Feature story: America's policing system is broken. It's time to radically rethink public safety

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Feature Story America's Policing System Is Broken. It's Time to Radically Rethink Public Safety By Josiah Bates Reporter, TIME As a reporter at TIME, I've covered lots of stories about policing, criminal justice and racial issues. After the killing of George Floyd, when these issues shot to the top of the country's agenda yet again, my colleague Karl Vick and I saw an opportunity to explore why activists were saying the current policing model was beyond reforming—and investigate what could take its place. Looking beyond the slogan "defund police," we wanted to show what a new form of public safety could look like. Karl went to Minneapolis, where the City Council had launched itself on that very mission, beginning a year-long study grounded in consultations with traditionally over-policed communities. Academics have found that police (who are not trained to deal with much of what they encounter) might become only one component in a public safety system that also includes specialists in mental health, addiction, or violence prevention. That approach would involve channeling resources into communities that know best what works, and have historically been seen as the sources of problems rather than solutions. Much of my reporting came from Camden, New Jersey, a city that disbanded and relaunched their police department in 2012 and has seen some positive results from their changes. The city has become somewhat of a beacon as a model of police reform, though through my reporting I learned what actually happened in the city is far more complicated. If Camden can be viewed as an example of what's possible under the current model, Minneapolis has embraced the possibilities of "transformation" in a system that consciously departs from a tradition that began with slave patrols. Our story stresses the possibility of at least one city seizing a moment when polls show a large majority of Americans have embraced the slogan "Black Lives Matter." Read the Story » Share the feature story

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