End the Police, Or Enable New Roles for Protection and Service?
By: Christyl Rivers
Tags: Politics, Police, 2020, Technology, AI

End the Police, Or Enable New Roles for Protection and Service?

New technology, combined with pressing needs of social change and climate disasters could eliminate our need for police

Portland Police 2020, photo by Christyl Rivers

A new background requires new tactics

All summer long in 2020, the outcry for an end to brutal policing and ineffective policy was heard. The background of this outcry was against a global pandemic and fires and floods, and then there was the raging political firestorm on all sides.

The coming disasters ahead, heat extremes, more fires, pandemic outbreaks, floods, refugee migrations and droughts will demand our heroes to be more involved with prevention, fire suppression, food distribution outlets, disease outbreak clinics and refugee centers. We will need a new kind of “policing” for these needs.

Innovative technology policing procedures, and growing protest movements for justice, could align to drive our outdated systems into the past.

New technologies such as massive data-bases, AI and machine learning tools, facial recognition, Geoinformation systems tied to GPS, robo-cameras and drones, are just a few examples of emerging and improving tech solutions that could eventually nudge out the need to put human lives at risk — such as armed police officers — on the streets in the first place.

Or at least we wouldn’t need so many of them.

Before we go all robo-cop on the mean streets of our concrete jungles, let’s also consider an end to the concrete jungles. What if crowded urban landscapes trended more toward no car traffic, affordable housing, and community gardens where former car parks blighted the city? The pandemic has ushered in an era where the need for wide avenues, green spaces, vertical gardens, much more space for social distancing, consider large parks and playfields rather than indoor classrooms, for example.

Heroes just for one way

We can be heroes, just for one way: that way being toward the goal of stronger communities.

The fires of 2020 have taught us that we need firefighters, boots on the ground for many, many tasks that go far beyond just spraying water. We will need to deploy those who would be heroes to do more than eighty percent of the street protection jobs that do not involve violent crime.

It has already been observed — and demonstrated for — that we need officers, not necessarily called cops — to do community work. There are people who need a higher level of persuasion and tact, for example, to evacuate in an impending emergency. There are people with mental health issues, who only become more agitated at the sight of a gun. There are people caught in the throes of addiction who need alternative interventions. There are people on every degree of a wide spectrum of domestic disturbance situations. There are runaways and homeless people that need assistance and not distrust.

CUPS could stand for Community Utility Personnel; these are uniformed officers — not armed with lethal weapons — but maybe with non-deadly tools, who patrol streets looking for any utilitarian need that must be addressed. They could be trained in community awareness, deesscalation techniques, social science, emergency medical first aid, and more.

Today, there are not a few people who feel the cops are not heroes, but a threat. A complete turn around from this perspective would allow that people seeing a CUP would know there is someone there to protect and serve, not to intimidate or threaten.

CUPS could perform many jobs. They could help set the stage for the next inevitable fire or flood disaster. They could intervene on turf disputes among refugee centers. They could deploy auto alerts, using the aforementioned technology, to help pinpoint trouble spots.

Techies and CAPS

As police and criminal justice work progresses and grows with technical and social engineering, more sophisticated and widespread use of technology is becoming common place.

In the field of surveillance, for example, we have GIS, (geographical information systems) aligned with GPS (global positioning satellites). GIS and GPS are enabled by AI, data collection systems, and of course, human technicians. A whole host of this growing field will demand technology literate human beings.

For the sake of definition, I am going to call such integrated systems Community Autonomous Protection Systems, CAPS. One might say, for instance, “There is a CAP bot at the barber shop, so don’t even think of taking a gun near there.” The newest technology that allows Gun Detection, also called GDS, or “shot spotter” allows law enforcement personnel to pinpoint the source of a gunshot, or perhaps hone in on the make, model and license of a speeding car that discharges a gun shot.

Then there are needs yet to be multiplied having do with a huge new network of surveillance, AI supported big data collection, drones, street “tech” support and more. As these systems become increasingly networked together, there will be inevitable complexity that requires sophisticated human personnel who are compensated with decent salaries as well as less dangerous workplaces.

The problem of public relations

At present, the country is divided about the role of criminal justice, and cops. One side sees that systemic racism, and increasing militarization of cops leads to corruption, brutality, even murder. The other side sees that law and order are an important necessity and we can’t abandon policing altogether.

Both sides are wrong. Both sides are right. The present system originated with the idea of protecting property rights and impeding crime by deploying a blue line of defense against the bad guys.

The problem of course, is that most citizens, in fact almost none, see themselves as “the bad guys.” Nor do everyday people view cops as “the good guys”.

Most people fall somewhere between warily intimidated or wildly defensive. And despite decades of cop shows focused on violent crimes and defeating the scum on the streets who want you dead, most police work does not deal with hard core crime.

Considering these two objective facts, enter technology and a whole slew of new jobs, new attitudes, and new respect for a more objective way to deal with daily life in our communities. There are legitimate fears about government overreach, infringing upon people’s privacy rights, and people’s fear of being under constant scrutiny. Given some of the bugs inherent in facial recognition technology, for example, there is every reason to proceed with caution. But this reality too, will require many new jobs, tech opportunities, in-depth analysis monitoring and oversight. Perhaps a new kind of public officer could be deployed for such tasks, as well.

On a public relations level, some people will find Community Autonomous Protection Systems (CAPS) very scary indeed. Do we want cold, unthinking machines making decisions that could ruin a person’s life? But on the other hand, at present, there is no way for a human being to not already hold biased and prejudiced views on police and policing in America.

Machines that do the work of policing do not have to be cold and intimidating. They could be as small or inconspicuous as needed. These sorts of details need to be run through the court of public opinion and experience as we tweak and tinker with new systems.

What cannot be ignored is the new century landscape of climate crisis, looming infrastructure needs, and re-organizing our coping mechanisms to reflect it. The job of re-purposing our cities and streets to reflect a pandemic age and a green jobs age, as well as to usher in a new age of creating a well integrated, and intelligent, networking community. This offers many new fields of opportunity.

If a former parking garage is now a community garden and electric car charging station, for example, someone, or perhaps some robo-drone, will have to periodically monitor that space.

There is a great need for thinkers, innovators, city planners, investors, and of course many kinds of engineers to create a whole new approach to creating, and then, keeping, the peace.