so strange, and yet

The NYPD has an annual budget if $6 billion. A lot of this budget goes into excessive overtime. When you have such a large budget, it translates into over-policing and dramatically shifts the type of policing that happens. Cops will be more interested in issuing fines as opposed to spending time solving actual crime. This affects poor people and neighborhoods (often people of color) at a disproportionate rate. So over policing for revenue collection and under policing for serious crime ends up becoming a loop.

So when you hear that the NYPD needs an annual budget of $6 billion because “NYC has a high crime rate” just know that it’s like this on purpose. The NYPD drains tax revenue and distributes it internally through excessive overtime and uses fines and fees (officers literally have quotas) to justify it’s need for such a large annual budget.

If the NYPD budget was cut, I promise you they wouldn’t impose an 8pm curfew and have 8000 officers on duty collecting overtime. A budget cut for the NYPD means we could allocate much needed funding to help small local businesses hurt by COVID. We could fund programs on homelessness, mental health, youth services, combating overcrowding in schools and transportation.

If you live in NYC, I urge you to call/email the New York City Council and ask them to cut NYPD funding. This is your right as a tax payer.

The current chair of the Finance Committee is council member Daniel Dromm

Email: [email protected]

District office phone: 718 803 6373

Part i

Snapco - Builds power of Black trans and queer people to force systemic divestment from the prison industrial complex and invest in community support.

Black AIDS Institute - Working to end the Black HIV epidemic through policy, advocacy, and high-quality direct HIV services.

Trans Cultural District - The world’s first-ever legally recognized trans district, which aims to stabilize and economically empower the trans community.

LGBTQ+ Freedom Fund - Posts bail for LGBTQ+ people held in jail or immigrant detention and raises awareness of the epidemic of LGBTQ overincarceration.

House of GG - Creating safe and transformative spaces for community to heal, and nurturing them into tomorrow’s leaders, focusing on trans women of color in the South.

Trans Justice Funding Project - Community-led funding initiative to support grassroots trans justice groups run by and for trans people.

The Okra Project - Collective that seeks to address the global crisis faced by Black trans people by bringing home-cooked meals and resources to the community.