By Betsy Pearl

  In recent years, a series of high-profile cases of police violence—from Michael Brown, Tamir Rice and Eric Garner to George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Jacob Blake—has brought to the national consciousness concerns that have been prevalent among many activists, researchers, and policymakers: What should we expect of the police? Who is responsible for public safety? And what does it mean to invest in safety beyond policing? The traditional understanding of public safety in the United States has revolved almost exclusively around policing, which is demonstrated by the size of the footprint of police agencies and their corresponding budgets. For example, the number of police officers nationwide has grown by 36 percent in two decades—from less than 700,000 officers in 1990 to more than 950,000 in 2012. As the size of American police forces grew, so too did their role in the community. “Efforts to address underlying community problems through social investment took a backseat [to] policing strategies,” noted political scientists Joe Soss and Vesla Weaver. The duties of the modern police force now extend well beyond enforcing the law, to include tasks from treating overdoses and de-escalating behavioral health crises to addressing homelessness and responding to disciplinary concerns in schools. Law enforcement now spends only a fraction of their time responding to issues of violence: American police officers make more than 10 million arrests each year, less than 5 percent of which are for serious violent crimes. The impact of police force expansion on community safety is debatable at best. While determining the cause of crime rate fluctuations is a notoriously difficult task, an analysis from the Brennan Center for Justice finds that the increase in officers had only a modest effect on crime rates in the 1990s, accounting for between 0 percent and 10 percent of the total crime reduction. Police growth continued between 2000 and 2012, with no discernible effect on crime rates. Instead, societal factors, such as growth in income, likely played a more important part in reducing crime rates during the 1990s and 2000s. Sociologist Patrick Sharkey has also analyzed factors contributing to crime reductions between 1990 and 2012, concluding that community-based organizations likely played a “substantial role in explaining the decline in violence” during this time period. In a city of 100,000 people, every new nonprofit focused on neighborhood safety and wellness was associated with an estimated 1 percent reduction in violent crime and homicide. ...

Washington, DC: Center for American Progress, 2020. 37p.