Police leaders, local officials, and analysts have been sounding the alarm about “de-policing,” including mass resignations and retirements in America’s police departments, driven by the increasing challenges of the job in the wake of last summer’s anti-cop protests. Now the Marshall Project, a media organization devoted to criminal-justice reform, has some news: data say that the de-policing trend is all made up.
Worries about de-policing are “unfounded,” claim the Marshall Project’s Weihua Li and Ilica Mahajan. They cite federal labor-force data showing, they say, a 1 percent decline in police employment in 2020, compared with an overall 6 percent drop across the rest of the economy. The analysis has attracted the attention of the usual cadre of police critics eager to insist that de-policing is just a union talking point.
Read Full Article »