Friend,

Right now, the U.S. has a higher rate of Black incarceration than South Africa did during apartheid. The past 40 years have seen a 408 percent increase in incarceration, along with dramatic increases in spending on policing. Over the same time period, our government has made huge cuts to essential public services like education, widening the racial wealth and health gap for Black communities and other communities of color.

This spending contrast has come into sharp relief as the police have cracked down brutally on protesters rising up for Black liberation and against anti-Black police violence. As organizer Kamau Walton said: “At a drop of a dime, they can find money for uber-militarized tanks and fly helicopters all over the city and shoot rubber bullets, but we can’t put people in houses?”

No wonder activists are calling to move money from an institution that’s killing people (the police) and instead invest our tax dollars in the institutions and services that keep people safe and well. We’re listening and taking the lead from the grassroots, and we want to hear from YOU.

Please click here to take a quick survey. We want your input about divesting from the police and where you’d prioritize investments in your community instead of policing.

Studies show that the most successful (and cost-effective!) way to reduce crime is to give people access to resources—including quality health services, quality public education, stable and affordable housing, clean water, nutritious food, and living wages. These institutions and societal conditions prevent harm by nourishing communities.

Instead, our country prioritizes punitive systems that perpetuate cycles of poverty and violence.

This is clear in our schools, where millions of students are in schools with police, but no counselors, nurses, school psychologists, or social workers. This often traumatizes students: Every time students have contact with law enforcement, they are less and less likely to complete school. Here in Detroit, after years of disinvestment in the city’s public schools, our students just went to federal court to fight for their constitutional right to literacy and adequate education.

This graphic makes our skewed priorities clear:

We must invest more into communities than criminalization. We need more books, not more barbed wire. We need more jobs, not more jails.

In many low-income communities of color, police have adopted what’s known as “broken windows policing,” where rather than waiting for calls for assistance, police actively patrol and monitor neighborhoods—often intimidating and harassing people just for going about their lives.

During a short period when the New York Police Department (NYPD) reduced such policing, a study found that there were 2,100 fewer complaints of crime. Violent crime also went down when the NYPD ended its racist stop-and-frisk program, which targeted Black and brown people at nine times the rate of white people, despite finding that white people were more likely to have contraband.

Out of fear of police terror, many Black people refrain from calling the police in times of need. When people do seek help, it can have deadly or traumatic consequences: One Black store owner recently called police to report a robbery, but when police officers arrived, they beat up the store owner and broke his jaw.

Our current system is not keeping people safe, Friend. That’s why we’d like to know your priorities about where to focus efforts moving forward.

Please take a few minutes to fill out this survey about the movement to divest from police and invest in communities.

Abolitionist organizer Mariame Kaba explained: “The vast majority of people I know who are harmed in multiple ways, whether it’s a theft or a physical assault or rape, never report to the system. They don’t go to the current system. They choose nothing over what we currently have.” In fact, many of the most marginalized people, especially Black trans women, have been criminalized and incarcerated just for seeking help after surviving sexual assault or domestic violence.

After such harrowing experiences, Black women and femmes have built other programs to take care of one another and address harms that don’t rely on the police—including training unarmed, community-based crisis intervention teams to interrupt violence and de-escalate conflict. Such programs are often much less expensive and more effective than policing, but they’re underfunded, which is why I’m pushing for emergency response teams made up of health and human services professionals to respond to instances where police presence may increase conflict.

We’ve also seen mutual aid groups sprout up across the country as the government has failed to adequately respond to the pandemic. People want to care for their neighbors, and know how to do so when needed. Here in Michigan’s 13th district, we’re raising thousands of dollars for local community groups, including for supplies like diapers. Our campaign is also checking in with residents about their well-being, connecting people with resources, and helping folks navigate the ongoing economic and health crisis of the pandemic—which is still disproportionately harming Black people.

Mutual aid is what public safety looks like. Last week I thanked Detroit protesters for helping push the country to reimagine public safety that works for everyone. It doesn't mean tear gas, it doesn't mean handcuffs, it doesn't mean mass incarceration, and it doesn’t mean criminalizing poverty. It means love and compassion, defending human rights like housing and healthcare, and caring for one another so we can all thrive. Or as civil rights lawyer Michelle Alexander recently wrote: “a politics of deep solidarity rooted in love.”

As part of building systems that truly protect us and our neighbors, we have to center the people on the margins and empower people to shape policies that affect their lives. Rooted in community, our campaign regularly works with 13th district residents to hear priorities and get policy ideas.

So we want your input on this issue. Do you agree with the idea of moving money away from the police and into communities? Do you have ideas for programs to reinvest in?

Take this quick survey to let us know what you’d change to make our communities safer.

I grew up in the most beautiful Blackest city in the nation: Detroit. Local protesters have been marching every day since George Floyd died, calling not only to defund and demilitarize the police, but also to end water shutoffs and decriminalize homelessness.

Activists are also demanding an end to the invasive, dangerous facial recognition technology the Detroit police launched with little public input. Facial recognition surveillance endangers our freedoms and our lives: Its errors disproportionately harm communities already at risk for over-criminalization, including trans people, women, and people of color.

That’s why I’ve called attention to the technology in my time in Congress, including introducing legislation last year with Reps. Yvette Clark and Ayanna Pressley to prohibit its use in federally assisted housing facilities. I plan to keep pushing on this issue, as part of dismantling the system of mass incarceration and over-policing of communities.

This week, Reps. Barbara Lee, Ayanna Pressley, and I also introduced the Dismantle Mass Incarceration for Public Health Act, which would require the release of many eligible incarcerated people during the pandemic and for a year afterward. But there’s much more work to be done.

We need real change, and we want your input. Can you take this quick survey to let us know your thoughts about divesting from the police and investing in communities?

The past few weeks have shown us how powerful movements can be in shifting public opinion and policy. We win by being unapologetically progressive and radical, by doing what’s right even when it’s not popular, to maximize moments like this when we can move ideas from the margins to the mainstream.

A majority of Americans support the uprisings, which have become the biggest protests in U.S. history. We’re at a major turning point in our country to address anti-Black injustice and heal deep wounds. I have more hope than ever that we will build a better future, together. Another world is possible!

In solidarity,

Rashida