The End of Policing

“Any effort to make policing more just must address the problems of excessive force, overpolicing, and disrespect for the public. Much of the public debate has focused on new and enhanced training, diversifying the police, and embracing community policing as strategies for reform, along with enhanced accountability measures. However, most of these reforms fail to deal with the fundamental problems inherent to policing.”

Vitale argues that so long as the foundation of policing remains the same, then institutional racism, racial profiling, and police with a warrior mentality will continue unchallenged. Failure to recognize this has led to all of these initiatives, including diversity hiring, failing. Furthermore, he argues that there is a fundamental difference between what is taught and what is practiced on the streets.

“The broken-windows theory magically reverses the well-understood causal relationship between crime and poverty, arguing that poverty and social disorganization are the result, not the cause, of crime and that the disorderly behavior of the growing ‘underclass’ threatens to destroy the very fabric of cities.”

Vitale argues that western societies continue to blame marginalized groups for their present predicament. This is evidenced by the way which SROs have been introduced in schools and the excess use of arrests, ticketing, and use of physical force in dealing with PMIs, unhoused people, sex workers, and people of color. This theory fails to take into account the effects of slavery, colonization, and white privilege.

“Diversity and multicultural training is not a new idea, nor is it terribly effective. Most officers have already been through some form of diversity training and tend to describe it as politically motived, feel-good programming divorced from the realities of street policing.”

Vitale argues that part of why this is true is because such training programs only focus on superfluous and sociobiological traits as opposed to the socio-cultural and economic factors that plague low-income communities. Furthermore, this type of training fails to consider the inherent institutional racism that exists within policing.

“The training police receive at the academy is often quite different from what they learn from training officers and peers. The emphasis is on strict discipline and rote learning of laws and rules, and emphasizes proper appearance over substance. Cadets are given little in the way of substantial advice about how to make decisions in a complex environment, according to two veteran officers’ memoirs.”

Vitale argues that police theory is rarely applied outside an academic environment. This is especially true of the increasing demands upon police to deal with 911 calls related to mental health crises. Ill-equipped, the majority of police officers lack the interpersonal skills and communication techniques needed to de-escalate such encounters.

“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—and are much quicker to use force at the slightest provocation or even uncertainty.”

Vitale details the warrior mentality that is instilled in police cadets by their commanding officers. Compounding the situation are moral panics and popular culture portrayals of police work. The latter paints an unrealistic portrait that officers should expect to be met with violence, despite the fact that they rarely encounter such action during patrol in the first place.

“Reformers often call for recruiting more officers of color in the hopes that they will treat communities with greater dignity, respect, and fairness. Unfortunately, there is little evidence to back up this hope. Even the most diverse forces have major problems with racial profiling and bias, and individual black and Latino officers appear to perform very much like their white counterparts.”

The culture of policing plays a role in police’s actions, despite their social or racial background. Internalized oppression also plays a role. Police of color are often placed in positions where they must demonstrate their loyalty to their fellow colleagues despite the reality that they themselves are treated similarly when out of uniform.

“By conceptualizing the problem of policing as one of inadequate training and professionalization, reformers fail to directly address how the very nature of policing and the legal system served to maintain and exacerbate racial inequality.”

Vitale argues that any system based on Christian ideals, norms, and values will always ostracize and criminalize the sociological other. This is especially apparent in policing where police have historically been used to maintain the status quo.

“Liberals think of the police as the legitimate mechanism for using force in the interests of the whole society. For them, the state, through elections and other democratic processes, represents the general will of society as well as any system could; those who act against those interests, therefore, should face the police.”

Vitale calls into question the democratic process. He highlights discrepancies and practices that oftentimes give unfair advantages to specific members of society while also preventing others from participating in the democratic process. This was especially apparent in the 2020 presidential elections.

“The reality is that the police exist primarily as a system for managing and even producing inequality by suppressing social movements and tightly managing the behaviors of poor and nonwhite people: those on the losing end of economic and political arrangements.”

Vitale argues that constitutional rights are continuously infringed upon by police. This is because civil rights protests by their nature are indicative of the inequalities that the prevailing class has orchestrated. Thus, policing of these groups are in essence a means to an end in ensuring that lower socioeconomic groups remain dependent on the state.

“More police than ever before are engaged in more enforcement of more laws, resulting in astronomical levels of incarceration, economic exploitation, and abuse. This expansion mirrors the rise of mass incarceration.”

Vitale argues that policing continues to serve its original intent of maintaining law and order at the expense of people of color, people with mental illnesses, and victims of an economic system designed to prevent vertical mobility. The laws in question are designed to maintain racial boundaries and a hegemonic state instead of promoting inclusivity and equality.

“Today’s modern police are not that far removed from their colonialist forebears. They too enforce a system of laws designed to reproduce and maintain economic inequality, usually along racialized lines.”

Vitale argues that the tenets that defined policing in the 19th and 20th centuries continue to this day. Racial profiling is an example of this practice that continues to persist despite numerous reforms, training initiatives, and sanctions.

“The most damning example of this is the War on Drugs, in which millions of mostly black and brown people have been ground through the criminal justice system, their lives destroyed and their communities destabilized, without reduction in the use or availability of drugs.”

Vitale points out that the US government has racialized drug use not unlike it sexualized HIV/AIDS in the late 1970s and 1980s. The criminalization of deviant behavior, the refusal to fund health initiatives, and a general use of excessive force by the police to mitigate said behaviors have been well documented throughout American history.

“We need to produce a society designed to meet people’s human needs, rather than wallow in the pursuit of wealth at the expense of all else.”

Vitale suggests that financial interests outweigh the needs of citizens. A just society is one that ensures that each member has access to equal rights, health care, education, and social services. This includes economic opportunities as well access to the political arena.

“Abundant research shows that learning can’t happen effectively when young people are emotionally or physically distracted. Relying on school police, however, removes the bodily, emotional, and behavioral aspects of the student from the responsibility of teachers and outsources it to police. This is a huge mistake.”

Vitale argues that police lack the pedagogical, health, and social training necessary to engage students meaningfully. Furthermore, this has had disastrous effects on minority students, many of whom are subjected to unrealistic learning expectations in an attempt to maintain school funding.

“Social and emotional learning, behavioral monitoring and reinforcement, peaceable-schools programs, and restorative justice systems have all been shown to reduce discipline problems in schools without relying on the logic of control and punishment.”

Vitale argues that non punitive approaches to behavioral issues have proven to be more effective and beneficial in the long run. This is especially true of restorative justice programs where the offender is reintegrated back into their community and said community is provided with the social, health, and economic tools necessary to maintain them.

“We can never fully eliminate interactions between the police and PMI. There is indeed a need for more training of all officers, and even the participation of officers in some crisis-response scenarios. The situation we have today, however, represents a gross criminalization of mental illness.”

Vitale believes the police lack the education and training necessary to effectively handle cases involving mental illness. He argues that instead of police, an independent body of healthcare professionals should be called in to deal with such cases. This would inevitably help decriminalize people with mental illnesses and provide them with the acute care they require.

“The drive to criminalize homeless people remains strong. While many feel some compassion for those on the margins of society, there is also a high level of frustration at the declining conditions of some urban areas. These ‘quality of life’ concerns play into the broader sense of insecurity felt by people who see their standards of living declining.”

Referring to the broken windows theory, Vitale argues that these initiatives to criminalize people without homes are in fact economically motivated. Gentrification, for example, is partly to blame for the displacement of the unhoused. In turn, the US and its policing policies violate constitutional rights and rights and freedoms.

“There is also a strong tendency among police to view prostitution in highly moral terms. This can lead to minimizing the humanity of sex workers, because of their seemingly intractable involvement in behaviors police find personally offensive, or minimizing their agency in a kind of rescue mentality, in which police identify sex workers as victims in need of saving.”

Vitale argues that the dehumanization of groups like sex workers is essential in policing. The moral authority bestowed upon them has allowed them to apply policies that fail to take into account several factors associated with sex work, not least of all a welfare system that inadequately reflects the cost of living or healthcare in the US.

“Policing has aimed not to eradicate prostitution but to drive it underground. This process leaves these workers without a means to complain when they are raped, beaten, or otherwise victimized, strengthens the hands of pimps and traffickers, and contributes to unsafe sex practices. When sex workers are forced to labor in a hidden, illegal economy, they have little recourse to the law to protect their rights and safety.”

Vitale argues that criminalizing prostitution has essentially victimized sex workers in that they have no recourse to reporting crimes against their person. Thus, sex workers are at the mercy of pimps, organized crime, and abusive clients.

“Many people involved in the drug industry don’t really have a drug problem; they have a job problem. Many others have drug problems that directly stem from the economic conditions they struggle with. There is no way to reduce the widespread use of drugs without dealing with profound economic inequality and a growing sense of hopelessness.”

Vitale indirectly argues that minimum wage in the US is not a living wage. Hence, economic pressures, lack of employment sponsored healthcare programs, and rising costs of living are all responsible for the increasing mental health issues being faced by Americans.

“Without community-level changes in employment opportunities, adequate social services for young people with serious life problems, and improved educational structures, no one program can end the violence.”

Vitale places the responsibility for the failure of minority communities squarely upon local, state, and federal governments. He argues that the funding of police and military over the needs of their society has exasperated an already tenuous situation.

“Border policing is hugely expensive and largely ineffective, and produces substantial collateral harms including mass criminalization, violations of human rights, unnecessary deaths, the breakup of families, and racism and xenophobia.”

Vitale argues that the very nature and function of policing can trace its roots back to xenophobic practices as seen during the periods of colonization and slavery in the US. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that these practices continue today as the US government continues to propagate moral panics about the proverbial other.

“The best way to avoid political violence is to enhance justice at home and abroad. Rather than embracing a neoconservative framework of retribution, control, and war, we should look to a human rights and social justice framework that seeks to ensure universal health care, education, housing, and food as well as equal access to the political process—goals we are far from achieving.”

Vitale argues that models of social and economic progression are available to the US. He turns to a variety of countries and even examines the structure and nature of the European Union (EU). He states that US practices continue to undermine the advancements of not only minority groups but equally, America as a whole.