The New Public Safety: Police Reform and the Lurking Threat to Civil Liberties

Front Cover
Univ of California Press, Aug 26, 2025 - Law - 238 pages
Efforts to reduce reliance on police have gained momentum since 2020, driven by a growing recognition that public safety is better served when addressed by experts in medicine, mental health, houselessness, and behavior intervention. But this rush to reimagine public safety carries a serious risk: a long history of abuse exists within social welfare systems, and the laws protecting us from police who perpetrate these types of abuses largely do not apply to EMTs, social workers, and other nonpolice responders. While commending efforts to remove police from places they do not belong, The New Public Safety: Police Reform and the Lurking Threat to Civil Liberties raises the alarm on the dangers these reforms can pose if undertaken without proper restraints and protections and offers practical, achievable solutions to address these threats. 
 

Contents

Why Are Police Everything Everywhere All at Once?
13
The New Public Safety
31
Search and Seizure without Police
52
Brutality without Police
78
A Safer Public Safety
104
A Constitution That Serves We the People
130
An Urgent Plea for Common Ground
145
Notes
163
Bibliography
185
Index
219
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2025)

Shawn Fields is Professor of Law at California Western School of Law and author of Neighborhood Watch: Policing White Spaces in America.

Bibliographic information