Policing During the Pandemic Shows That an Off-Hands Approach Works

Due to the coronavirus outbreak, a less invasive model of policing is being employed. Here鈥檚 why we should consider this approach even after the pandemic.

Social distancing orders have added to the long list of low-level offenses that police are charged with enforcing as a routine part of their job.

The United States has , with close to . To date, most appear to be against those occupying public spaces during the current pandemic. But then, of course, .

I was a Boston police officer for 27 years before becoming an academic. My career on the force began with the large-scale unrest that accompanied and ended with the massive redeployment of police resources for the .

So I know firsthand how rapidly shifting priorities can determine the way law enforcement carries out its mandate. And as the author of a book , I also know that when officers 鈥渙ver-police,鈥� especially communities of color, they can undermine trust and increase tensions.

Taking a close look at how policing is done during the coronavirus pandemic can shed light on both of these issues: how policing adapts in times of crisis and what happens when police take a more hands-off approach to enforcement.

Softly, softly

Police in New York City, Nashville, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Chicago have scaled back significantly on routine enforcement operations. Even when it comes to the policing of new social distancing orders, officers in departments across the U.S. are being encouraged to tread lightly. 鈥淚f we see large groups, we鈥檒l go and talk to them, educate them about it and try and get compliance,鈥� .

This has coincided with a in U.S. cities during the pandemic. that arrests for January through April 2020 were down almost 60% compared to the same period in 2019. This sharp drop-off has not been accompanied by an increase in reports of crimes. In fact, in Boston, the rates of serious crimes remain nearly identical,

Such a strategy is particularly prudent given how officer numbers have been depleted because of the coronavirus outbreak. In early April, . And New York . Chicago has seen and in Detroit, the alongside many rank-and-file officers.

Drop in crime

Other cities have seen slight drops in crime. New York City, for example, has seen an in the last month when compared to the same period in 2019 鈥渨ith the steepest declines realized amid the citywide coronavirus protections of the last two weeks,鈥� according to the NYPD.

It is not known to what extent the , leading to fewer potential victims. The data on that do not appear conclusive, with some major cities, such as Washington D.C., .

Such large drops in arrest rates suggests that low-level misdemeanors and so-called quality-of-life offenses such as drinking from an open container in public are not being targeted by police in the same way as they were before the public health crisis. The fact that serious crime figures have remained comparatively static, or have fallen in some cities, calls into question the notion that arrests of lower-level offenses can prevent the commission of serious crimes 鈥� the so-called 鈥渂roken windows鈥� theory of policing that despite coming under heavy criticism in recent years.

Go slow

The coronavirus pandemic is an unprecedented event and its long-term impact on arrests and crime rates is not known. But research into what happens when police tread lightly may give us an insight as to what is going on now.

The current operational scaling back of routine law enforcement is reminiscent of police slowdowns or stoppages of the past. , these have occurred during disputes between rank-and-file officers and police management. Other suspensions of 鈥減olicing as usual鈥� have been observed amid tensions related to .

In a study published in 2017, Louisiana State University professor found that scaling back so-called proactive policing鈥攈igh rates of stop and frisk detentions, court summonses, and arrests for misdemeanor offenses鈥攁fter the police-related death of unarmed New York resident Eric Garner coincided with a reduction in violent crimes. They found that reports of murder, rape, robbery, felony assault, burglary, grand larceny, and grand theft auto declined by between 3% and 6% during the halt on proactive policing.

Sullivan and O鈥橩eeffe concluded that the results challenged the 鈥渃onventional wisdom on authority and legal compliance鈥� and imply that 鈥渁ggressively enforcing minor legal statutes incites more severe criminal acts.鈥�

In a , law professor Andrea Cann Chandrasekher found that despite the dramatic fall in arrests 鈥渢he effects on public safety may be limited鈥� and 鈥渕ostly concentrated in the area of minor criminal disorder鈥� rather than serious offenses.

Likewise, an NYPD work slowdown of 2015, after the shooting deaths of officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, saw a .

Arresting developments

After the coronavirus pandemic, it may be time to rethink policing practices that rely on enforcement, such as stop and frisk and the overzealous use of arrest and ticketing for trivial offenses such as jaywalking, panhandling, turnstile jumping, and marijuana possession. This imperative to reimagine the role of police in our cities is supported by research indicating that broken windows policing has not worked in keeping communities safer. Moreover, such 鈥渙ver-policing鈥�

I see the less invasive model of policing seemingly being employed during the coronavirus pandemic as a prudent and timely undertaking. But it also provides an opportunity that may not present itself again in the near term: to reimagine policing without arrests being seen as the main tool against crime.

This article was originally published by .