Right Funding, Wrong Priority: Seeking Practical Alternatives to Increasing Phoenix Police Department Budgets

Compounding years of organized abandonment by the City of Phoenix of low-income and majority-POC communities, the City Council continues to raise police budgets year after year. This money goes towards the hiring of more cops who, by nature of the structure of our policing system, will terrorize more and more marginalized people. This year, over 20% of the entire city budget will be spent on policing, and yet thousands of cases will go unsolved, critical social aid programs are still understaffed, and thousands of Phoenix residents will be subjected to police violence. Our greatest hope for systemic change is to defund and divest from police. This thesis book is a detailed account of my research process into the history of policing and police funding, the systemic underreporting of police violence, the current economic and broader social reality of the Phoenix Police Department, and a discussion of the work Poder in Action is doing to create real alternatives to increased police funding. Relevant graphic design projects include a multimedia clock, a designed presentation deck, and a two-panel exhibit. This thesis book also includes projects and events peripheral to my senior year experience in the Visual Communications Design (VCD) program at ASU.