Defund the police versus more public safety. Abolish prisons versus law & order. The debate rages on. Meanwhile, our cities burn, our youth kill each other, and the toxicity of American life thickens. The situation is getting bad, so it's time to think outside the box.

As a black man, I am exhausted by the fear of police that has been a reality of my life since I came of age, and which shakes my soul each time I see a police car near me while I am driving. A fear that doesn't subside, until while looking through the rearview mirror I feel assured I won't be stopped for some small infraction like allowing my wheels to touch the line of paint on the road. As a criminal justice practitioner, who has worked in criminal justice for twenty-five years, both in prosecution and defense, I cannot imagine a world of peace and safety without the police in it to investigate the murder, rape, and robbery. I have worked with and against well-meaning police officers in the pursuit of what we believed to be justice.

As a believer in the oneness of the human race, I cannot accept that the police are all bad, just like I cannot accept that any racial group is inherently bad or inferior. Abolishing the police, or taking funding from them and giving it to a new organization, assumes that the police are beyond redemption, rehabilitation, and transformation. I have seen this “beyond redemption, rehabilitation and transformation” philosophy applied to one black man after another who are called criminals and denied all opportunity of second chances once they become involved in the criminal justice system.

I See a Chance for Transformation

I look at the “police issue” and see a chance for the transformation of the police as an aspect of criminal justice. Our current situation presents an opportunity to address true criminal justice reform and bring about criminal justice transformation. We can make the criminal justice system less adversarial and retributive; make it more restorative redemptive and rehabilitative, not just an us against them proposition. Whatever the issues with the police, or police culture, might we take this opportunity to develop solutions that are not polarizing.

Might we imagine a way to increase funding to police, or re-direct existing funding with the objective of defusing tensions, improving police-citizen relations, eliminating bias, and establishing a narrative that sees the police as a protagonist, championing community development? Rather than defunding the police might we fund better police? When I say better police I don't mean police that are better at the police tactics of today. What I mean by better police is police who are better trained in de-escalation strategies and who actively engage in community-building actions. What is needed is School Resource Officers who teach classes on Disproportionate Minority Contact and the School to Prison Pipeline, police department policies designed to change the culture and boot out those whose philosophy is anti young black men, efforts to establish unity with the community, and programs that involve the police in helping to create economic alternatives to young people so they don't get swept into the underground economy.

Community Policing is one example of an attempt to re-imagine policing. Many cities have begun to adopt some form of what is known as community policing. Camden, New Jersey, Tucson, Arizona, Houston, Texas, Jacksonville, Florida, and many other cities have begun community policing programs. These efforts, like all reform efforts, may not prove completely effective at first, however, they represent a stable first step. Now is the time to explore these and other policing models and fund those which prove most effective in recreating the relationship between the police and citizenry.

Police killings of unarmed people of color, although, inexcusable, are just the tip of the iceberg. Under the water is the problem of distrust, fear, and disunity. Let's take this opportunity, where most people want equality of justice, to go deeper into the iceberg of racial injustice in the criminal justice system and erase the us versus them approach that has become a poison in our justice system. Whether we call it Community Policing, or by some other name, it means finding a way to imagine our police in a different way. Such a view requires that we not become fixated on the ills of a few officers, give the police the funding necessary to do a better job, and tie that funding to efforts toward actually transforming criminal justice.