[TedShiller]

In Minneapolis, they are going to vote for the dismantling of the police department, to switch to community based policing.

While this sounds good on the surface, the reality will unfortunately be quite a bit messier. It will lead to what some call the "San Francisco" model of policing: Crime is allowed to happen, in open view and without any risk of prosecution, in a concentrated area of the city, which already has a lot of crime. The implicit agreement is that it's ok for crime to occur there, as long as it doesn't spill outside of that area. In San Francisco that area is called the Tenderloin. Of course, policing and enforcement will continue as always in the wealthy areas, which will be protected from crime as they always have.

The end effect is that you have very little policing and enforcement, as people wished, but the crime becomes highly concentrated in one area. This is terrible for the people living there.

I hope people understand this before they decide to dismantle police departments.

[d2v]

The thesis of the book isn't that eliminating policing will solve the problems that create violent crime, but that policing itself doesn't prevent crime or fix those underlying problems. I'd really suggest giving the book a read.

[hindsightbias]

Economically determinant policing. I guess Twitter putting their HQ in the Tenderloin is some techno-libertarian experiment. But given the last few years of jury selection rounds I’ve attended, the testimonies from Twitter SRO tenants are not pleased with the progress.