DETROIT Local leaders are weighing in on the national conversation about defunding police departments. Well, Im totally against defunding the police, said Detroit Police Chief James Craig. You talk about taking money from police departments, most departments across this country, anywhere between 70 and 80 percent of a departments budget goes to staffing, and so to take funding away means to take away police, added Craig. At its most basic level, defunding police means taking money away from a department to give to another government agency. Dr. Randall Wyatt, a sociology professor at Oakland University, says that if done right, defunding the police would help officers.