Philly mayoral candidates are distancing themselves from ‘defund’ and say police staffing is a key priority

It wasn’t that long ago that Philadelphia City Council members, under pressure from racial-justice protesters, voted to cancel a proposed $19 million increase in funding to the police and move millions more to another department.

That was 2020. Five of the people who voted to flat-fund the Police Department are now running for mayor. And times have changed.

Amid a persistent gun violence crisis and a struggle to fill hundreds of police officer vacancies, some of the ex-Council members are further distancing themselves from the now years-old movement to “defund the police” and say staffing up the Police Department is a key priority.

Cherelle Parker is consistently touting her plan to hire 300 more cops. Allan Domb wants to triple the department’s recruitment budget. Helen Gym last week told AL DÍA News: “I’m not going to dismantle departments I’m tasked to run.”

All of the mayoral candidates have said that public safety is the No. 1 issue facing the city. None of them are in favor of reducing the $800 million police budget, and several have advocated for increases in funding to cover technology upgrades or recruitment programs. Most of the candidates have also said they support a variety of antiviolence initiatives outside traditional policing, like job placement programs and mental health supports.

The fact that Philadelphia politicians are resisting the rhetoric of the “defund” movement in many ways reflects how Democrats nationally have shifted the way they speak about law enforcement funding since 2020, when the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd prompted many to rethink the size of police forces.

Across the country, Democrats running in last year’s midterm election backed proposals to provide more resources to police amid soaring gun violence and attacks from Republicans portraying the party as soft on crime.

The candidates seeking the Democratic nomination for Philadelphia mayor now must balance showing that they are responsive to historic levels of community violence while still being committed to police accountability reforms that much of the party supports.

A recent poll shows the way they’re talking about staffing is largely in step with Philadelphia residents.

» READ MORE: Philadelphians are down on their city as the mayor’s race looms, a new poll shows

About two-thirds of Philadelphians believe that the city does not have enough police officers, according to a Lenfest Institute for Journalism/SSRS poll released this week. Just 5% of all respondents said the city has too many police.

But the poll showed attitudes are nuanced. While most people agree that combating crime should be a top priority for the next mayor, only about half said that increasing police funding is a key way to do so.

Of nine crime-fighting strategies presented to respondents, “increasing funding to the police” was the least popular option. The most popular measures that people said the city should prioritize were: increasing access to mental health and drug treatment services, improving relationships between police and local communities, and increasing funding for schools.

The candidates’ pitches on police staffing and funding are largely aligned, but they differ in style.

Parker said during a recent forum that the “loud narrative” to reduce police funding “was not in tandem with the people of our great city.” Domb said clearly: “I would fund the police.”

Both have taken a tough-on-crime approach in campaign messaging and advertisements, with Parker decrying “lawlessness” in the city and Domb funding television commercials that blast recent headlines about shootings. Both have said they would focus on increasing the number of police walking or biking in neighborhoods.

Gym has emphasized that law enforcement is part of a larger public safety plan that includes other supports, like housing, mental health services, and infrastructure. She said during a recent forum that “now is the time to stabilize police funding. It is not the time to cut.”

In 2020, Gym shared a post on Twitter about Minneapolis Council members committing to disbanding their city’s police department and imagining a “police-free future.” Gym wrote that the Council members there showed “how transformative change can happen.”

But she didn’t propose doing the same in Philadelphia. She joined the majority of her colleagues — including current mayoral candidates Parker, Domb, Derek Green, and Maria Quiñones Sánchez — in voting to cancel the proposed funding increase. Gym said at the time that she was concerned about a bump in the police budget, especially because it came alongside planned cuts to affordable housing investments and police oversight.

» READ MORE: Philly’s next mayor will inherit an unprecedented gun violence crisis. Here’s how it’s defining the race.

Mayoral candidate Jeff Brown, a grocer who has never before run for public office, has been critical of his rivals’ police funding vote in 2020, saying during a conversation with voters earlier this year: “As far as I’m concerned, every one of them voted to defund the police when we knew we had a violence problem.”

Brown says the department does not need additional funding but does need “better management.”

Similarly, former City Controller Rebecca Rhynhart, who audited the Police Department and is now running for mayor, wrote last year in The Inquirer: “Philly needs more police, but not a bigger budget.”

Since the $19 million increase was canceled in 2020, the Police Department’s budget has grown by more than $75 million, and it is likely to increase more. This month, Mayor Jim Kenney unveiled his final budget proposal, which includes a $55 million police budget increase, bringing the department’s total allocation to $855 million.

Current Council members have signaled that they are likely to back the proposal because the increase is largely to cover contractually obligated labor costs and technological upgrades.