We hold idealized views of police as good vs evil given their colonial-to-civil-rights social control roots, give them too much unaccountable power (and militarized firepower), and pile societies economic, mental health, and prohibition issues onto them resulting in criminal justice approaches to health and community rebuilding problems. Also, they are expensive, bad at these things, and kill a lot of poor people.

Says and cites what a lot of folks (M. Alexander and E. Hinton certainly) have said more thoroughly, in a solid policy-oriented critique. Policing as it exists today needs to be steeply curtailed, but as part of a fundamental shift in how we view [criminal] justice in this country.