While police officers continue to maintain their position as the first-response entity to violent crime, massive police funding increases by local governments over the last forty years has made policing synonymous with social issues such as homelessness and mental health (Vermeer et al. 2020, 2–6). Today, police officers continue to feature consistently higher rates of dispatches for homelessness, minor disturbances, and dispute mediations than for violent crime – policing areas that are not apprehended appropriately in most American police training programs (Lamin & et al. 2016, 4–9). Most importantly, officers are regularly expected to understand and assist individuals experiencing mental trauma and other mental health crises, placing them in situations outside their purview of expertise and jeopardizing their relationships with people experiencing homelessness (PEH) (Reuland et at. 2012, 18–32). This paper challenges the one-stop-shop police identity by presenting qualitative data from Chicago-based police officers, homeless shelter employees, individuals of higher academia, and leaders of public foundations to argue that a police divestiture will benefit the city of Chicago by increasing the quality of resources available to PEH without imposing any substantial setbacks to the Chicago Police Department (CPD).
Michael Kaydin (Fri,) studied this question.
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