John Roman, senior fellow at the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, an independent research institution supporting decision-makers in using data to make policy, says: “If the crime rate is up, we say, ‘Well, we need more cops because crime is going up.’ If the crime rate goes down, we say, ‘Well, we need more cops because what we’re doing is working.’ It’s ludicrous.”128 Nowhere in this rigmarole does anyone actually question the central premise: Do cops actually create safety? Could we address this problem another way?
