While the nation's attention is focused on another horrific murder by police, real changes are being proposed by activists around the nation. Defund the Police is the work of decades of research and activism that has highlighted the problem and proposed a radical solution. By radical, we mean targeting the root of the problem. Militarized police are being used to provide "social safety services" for which they are not trained and it is NOT keeping us safe. Training them to do social work, homeless outreach, immigration enforcement, mental health services, and school discipline has only increased the reports of police brutality and contributed to mass incarceration. That training is expensive and has bloated budgets while being widely considered ineffective.

Southwest Florida is a unique place with unique needs. However, with Collier County having the lowest crime rate in all of Florida, we question why 45% of the county budget is spent on Collier County Sheriff's Office when mental health services, healthcare, and other needed programs are underfunded and understaffed. We will open this conversation and, although we won't always have all the answers about creating new systems, it is high time someone questioned the broken systems. We envision a world where trained mental health professionals with mental health degrees are called for crisis intervention. A world where there is housing for all who want it, food for all who are hungry, and resources for trauma informed discipline in schools - not one where the same heavily armed person is the first responder to all those situations.

Join us in creating this new vision and raising awareness of locally relevant ways we can bring about radical change - not expensive, empty reform.

Check out the Movement for Black Lives Divest-Invest campaign and the 8 to Abolition campaign for more resources.