Minneapolis City Council obtained a "veto-proof majority" to dismantle its city's police department and rebuild "a new system of public safety." And New York's mayor, Bill de Blasio, pledged to cut the budget of the largest police department in the US, NYPD, and reallocate the funds to social services. In Seattle, Mayor Jenny Durkan is facing growing demands to cut SPD's budget by 50 percent. And so we are entering a period in US's urban history that has all of sudden placed policing into a state of existential crisis: Do we really need it? What exactly does the police actually do with all of its time and money? Do cops make society safer? Who are the bad guys?
There is no need for a sex worker or a drug user to ever encounter an armed enforcer of the law. The same goes for petty criminals. Successful but underfunded programs such as Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD), which keeps the offenders of petty crimes out of jails and the costly court system, exist and already point in a post-police enforcement direction.