Why Police Pull Back? Organizational Injustice and Depolicing

Depolicing refers to a perceived decline in police engagement, particularly in proactive enforcement. Although widely invoked in political and media debates, the concept remains theoretically and empirically contested. Existing research suggests that overall police activity remains relatively stable and that only a minority of officers report reducing their own interventions, raising questions about the origins of disengagement narratives. Drawing on an organizational justice framework, this study analyzes 59 in-depth interviews with Quebec police officers to examine how officers construct accounts of disengagement through lived experiences of oversight. We identify three interrelated dynamics associated with radical disengagement: employer-initiated internal investigations that constrain blame externalization and disrupt occupational solidarity; precautionary administrative measures that produce stigmatization and isolation; and disciplinary responses to morally framed proactive practices, often interpreted as noble cause corruption. We argue that radical depolicing is rooted less in external scrutiny than in perceived organizational injustice.