Are Police the Key to Public Safety?: The Case of the Unhoused

51 Pages Posted: 18 May 2022 Last revised: 19 Sep 2022

See all articles by Barry Friedman

Barry Friedman

New York University School of Law

Date Written: May 13, 2022

Abstract

We as a nation have to think deeply about what it means for a community to be safe, and what role the police play (or do not play) in achieving that safety. We’ve conflated, if not entirely confused, two very different things. One is the desire to be safe, and how society can assist with safety, even for the most marginalized or least well-off among us. The other is the role of the police. Contrary to what many seem to think, the police are not a one-size-fits-all provider of public safety.

In this paper, I discuss this issue in the context of one of the most intractable and challenging problems in the United States, that of unhoused individuals living among us. Rather than doing what we are able to help those who are unhoused to safety, we criminalize their conduct. This does not solve the problem—indeed it creates a revolving door of street to jail to street. We reach this result because we fail to utilize cost-benefit analysis around public safety issues and are especially neglectful of social costs. And also because we fail to have a candid conversation about what public safety means, and how to achieve it. The paper suggests alternative approaches to public safety, instead of relying so heavily on the police. One of them is an untried idea of creating an entirely new set of first responder—individuals holistically trained, including in social services, mediation, and much else—to deal effectively with social needs they encounter on the streets.

Suggested Citation

Friedman, Barry, Are Police the Key to Public Safety?: The Case of the Unhoused (May 13, 2022). 59 Amer. Crim. L. Rev (2022), NYU School of Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 22-29, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4112522

Barry Friedman (Contact Author)

New York University School of Law ( email )

40 Washington Square South
Room 317
New York, NY 10012-1099
United States
212-998-6293 (Phone)
212-995-4030 (Fax)

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
127
Abstract Views
547
Rank
402,244
PlumX Metrics