Assembly candidate wants towns to have a ‘Department of Social Response’

A candidate for State Assembly proposed defunding local police departments and restricting law enforcement to create a Department of Social Response.

Brian Everett, a Rutgers-Camden dean challenging two incumbents in the 4th legislative district, made his suggestion in 2020 after George Floyd was murdered by a police officer in Minneapolis.

“I am not horrified by the thought of defunding the police, and that is because I have taken the time to learn about what this means,” Everett said at the time.  “Defunding the police is a call to rethink the distribution of billions of dollars of municipal taxes, and instead of using the police as the only answer to many of our societal flaws, we should instead send some of these billions of dollars to programs that better enable communities to thrive, sort of from a preventative perspective.”

Everett wanted a social response agency that put the chief of police at the same level as a chief of mental health and a chief of community development, with the superintendent of schools at the same level – all reporting directly to the mayor.

“How does the saying go? An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure? And we might be able to channel an ounce of prevention by merging all of these services under one domain,” Everett wrote.  “We should want mental health services to blossom so that cops are not called to be the sole handlers of an anxiety attack. We should want our school systems to be funded so that kids stay in school, with air conditioning, books, sports, and world-class teachers. We should want community development efforts to include the actual input of the community instead of predatory corporations, so that land use benefits people first.”

Five years later, Everett has made some adjustments to his proposal.

“I wouldn’t defund the police.  I would definitely work on services, especially mental health,” he said.  “It wasn’t as much about defunding the police but about reimagining responses.”

The plan, Everett maintains, is “a way to rethink the entire spectrum of law enforcement.”

Everett is challenging Assemblymen Cody Miller (D-Monroe) and Dan Hutchison (D-Gloucester Township) in the Democratic primary.