Share and Follow
Members of the Jacksonville Community Action Committee said additional funding won’t reduce crime or improve public safety.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Some Jacksonville groups are calling on Mayor Donna Deegan to reconsider how much money she’s allocating for the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office in her first budget proposal.
Maria Garcia from the Jacksonville Community Action Committee (JCAC) said JSO’s $7.8 million increase won’t help reduce crime.
Instead, the group thinks the money would be put to better use by investing in community programs, mental health services and social interventions.
“Every year they ask for more,” Garcia said, “but every year the community doesn’t get more out of JSO.”
The JCAC plans to organize with other groups Wednesday outside of Sheriff T.K. Waters’ planned town hall in protest of the proposed increase.
“There’s a lot of issues with police brutality, use of force, a lot of complaints that go either uninvestigated or are shallowly investigated and dismissed,” Garcia said.
Garcia said they like Deegan’s proposed funding for the arts and infrastructure in neglected neighborhoods.
“She’s committed to addressing social issues,” Garcia said, “improvements in some of our communities that have suffered from a lack of infrastructure.”
Read Related Also: Alabama GOP shows little willingness to follow court orders for 2nd Black congressional district
But she hopes Deegan will take another look at JSO’s budget and invest that money in “community programs, mental health services and social interventions” instead.
In a statement to First Coast News Monday, Waters said Deegan’s budget “reflects this agency’s recent successes and allows it to address the ever-evolving needs of our community.”
That budget will go to hiring 40 new police officers and 18 non-uniform positions.
Garcia said more officers on the streets won’t fix the underlying issues.
“We have to invest in our communities and address the root causes of crime because you can never out-police crime,” Garcia said. “You can throw an infinite number of police at the situation, but clearly we’ve seen time and time again that it’s not working.”
City Council will need to approve Deegan’s proposed budget before it goes into effect on Oct. 1.
Sheriff Waters’ wasn’t available for an interview Tuesday, but a JSO spokesperson said he “support[s] Jacksonville citizens’ right to protest lawfully and peacefully.”
In a statement to First Coast News, Deegan said:
“I promised to build safer neighborhoods by taking a holistic approach that puts more officers on the streets and gets to the root causes of crime. Our budget funds more Kids Hope Alliance and Jacksonville Public Library programming, and it sets aside funding for task force recommendations on mental health and other quality of life priorities.”
