Should we rethink the police?
Yes, but the more difficult question is, what kind of changes do we want? The police and science have made great strides in preventing crime. Thirty years ago, we thought the police couldn’t do anything about crime. Now we know a lot about how they can—for instance, that “hot spots” policing reduces crime. Crime in most cities is very heavily concentrated—1 percent of streets in larger cities produce about 25 percent of their crime. More than 70 good studies today show that if you focus police on these hot spots, crime will go down there and in neighboring areas. But crime is not the only issue. The police also need public support. Policing is an intrusion on public liberty, one that we allow in return for its benefits. When they go to those hot spots, police need the assent of the public. They’re not an invading army. The police haven’t thought as much about those kinds of problems. To be clear, we hire the police not so that we’ll like them, but to do jobs we need done—like controlling crime. Police departments have mistakenly thought if they did that, public support would come. But it doesn’t work that way. They need to spend just as much effort gaining legitimacy. Read the full article here.