The End of Policing

by Alex S. Vitale

When police come into every situation imagining it may be their last, they treat those they encounter with fear and hostility and attempt to control them rather than communicate with them—

a few indicate that black officers are more likely to use force or make arrests, especially of black civilians.

The research shows that community policing does not empower communities in meaningful ways.

Recent research shows that the closer whites live to blacks, the more positive their views of the police are—

White jurors are much more likely to side with police, regardless of the race of the officer and the person killed.

Our entire criminal justice system has become a gigantic revenge factory.

It was the creation of police that made widespread enforcement of vice laws and even the criminal code possible for the first time.

the criminal justice system excuses and ignores crimes of the rich that produce profound social harms while intensely criminalizing the behaviors of the poor and nonwhite, including those behaviors that produce few social harms.

Professional outreach workers consistently report that long-term stabilization requires both trust and appropriate services.

increasingly, the only way to access much-needed services is through the criminal justice system.

Policing has aimed not to eradicate prostitution but to drive it underground.

half of all federal prisoners are incarcerated for drug crimes, as are about a third of all state prisoners.

He continues to argue that we should treat drug use as a problem of health rather than criminal justice.

Social norms are always more powerful and effective than formal, punitive ones.

Elliott Currie argues that we need three things to reduce youth offending: “jobs, jobs, and jobs.”

80 percent of the people arrested on drug charges by the Border Patrol were US citizens.

It turns out that most people would rather stay in their own cultural setting than migrate if given the opportunity.

Most real information about extremist violence is obtained by community members reporting on people they fear are up to no good.