If you experience intimate partner violence, your only option for immediate help may be to call the police, even though an arrest may not do enough to get you out of your dangerous situation and keep you safe in the future. What if instead you could text a number and meet with a trauma-informed crisis intervention specialist to begin working on a long-term plan?
If you don’t realize your brake lights are out, you’ll probably get pulled over by the cops while driving home from work. Especially for black and brown Americans, a routine traffic stop can all too quickly turn deadly. What if instead of police handling this situation, a city worker signaled you to pull over and helped you replace your lights?
These are a few examples of alternatives to policing, detailed in a series of posters created by Amber Hughson, who runs the @conflicttransformation Instagram account. Hughson created the posters back in 2018, but they’ve been shared widely in recent days in light of the ongoing protests against police brutality—and for good reason.
Right now in the United States, police officers play a huge variety of roles: traffic enforcers, conflict mediators, first responders to mental health crises (even though many departments aren’t trained to handle such situations).
Any routine police stop can escalate to violence, whether fueled by the department’s militarization or internal issues of racism and bias. A future with fewer police would prioritize public safety by funding alternatives to these interactions with police.
Need some help imagining what a future without heavy police presence would like? Check out Hughson’s posters here.
