The contemporary American policy landscape is replete with concern over police funding, manifesting most dramatically in prominent calls to "defund the police."  We trace an important turning point in the construction of contemporary police funding to the mid-20th century, when the federal government first intervened in providing mass resources to state and local law enforcement.   Drawing on social conflict and status threat theories, we ask, first, how federal funding was distributed in relation to the political empowerment of Black people after the Civil Rights Movement.  And second, we ask how the so-called ``disorder'' of the Civil Rights movement and the urban riots of the 1960s and 1970s attracted federal law enforcement funding.  Finally, we consider the legacy of this funding for the contemporary distribution of police resources.  While studies of the punitive turn often engage with punitive attitudes and the rise of mass incarceration, our results provide new and important findings that speak to the less studied, but critically important, role of police funding.

Contributions to and/or sponsorship of any event do not constitute departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program, speakers or views presented.