The End of Policing

Throughout his book, Vitale focuses on existing reforms like operational reforms, behavioral reforms, training, and oversight. In every instance, said reforms have either failed outright or offer limited success. This is based on several factors, including the continued reliance on training methodologies that are functionally dependent on James Q. Wilson and George Kelling’s broken windows theory (1982). Vitale describes it:

[It’s] a deeply conservative attempt to shift the burden of responsibility for declining living conditions onto the poor themselves and to argue that the solution to all social ills is increasingly aggressive, invasive, and restrictive forms of policing that involves more arrests, more harassment, and ultimately more violence (7).

Diversity hires is another reform that consistently falls short due to the institutional racism that permeates departments across the US. Despite the inclusion of people of color on police forces the issue remains twofold. First, Black and Latino police officers historically faced discrimination within departments. Second, according to Vitale, “even the most diverse forces have major problems with racial profiling and bias, and in individual black and Latino officers appear to perform very much like their white counterparts” (11). Police training inherently teaches people of color internalized oppression. Even procedural justice reforms have been criticized by Vitale for doing “little to address the racially disparate outcomes of policing” (15). Instead of providing meaningful changes in the way of social, economic, education, health changes, Vitale asserts that any reform will fall short precisely because “that is how the system is designed to operate” (15), so long as marginalized people of society remain the target of criminalization.

Operational reforms require police officers to take on duties that are often outside their purview, record instances where force is used when dealing with the public and following judicial procedure. Behavioral reforms have targeted police use of inappropriate force including choke holds, unlawful detainment, seize and searches without a warrant, and racial profiling. Despite numerous training initiatives over the course of the last century, Vitale argues that what is taught is rarely practiced. Couple a broken windows approach to policing with what Vitale refers to as a warrior mentality and the problem becomes exacerbated. Vitale describes this mentality as police thinking “of themselves as soldiers in a battle with the public rather than guardians of public safety” (3). The latter has been reinforced through the introduction of military grade weapons, vehicles, and tactical training since the 1970s. Vitale argues that this paramilitary approach to policing, or rather an us-versus-them mentality, also prevents meaningful reform from being adopted nationally.

Finally, Vitale states that oversight of police officers in the field through the use of body cams has proven largely ineffective because of noncompliance by police officers, among many things. An unwillingness of the Department of Justice to hold the police accountable coupled with an unwillingness by state and federal government to create an independent body to oversee policing as a whole is largely the issue. Throughout his book, Vitale makes several suggestions to alleviate these issues. They include but are not limited to disarming the police; redefining the role of the police; adopting restorative justice programs; redistributing government funding toward appropriate social, economic, and diversion programs. For example, Vitale examines the differences between the police in Great Britain and the US. He highlights that by being disarmed, Great Britain police officers rely more on communication than brute force when dealing with suspects, persons with mental illness, or unhoused people. Vitale also argues that criminalizing the unhoused “violates the International Covenant Against Torture and the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights” (98).

Vitale’s suggestions for alternative reforms and practices have largely been ignored by policy makers. This is due to a neoliberal agenda that continues to see cuts made to services, education, and healthcare. It also harkens back to the broken windows theory in that society views marginalized groups as responsible for their predicament as opposed to being victims of a neoliberal government. The US government “has basically abandoned poor neighborhoods to market forces, backed by a repressive criminal justice system. That system stays in power by creating a culture of fear that [policing] claims to be uniquely suited to address” (53).

Thus, Vitale calls for the defunding of the police and the removal of paramilitary equipment, firearms, and vehicles. He argues that it is inappropriate for police officers to be in possession of such things, especially in lieu of the warrior mentality that police officers have adopted. “While individual officers may not harbor deep biases-though many do-the institution’s ultimate purpose has always been one of managing the poor and non-white, rather than producing anything resembling true justice” (53).