Re-imagining public safety (with King County Councilmember Girmay Zahilay)

Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer

Civic Ventures

Business, Government, News, Politics

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 12 June 2020

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Budgets are a reflection of our values, and the money we budget for the police is no exception. Our state and local budgets for what we call “safety” are not getting outcomes that reflect our morals. Seattle-area King County Councilmember Girmay Zahilay joins Nick and Jessyn to lay out five policies elected officials should be pledging to support right now to re-imagine public safety. Girmay Zahilay is a member of the King County Council from District 2. He is an attorney, non-profit founder, and organizer. Twitter: @GirmayZahilay Further reading: City council will consider defunding Seattle Police: https://crosscut.com/2020/06/city-council-will-consider-defunding-seattle-police Washington state’s other epidemic: Mass incarceration: https://crosscut.com/2020/03/washington-states-other-epidemic-mass-incarceration Defund the police? Here’s what that really means: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/07/defund-police-heres-what-that-really-means/ Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer

Transcript

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0:00.0	When people say redirect funding or defund the police, however you want to phrase it,
0:06.0	they're saying our current funding systems are broken and don't keep people safe.
0:10.0	Cities and states and counties spend
0:13.0	ginormous amounts of money on policing and it's beginning to become
0:18.7	clear that these strategies are not working very well.
0:22.6	I would bet a lot of people don't think our budgets as they're currently construed reflect our values.
0:31.6	From the offices of Civic Ventures in downtown Seattle, this is Pitch Fork Economics with
0:38.3	Nick Hanauer.
0:39.8	It's like Econ 101 without all the BS.
0:43.0	I'm Nick Hanauer, founder of Civic Ventures.
0:48.0	I'm Nick Hanauer, founder of Civic Ventures.
0:51.0	I'm Jessen Farrell and I'm Senior Vice President
0:54.3	at Civic Ventures and a former state legislator.
1:00.6	Pitch Fork Economics is of course a podcast devoted to questions about economics but today for really obvious reasons we're going to take a detour into the even more horrific world of racism and police brutality and its connection, I suppose, to economics in some way.
1:19.0	Yeah, and you know, there is obviously a lot of unpacking to do around the protests that have happened over the last several days.
1:28.0	They're the culmination of many, many years of decades of activism. But one of the things that is really apparent is
1:35.1	that there are communities that are over policed and part of that is because we
1:39.7	criminalize poverty, we criminalize things that are an outgrowth and a symptom of not just racism but income inequality and as a consequence black and brown communities which you know by design are suffering both
1:55.6	economically but are then also over policed because of that relationship.
1:59.7	Right and you know the economic consequences of this are really significant because cities and
2:06.0	states and counties spend just ginormous amounts of money on policing and courts and so on and so forth.
2:16.2	And you know, I think it's beginning to become clear that these strategies are not working very well.
	...

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