The End of Policing. Alex S. Vitale.

Vitale, Alex S. The End of Policing. Verso, 2017.

I give this book three out of five stars because… well, partly it’s a preaching-to-the-choir situation, where I don’t think those who don’t already agree with his viewpoint will be terribly convinced by his approach, and partly I found that it didn’t offer much additional information or ideas about what to do next.

I read books about social issues largely for two reasons: One, I want more information about those issues, whether it’s about their history or how they affect people or how they’ve played out in court or WHATEVER… just more info. Regardless of where I stand on the issue when I begin reading, I’m looking for additional credible facts and analysis. Two, I want ideas about what I can do next, beyond reading the book.

Vitale takes what I read as a “call-to-arms” tone in much of this book, and that works… if you’re already on board, and ready to be called to arms. I’m fine with this; different books target different audiences, and there’s nothing wrong with preaching to the choir. Sometimes the choir needs it. Conveniently, I was already on board with his message… so, great, here we are! On board, fired up, ready to get shit done… so now I’m looking for some specifics, some ideas about where to go from here. Aaaand… there really wasn’t any of that. The book is a little light on strategies for change.

I think we need content that helps nudge people who are on the fence to see the problems with policing.
I think we need content that preaches to the choir and stirs us up to get out there and do something about the problems with policing.
I think we need content that gives us practical ideas and instruction on what to actually do next.

My problem with this book is that it seemed to tap into a weird in-between space. It seemed to me to target people who were already on board, but then it didn’t really ADD much in the way of information or strategies. Perhaps I’m just not the target reader, but I’m struggling to figure out exactly who the target reader would be.

If I had to sum up the most useful thing I got out of this book, I’d share this quote from it:

“As inequality continues to increase, so will homelessness and public disorder, and as long as people continue to embrace the use of police to manage disorder, we will see a continual increase in the scope of police power and authority at the expense of human and civil rights.”

The idea that sticks with me from reading The End of Policing is that we are currently using the police to deal with all sorts of social problems (“disorder”), which means we’re approaching those problems with a power-over, aggressive, pro-violence mindset. Toning that down--training police to do what they do a little better--isn’t enough. We need to completely CHANGE how we approach these problems, which means we need to stop seeing them as “police” business in the first place.

This wasn’t a new concept, but I liked how Vitale articulated it.