Why We Should Unbundle the Police

Abstract

This paper refines and defends the grassroots demand of reallocating powers and responsibilities from police to other institutions: what I call the unbundling proposal. I begin by presenting the proposal and specifying what sorts of roles and responsibilities proponents argue should be allocated from police to other institutions. I then advance a series of arguments for why we should unbundle policing. The first two draw on straightforward principles of institutional design, claiming that we should reallocate responsibilities from police to other institutions because (1) institutions with violent capacities should have narrow mandates, and (2) unbundling induces a better distribution of epistemic labor between institutions and fosters higher quality expertise. I then argue that policing institutions should be unbundled because they disproportionately burden marginalized people and perpetuate racial structural injustice. There, I advance some general principles about what is required when institutions undermine social justice, suggesting that in this case and others, we ought to turn to extra-institutional, reallocative measures. I close by addressing a series of objections to unbundling, including the concerns that (i1crime would increase, (2) nonpolice institutions would replicate the problems with existing policing regimes, and (3) unbundling is unfeasible in places with high rates of gun violence (like the United States).