San Francisco Needs More Police

According to Chief of Police Bill Scott, the San Francisco Police Department is short about four hundred officers. That’s about eighteen percent below expected staffing levels. Increasing the number of police officers, Chief Scott argues, would decrease crime rates in San Francisco, and is crucial to his department’s crime fighting strategy. The “Defund the Police” movement, however, has criticized this approach, and instead argues that cities should invest less in the police and more in social services. This, so the argument goes, would make communities safer by stopping crime in its infancy while having the added benefit of entirely avoiding the penal system.

There is a clear answer to this debate. San Francisco should increase the number of police officers on its streets. Deploying more officers is the better public safety strategy as greater police presence is proven to lower crime rates. Additionally, by virtue of the police’s deterrent effect on crime, increasing the number of officers actually decreases incarceration rates. Beyond these benefits, increased police staffing is an idea that is generally popular, even in those communities that are disproportionately impacted by policing. In contrast, there is little evidentiary support that “alternative policing” strategies work and, even where some evidence exists, the benefits of such strategies are only seen in the far future rather than the present. 

“SFPD” by rulenumberone2, licensed under CC BY 2.0

I. More Police; Less Crime 

The breadth of research comes to a consistent conclusion: Cities that increase their policing levels see a drop in crime. 

• One 2005 study looked at what happened when police in Washington D.C. mobilized officers during “high alert” periods that were common in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attacks. The study found that crime dropped when police levels surged. 

• A 2018 study examined the effects of President Barack Obama’s increase in federal police funding. That study’s authors compared cities that accepted the grants with those that did not. Unsurprisingly, the cities that were able to increase their police budgets saw a drop in crime. 

• A study by economist Steven Levitt of Freakonomics fame examined various factors to determine the causes of the great crime drop of the 1990s. Factors that did not matter? Better police tactics, gun control, and the death penalty. One that did? Increased police numbers. 

• A study examining New York City’s “hot spot” policing strategy (where the New York Police Department deployed police in larger numbers to at-risk areas) found a significant reduction in total crime. 

Thus, the research is clear: More police results in less crime. But the benefits of increased policing do not end there. Not only does greater policing lower crime, but it does so without the social costs of increased incarceration. According to a study by New York University’s Morgan Williams, cities that increased their police numbers not only saw a decrease in the occurrence of serious crimes, but also saw a decrease in the number of arrests for those crimes. This demonstrates that the decrease in crime is not driven by the police simply throwing more people in jail; rather, the increase of police presence deters crime before it occurs. What’s more, another study, specifically of California prison rates, uncovered evidence that more police resulted in a modest reduction in incarceration rates. 

Finally, although increased police staffing requires additional city funds, economic estimates suggest that spending more on police produces a handsome return on investment. A 2018 study found that “every $1 spent on extra police generates about $1.63 in social benefits, primarily by reducing murders.” Similarly, the Williams study found that, on average, cities must spend between $1.3 and $2.2 million to save one life per year. However, when considering that the federal government estimates the “value” of statistical life at roughly $10 million, the payoff is clear (and that is assuming you even accept the concept of “valuing” a human life in dollar terms). 

II. Greater Racial Equity

Another benefit of increasing policing is that it provides disproportionate benefits to a traditionally under-served community. Black Americans experience a paradox in relation to policing: they are both over policed as well as under policed. Black Americans are over-policed because they are disproportionately stopped for petty offenses as compared to other ethnic groups. Yet they are under-policed because serious crimes in their communities garner comparatively less attention. This has left many Black Americans with the feeling that they are both unduly harassed and ignored by police. Thus, part of the solution to better policing in the Black community is just that: better, more responsive policing that addresses community needs. 

Black Americans may be the ethnic group most likely to benefit from increased policing. A crisis that requires immediate attention is the tragic and unacceptable levels of violence from which Black Americans disproportionately suffer. While violent crime has generally decreased since the 1990s, there are still unacceptable trends: “The homicide mortality rate in 2010 for black men between 25 and 34 was about 15 times the rate for white men of the same age.” This racial disparity in violent crime is a public crisis that requires immediate, not generational, attention. 

Increased police staffing undoubtedly lowers the occurrence of homicide. The Williams study found that each police officer added to a city reduces the homicide rate by 0.06 and 0.10 homicides per year. Importantly, however, Williams also found that increased staffing saved Black lives at double the rate as white lives. Ultimately, Williams notes: “Based upon the historical opportunity cost of police employment, our estimates suggest that ‘defunding’ the police could result in more deaths, especially among Black Americans.”

Moreover, while the activist class regularly forwards arguments for ending policing, that position is not widely shared among Black communities. Indeed, data suggests that Black Americans want more, not less police in their neighborhoods. The takeaway is that Black Americans want fair and equitable policing, not that they want to eliminate the police. 

Defunding—or simply not properly funding—police will not achieve the social justice aims purportedly popular among progressive activists. Such a response is likely to result in more, not less, harm to the Black community. It is better to think of the police as a social resource, like any other, whose absence will be felt harder among the vulnerable. Increasing police services, when done constitutionally and fairly, is part of the solution to achieve racial equity in San Francisco.

III. Alternative Solutions Remain Lacking

Another point in favor of increased police staffing is that the opposite approach lacks a cogent plan for improving public safety. “Defund the police” sloganeering argues that municipalities should take funding from the police and re-invest it in “the community” in some form. What this looks like in practice tends to be vague, and differs from person to person, but generally means moving police funds into education, health services, or housing programs, and using “alternative policing” anti-crime strategies, such as community intervention. 

The central issue with “defunding” solutions is a lack of evidentiary support for their efficacy. According to a review of recent public safety studies, Vox’s German Lopez noted that “there’s little evidence” that alternative policing strategies work. A chief concern is every “police alternative” solution, such as providing jobs programs, reducing high school drop-out rates, and increasing access to drug addiction treatment, “were all evaluated in a world where police exist, so even the positive research can’t demonstrate that these are necessarily true alternatives to police.” Additionally, “community intervention” strategies, such as using “violence interrupters,” have little evidentiary support to show they work. Such programs might even make things worse: “The models did not find a significant association between the introduction of One Vision and a reduction in the homicide rate . . . in Pittsburgh, but the program appeared to be associated with an increase in rates of monthly aggravated assaults.” We assume a high risk when we try to convince ourselves that the police lack value.

Another issue is the immediacy problem: Even if “community investment” strategies worked, we likely would not see the results of those strategies until far into the future. As Lopez notes: “These interventions help address the root causes of crime and violence, from poverty to drug addiction. But it takes time to lift people and places from poor conditions.” Thus, we can and should try to address some of the systemic problems in San Francisco — such as our education, health, and wealth gaps — but we cannot expect to fix those problems overnight. And while San Franciscans may agree to accept higher rates of property crime in the near future in exchange for a promise of lower overall crime in coming years, it is harder (both morally and politically) to make this case for violent crime. Telling a potential victim of sexual assault, aggravated battery, or homicide to “wait it out” is not an ethically responsible position. Crime, because of its serious impacts on quality life, requires an immediate and proven solution, rather than a gamble on a long-term outcome. 

IV. Public Safety Is Local Government’s Central Function

A common criticism of law enforcement is cost, not only generally but also as a supposed drain on resources that could be spent elsewhere. Many commentators note how police budgets frequently occupy a large, if not the largest, share of municipal budgets. An implied argument is that policing is not more valuable than other public services and should not constitute the drain on public coffers that it does. 

But comparing the police budget to that of virtually any other municipal department is a false equivalence, because everything a municipal government aims to achieve must flow through and from public safety. Without an acceptable standard of safety, nearly every other function of urban life fails. Children cannot learn if their schools are dangerous, businesses cannot operate if they are frequently burgled, and tourists never arrive if they fear becoming victims. Establishing a reasonable level of public safety is a prerequisite to improving the lives of the marginalized in San Francisco, because social work cannot occur in unsafe spaces: “Reducing crime also makes it much easier for officials and nonprofits to improve basic educational, health, and recreational services.” Moreover, higher crime causes out-migration of a city’s residence to nearby suburban areas. This out-migration, particularly of wealthier residents who have the option to leave, in turn harms vulnerable populations by draining away resources upon which to develop programs to assist those in need. 

San Francisco would be foolish to ignore Chief Scott’s pleas for a fully staffed police department. More police on the street will result in a safer city for all San Franciscans, but especially for those living in marginalized neighborhoods. Additionally, such an outcome can be achieved without increasing incarceration rates. This is a resource-rich city, with the means to do the right thing. The question is whether we have the will.