Do Both Parties Agree? Police Can’t Be Our Only Answer to Crime | Opinion

If you were asked which presidential candidate believes that the police cannot be the only solution to achieve public safety, how would you respond?

Your reflexive answer might be Vice President Kamala Harris, who has pressed for a comprehensive approach to public safety that includes community-based solutions, investments in social services for marginalized communities, accountability of the criminal justice system, and, yes, the fair and just enforcement of the law.

But those who would go out on a limb and choose former president Donald Trump as their answer to the above question would also be correct. (Well, sort of, depending on what counts as a Trump policy position.)

Certainly, the former president’s rhetoric comes nowhere close to advocating for comprehensive community safety. Trump has doubled down on his “law and order” credentials this election cycle. On the campaign trail, he has pushed for aggressive policing tactics, the nationwide application of indiscriminate stop-and-frisk practices, and indemnifying officers sued for excessive force. Last month, Trump suggested that a “violent day” of policing would end crime, hearkening back to his suggestion as president to use the military to shoot protesters.

But consider a report published in December 2020 and authored by the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice. The commission, which Trump created through an executive order, is comprised of 18 police chiefs and law enforcement professionals hand-picked by then-attorney general Bill Barr.

Trump has likely never read this report. It was issued with little fanfare and buried in the news cycle by other unprecedented events taking place at the time. But it contains several remarkable conclusions given Trump’s unwavering “tough-on-crime” stance. For example, the report explains that “Law enforcement alone is not a cure-all for criminal behavior, nor is it a substitute for valid behavioral health systems. It cannot backstop social programs that do not adequately treat the predicate conditions of crime in the first place.”

Or this striking quote, which could have been lifted from Harris’ talking points: “While law enforcement will always have some role addressing social problems that have an impact on public safety, the Commission recommends enhanced programs and systems to reduce the reliance on law enforcement to be the first provider of social services.”

These statements are consistent with what police leaders have said for years. In 2016, former Dallas police chief David Brown observed, “Every societal failure; we put it off on the cops to solve. Not enough mental health funding—let the cops handle it. Not enough drug addiction funding—let’s give it to the cops. Here in Dallas, we’ve got a loose dogs problem—let’s have the cops chase loose dogs…. That’s too much to ask. Policing was never meant to solve all those problems.”

Crime continues to be such a polarizing issue that points of agreement like these routinely get lost in the political rhetoric, especially during election season. The focus remains on police department funding levels rather than the fundamental question of what creates safety. Here, there is widespread alignment on the idea that the scope of policing needs to be reduced and some of their responsibilities reassigned to other sectors of society and government. Recent polling shows that the public overwhelmingly rejects candidates’ scare tactics and supports comprehensive solutions where the police have an important role in public safety but are not the entire solution.

The good news is that investments in a preventative and holistic approach have gained traction over the past four years. Violent crime rates are trending down across the country. Cities like Baltimore, Boston, and Detroit are seeing marked decreases in violent crime, which local experts have attributed to comprehensive violence reduction strategies. In San Diego, 98 percent of calls for mental health related concerns that armed law enforcement would have responded to are now addressed by a trained mobile crisis response team staffed by a clinician.

The Trump commission’s report is, of course, not entirely acceptable to those committed to justice reform. But when a group of traditional law enforcement officials publicly acknowledges the limitations of its profession in a year when homicides in the U.S. were spiking, the country should take notice.

As Salt Lake City Police Chief Michael Brown testified to the commission, “We are the most expensive, least effective tool to directly impact the underlying issues of mental health and substance abuse that lead to homelessness. In essence we became the Swiss Army knife of social reform.” That approach is not fair to the police nor to the communities they serve. Just ask Trump’s own policing commission.

Ed Chung is the vice president of initiatives for Vera Action and a former senior advisor and federal prosecutor at the U.S. Department of Justice.

The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.