Los Angeles voters have approved Measure J, also known as “Reimagine LA County,” which requires that 10 percent of the city’s unrestricted general funds — estimated between $360 million and $900 million per year — be invested in social services and alternatives to incarceration, not prisons and policing.
As of Wednesday afternoon, with a majority of votes counted, 57.1 percent of voters supported the measure, 42.9 percent opposed, according to the Los Angeles County registrar.
The measure’s passage comes at a moment when activists across the US — including in LA — have called for defunding police departments. While Measure J isn’t directly a defund the police initiative, it was designed as an important first step toward the public health and investment-based model of public safety that animates the defund movement.
A critique often made by police reformers of all stripes is that American cities rely far too heavily on law enforcement to address issues like substance abuse, mental health, and homelessness that would be better handled by social service […]
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