High-profile unlawful killings by police officers in recent years have put American law enforcement under intense public scrutiny. Outrage over abuses of power, most notably the murder of George Floyd, led many to advocate for radical police reform, with some going so far as to call for defunding the police.

Dismissed by elected officials across the political spectrum as an unworkable idea, the defund the police movement failed to gain meaningful traction with policy makers – many of whom have expressed support for police reform rather than complete disbandment. In his 2022 State of the Union Address, President Joe Biden stated in no-uncertain terms: “We should all agree the answer is not to defund the police. It’s to fund the police […] Fund them with the resources and training they need to protect our communities.”

In light of rising violent crime, grassroots support for the defund the police movement also appears to be slipping. An October 2021 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center found that 47% of American adults say they want increased police spending in their area, up from 31% in June 2020. State and local police spending totalled $128.2 billion in 2020, up from $122.6 billion the previous year – and if public sentiment is any gauge, that number will likely continue to rise.

According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, state and local spending on police protection totaled $390.9 million in Delaware in 2020, or about $394 per resident, the 14th highest per capita spending among the 50 states.

A total of 2,570 police officers were employed in Delaware in 2020. Adjusting for population, this comes out to about 256 officers for every 100,000 people, the 20th fewest among states.

Click here to see how police spending compares in every state.

Data on police protection spending is from Census Bureau’s 2020 State & Local Government Finance Historical Datasets and Tables, while data on police employment is from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2021 Annual Survey of Public Employment. Per capita calculations were made using U.S. Census Bureau population data from July 2021.

 

Rank	State	Per capita police spending, 2020 ($)	Number of officers in state, 2020	Officers per 100,000 people, 2020
1	California	564	115,744	295
2	Alaska	554	1,963	268
3	New York	550	80,662	407
4	Maryland	492	17,917	291
5	Nevada	472	8,588	273
6	Rhode Island	468	3,090	282
7	Florida	468	62,604	287
8	Illinois	444	37,861	299
9	New Jersey	430	32,761	354
10	Minnesota	423	12,419	218
11	Arizona	406	19,949	274
12	Wyoming	401	1,862	322
13	Colorado	400	16,605	286
14	Delaware	394	2,570	256
15	Oregon	374	8,915	210
16	Hawaii	374	4,154	288
17	New Mexico	361	5,856	277
18	Kansas	361	8,794	300
19	Connecticut	359	9,408	261
20	New Hampshire	357	3,660	264
21	Massachusetts	346	19,923	285
22	North Carolina	346	30,721	291
23	Montana	344	2,617	237
24	Ohio	344	29,281	249
25	Missouri	344	17,991	292
26	Vermont	341	1,366	212
27	Tennessee	331	21,365	306
28	Pennsylvania	330	29,914	231
29	North Dakota	330	2,050	265
30	Washington	329	14,776	191
31	Wisconsin	326	14,966	254
32	Louisiana	326	16,206	350
33	Texas	320	79,745	270
34	Virginia	313	21,158	245
35	Nebraska	298	4,923	251
36	Idaho	292	4,416	232
37	Michigan	290	20,040	199
38	Alabama	289	14,290	284
39	Oklahoma	288	11,309	284
40	Iowa	287	7,061	221
41	Georgia	284	27,743	257
42	Utah	282	6,221	186
43	South Carolina	276	14,478	279
44	Mississippi	267	8,580	291
45	South Dakota	258	2,123	237
46	West Virginia	254	3,901	219
47	Arkansas	245	8,902	294
48	Maine	241	2,957	215
49	Indiana	236	15,633	230
50	Kentucky	182	9,680	215