#Defund or #Re-Fund?: Re-Examining Bayley’s Blueprint for Police Reform

Abstract

In light of the defund the police movement, it is imperative we consider what police reform could and potentially should look like. Some, for example, have called for a reduced police footprint in marginalized communities through reallocating police funding toward preventative services for a myriad of social issues. However, drawing on Bayley's (1994) Police for the Future, we show that a dilemma arises with respect to police involvement in these issues: the police cannot be solely relied upon to address all social issues, but they cannot be fully absolved of the responsibility either. As such, further drawing on Bayley's (1994) thoughts for police reform, we instead argue for the adoption of evidence-based policing as a more fruitful driver of meaningful, longterm police reform as it not only enables the police to identify practices that are effective or even harmful, but it also can be used as means for police accountability.

Using a means-end approach for understanding the struggle between police reform and abolition

“…As outlined by Koziarski and Huey (2021), the mandate of the police to prevent crime, preserve the peace, provide assistance to victims and act as a crime response, not only makes them a "catch all" to social ills, but also would make it incredibly difficult to rid them of a specific call type. Koziarski and Huey (2021) help to provide context, that the police may come into contact with citizens who suffer from compromised mental health, substance abuse or other social determinants of health for reasons outside of call types (see Koziarski and Huey, 2021). Even if preventative programs were extremely effective, such as police divesting or defunding, it would be naïve to assume we could rid the police of a specific call type.…”