EDITORIAL

Considering Social Work Roles in Policing
Christine M. Rine

doi: 10.1093/hsw/hlab010

C 2021 National Association of Social Workers
V

address them. Therefore, this definition of defunding the police suggests no change to present levels
of resources commensurate with a decreased array
of restructured law enforcement tasks (Fernandez,
2020; Levin, 2020; Lopez, 2020). This conceptualization of defunding the police is based on cognizance that social problems are often the root cause
of public safety concerns. Although the pervasive
influence of social problems is well acknowledged
among social workers, the phrase “defund the
police” can be misleading and easily interpreted as
advocating for a lawless state of anarchy devoid of
police. Understanding that defunding does not
mean cutting all subsidies for law enforcement, but
rather reallocating resources to support more appropriate means to address problems that underlie
public safety concerns, can be difficult to comprehend. Moreover, defund the police suffers from
poor word choices that are not comfortably accepted by the citizenry at large. Increasing public
understanding and appreciation for the potential
benefits of defunding the police may arise from
support for the recommended areas of resource investment such as health care, education, substance
use treatment, mental health care, housing, employment, restorative programs, community harm
reduction, and various public services (BLM
Global Network, 2020; Fernandez, 2020; Levin,
2020; Lopez, 2020). Not only would enhancing
such resources more fittingly address social problems, but it would also serve to decriminalize those
that would no longer be under the purview of law
enforcement. For example, many localities have
laws that govern the public activities of unsheltered
people, thus criminalizing poverty. When police
are held responsible to uphold restrictive homeless
ordinances, often by removal from areas where
they are attempting to carry out activities of daily
living such as sleeping, the act of being poor and
without shelter is needlessly raised to being a criminal activity. This manner of law enforcement

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T

he Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement
continues to bring attention and direct
action to incidents of racially motivated
aggression and police violence. Although BLM is a
not a formal centralized organization, numerous
branded bodies, such as the international BLM
Global Network (BLM Global Network, n.d.),
use the term “Black Lives Matter” to represent the
mandate of their group. Regardless, BLM operates
as a collection of individuals and organizations that
commonly promote change aimed at combatting
police brutality while supporting an overall agenda
of Black liberation. The movement began in 2013
in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman
in the murder of Travon Martin, an African American teenager. Over the past eight years, BLM has
taken action following law enforcement– related
deaths of other African Americans across the
United States (Day, 2015). In 2020, the movement
gained national attention during protests that
resulted from the killing of George Floyd by police
officer Derek Chauvin in Minneapolis. BLM has
emerged as one of the largest social movements the
country has seen to date (Buchanan, Bui, & Patel,
2020).
As an outcome of recent, well documented, and
widely viewed acts of police brutality, a renewed
appeal to “defund the police” has sparked a great
deal of interest, debate, and confusion over what
that entreaty denotes. This issue is further complicated as various individuals and groups who have
led the charge to defund the police differ to some
degree in how they envision the specifics of this
aim. A common understanding of this statement is
elucidated by the BLM Global Network who
explains that defunding the police involves divesting resources in traditional law enforcement roles
and investing funding in other public health and
safety services. In turn, this method of structural
change seeks to reduce police duties by reallocating
responsibilities to others who are better suited to

86

Policing: Strategies for Community Reinvestment,”
noting that “Policing in America has a long history
of preserving the violent legacy of slavery and upholding white supremacy” (NASW, 2020, p. 17).
Discourse of this nature is inextricably linked to
the larger criminal justice system, abolition movements of the past, and theories that validate progressing beyond moderate slow-moving reforms.
For example, W. E. B. Du Bois coined the term
“abolition-democracy” to assert that policy reform
is inadequate to eradicate the oppressive social
conditions that created and sustained slavery (Du
Bois, 1935/1992; McDowell & Fernandez, 2018).
Likewise, current defund-the-police supporters
contend that “the law enforcement system is so
broken that the notion of police reform and reimagining policing is an exercise in futility” (NASW,
2020, p. 2). Relatedly, the concept of a “carceral
state,” first coined and explored by Foucault, described the formal and informal means, tools, perceptions, and interrelated structures that work in
tandem to maintain and grow a punitive crime
control industry (Foucault, 1975; Garland, 2001).
Similarly, current defund-the-police sentiments
assert that policy reform is inadequate and unable
to redress systemic structures, dogma, and longheld beliefs that continue to drive police violence
and criminalization, particularly in racially and
economically vulnerable communities. Abolition
seeks to delegitimize police, erect a new system of
ensuring public safety based on equity, and maximize the expertise of diverse emergency responders with the intent of eliminating the need for
policing, as we know it. Others seek to reform and
restore the current system of policing by increasing
accountability and better preparing law enforcement to respond to varied situations in a nonviolent manner.
Clearly, there are valid arguments for altering
policing that range from temperate reform to more
extreme abolition. Others suggest parallel pathways that incorporate tenets of both ideologies.
As part of this conversation, controversy regarding
roles of the profession in policing have surfaced.
Essentially, some social workers feel that formal
employment within police departments supports
an unjust system that goes against professional values and ethics. Others feel that becoming involved
in policing, particularly in roles that can serve to
de-escalate situations that could easily lead to vio-

Health & Social Work VOLUME 46, NUMBER 2

MAY 2021

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response does not help the social problem of
homelessness. On the contrary, it has been found
to worsen the health, behavior, and length of time
that individuals experience homelessness episodes
while also increasing opportunities for police violence to occur (National Association of Social
Workers [NASW], 2020; Robinson, 2019).
A commonly suggested alternative to defunding
and reallocating duties to other professionals is to
increase training or retraining of law enforcement
personnel to improve their ability to respond nonviolently in a more diverse array of situations. Although this approach attempts to address concerns
of police brutality, many contend that it has been
long tested and found unsuccessful. Kailee Scales,
the managing director of BLM Global Network,
purports that previous reform and retraining efforts
have failed to lessen police violence and has concluded that such an approach may not be possible
in a law enforcement system built on disproportionately harming Black people. Rather, Scales
suggests that divesting resources from a broken system and investing in social programming is a clear
path forward. Scales suggested specific means of
reallocation by investing 5 percent of the $100 billion spent on policing in the United States that
would effectively double the budget for public
health alone (BLM Global Network, 2020). The
repeated failure of training, reform, and other
more conservative efforts is supported by research
as well as the origins of policing itself (Kaste, 2020;
McDowell & Fernandez, 2018). Historical connections between early policing and race received
mainstream attention in a July 2016 episode of the
“Kelly File” on Fox News, where Megyn Kelly
hosted a panel discussion on the topic of race and
law enforcement. When BLM received harsh criticism, community organizer panelist Jessica Disu
stated, “Here’s a solution, we need to abolish the
police,” and further stated that “The police in this
country began as a slave patrol” (McDowell & Fernandez, 2018, p. 374). Disu then provided a brief
yet cogent analysis that challenged hegemonic
assumptions about policing. She argued against the
assumption that policing is an inexorable societal
structure that equates to public safety. Although
the initial reactions to Disu’s statements were disbelief and outrage, this did not come as a surprise
to everyone. For many in the field, Disu’s retort is
widely recognized and accurate. In 2020, NASW
published a Social Justice Brief titled “Reimagining

lence, is well matched to social work skill sets. For
example, an NASW Social Justice Brief noted that

Regardless of one’s professional perspective,
there is a role for all social workers in making a positive impact in policing. HSW
REFERENCES
Black Lives Matter Global Network. (2020, July 6). What
defunding the police really means. Retrieved from
https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-defunding-thepolice-really-means/
Black Lives Matter Global Network. (n.d.). About. Retrieved from https://blacklivesmatter.com/about/
Buchanan, L., Bui, Q., & Patel, J. K. (2020, July 3). Black
Lives Matter may be the largest movement in U.S.
history. New York Times. Retrieved from https://
www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/03/us/
george-floyd-protests-crowd-size.html
Day, E. (2015, July 19). #BlackLivesMatter: The birth of a
new civil rights movement. The Guardian. Retrieved
from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/
jul/19/blacklivesmatter-birth-civil-rights-movement
Du Bois, W.E.B. (1992). Black reconstruction in America: Toward a history of the part which Black folk played in the attempt to reconstruct democracy in America, 1860–1880.
New York: Free Press. (Original work published
1935)
Fernandez, P. (2020, June 11). Defunding the police will actually make us safer [News & Commentary]. Retrieved
from https://www.aclu.org/news/criminal-law-re
form/defunding-the-police-will-actually-make-ussafer/
Foucault, M. (1975). Discipline and punish: The birth of prison
(A. Sheridan, Trans.). London: Penguin Books.
Garland, D. (2001). The culture of control. Oxford, UK:
Oxford University Press.
Kaste, M. (2020, September 10). NYPD study: Implicit bias
training changes minds, not necessarily behavior [National Public Radio], Special series: America reckons with
racial injustice. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/
2020/09/10/909380525/nypd-study-implicit-biastraining-changes-minds-not-necessarily-behavior
Levin, S. (2020, June 6). What does ‘defund the police’
mean? The rallying cry sweeping the US – explained.
The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguar
dian.com/us-news/2020/jun/05/defunding-the-po
lice-us-what-does-it-mean
Lopez, C. E. (2020, June 7). Opinion: Defund the police?
Here’s what that really means. Washington Post.

RINE / Considering Social Work Roles in Policing

Christine M. Rine, PhD, is associate professor, Department
of Social Work, Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, 235
Scotland Road, Hendricks Hall G-37, Edinboro, PA 16444;
e-mail: crine@edinboro.edu.
Advance Access Publication May 6, 2021

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Police are not social workers. Yet they continue
to be the de facto response to situations that call
for social work intervention. Issues of drug use,
homelessness, mental illness, and domestic violence disputes all too frequently lead to police
responses. Tragically, we have seen over and over
how these calls lead to harmful escalation instead
of peaceful resolution, particularly when people
of color are involved.” (NASW, 2020, p. 2)

Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/
opinions/2020/06/07/defund-police-heres-whatthat-really-means/
McDowell, M. G., & Fernandez, L. A. (2018). Disband,
disempower, and disarm: Amplifying the theory and
practice of police abolition. Critical Criminology, 26
373–391. doi:10.1007/s10612-018-9400-4
National Association of Social Workers. (2020). Reimagining policing: Strategies for community reinvestment:
Pre-arrest diversion; and innovative approaches to 911 emergency responses [Social Justice Brief]. Retrieved from
https://www.socialworkers.org/LinkClick.aspx?fil
eticket¼GjXJr6rDzss%3d&portalid¼0
Robinson, T. (2019). No right to rest: Police enforcement
patterns and quality of life consequences of the criminalization of homelessness. Urban Affairs Review,
55(1), 41–73.