale. The defund movement asks municipalities to take funding from police departments and put it toward community programs that address mental health, gun violence, and other issues that lead to the problems police have to address in the first place.