Policy Windows and Protests: Black Lives Matter Protests and Calls to Defund the Police in the United States

Abstract

The murder of George Floyd fueled local level protests calling to defund the police. The study examines if a policy window was opened for decreased allocations to police department funding after the murder of George Floyd and the protests. The study focuses on 26 politically left-leaning cities with a population of 100,000 or more that had protests with at least 500 people in the United States. Budget allocation to each city’s police department were examined using descriptive statistics to determine if the budget allocation to police departments changed following the protests. The results show that 19% of cities in the study decreased funding to police departments in 2021, and 50% cities decreased funding to police departments in 2022. The results support the argument that a national focusing event can open a policy window for changes to local level budget allocation by connecting the concept of policy windows to the open systems theory of budgeting. However, cities remain constrained by circumstances in their external environment, meaning some cities were not able to reduce resource allocations to police departments. These constraints include counter actions by state governments to prevent reducing the allocation of funds to police departments and increasing crime rates. This research presents insights into local government budgetary decision-making in response to a national focusing event.