Lansing City Council Member Proposes Cutting Police Budget In Half

Lansing City Council Member Brandon Betz wants to cut the Lansing Police Department budget in half as part of the defund the police agenda.

The police budget in Lansing was $43.2 million in 2019, for a department with 243 full-time employees.

Betz said this was a conversation that wasn’t happening on the city council, in part because “I’m a white male,” according to WKAR.

Betz said, “Police officers, as they are right now, are doing too many things. … And so, when we talk about what the police do, I think the police can do a lot less, and I think that we can change those services and put those services into something different.”

In 2019, the Lansing Police Department received 84,313 calls for service, or an average of 231 a day.

Here’s a list of some of the reasons people called with the number of times calls were made by citizens on that topic:

Check Welfare (of an individual): 5,725

Fight: 2,542

Assault: 2,257

Domestic Assault: 1,572

Home Invasion: 1,369

Hit & Run Accident: 1,204

Shoplifting: 902

Shots Fired: 716

Personal Protection Order: 369

Sexual Assault: 292

Robbery: 179

Shooting: 67

Stabbing: 56

Kidnapping: 35