By Alex S. Vitale 

"The problem is not police training, police diversity, or police methods. The problem is policing itself."

The central problem, Vitale demonstrates, is the dramatic expansion of the police role over the last forty years. Drawing on firsthand research from across the globe, he shows how the implementation of alternatives to policing-- such as drug legalization, regulation, and harm reduction instead of the policing of drugs-- has led to reductions in crime, spending, and injustice.

The massive uprising that followed the police killing of George Floyd in the summer of 2020-- by some estimates the largest protests in US history-- thrust the argument to defund the police to the forefront of international politics. That case has been put persuasively a few years earlier in The End of Policing by Alex Vitale, now a leading figure in the urgent public discussion over policing and racial justice.