The real cost of the police, and why the NYPD's actual price tag is $10 billion a year
Aug 13, 2020, 01:52 IST
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- At $6 billion a year, the New York Police Department has the largest police budget in the nation.
- But when police pension, fringe benefits, settlements, and debt payments are added in, police spending actually swells to over $10 billion a year.
- Most of that goes to uniformed officers' salaries, overtime, and pension.
- As police budgets have risen, it hasn't led to less crime. Instead, controversial police programs like stop, question, and frisk, high-profile deaths of Black New Yorkers, and record-high settlement payouts have called the rising NYPD budget into question.
- Following George Floyd's death and police-budget cuts in Minneapolis, protesters in New York Cty called for $1 billion worth of cuts to the 2021 NYPD budget. But only about $420 million was actually cut.
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