In recent years, American discourse around law enforcement has become polarized, often reduced to binary slogans like “Defund the Police” or “Back the Blue.” Lost in this simplification is a deeper, more systemic issue plaguing many municipal police departments across the United States: chronic underfunding. This problem does not merely hinder law enforcement effectiveness—it warps incentives, erodes community trust, and undermines the foundational role of policing in a free and orderly society.
To move beyond slogans and toward genuine reform, the United States must recognize what many overlook: municipal police forces are an essential public good. As such, they deserve stable, adequate public investment—not reliance on fines, fees, and forfeitures to survive. The path to safer communities, more effective policing, and restored public trust does not lie in defunding, but in restructuring and reinvesting.
I. Policing as a Public Good
In economic terms, a public good is one that is non-excludable and non-rivalrous: it benefits everyone and one person's benefit does not diminish another's. Clean air, national defense, and public health are classic examples. Local policing—when properly administered—meets this definition. Effective police presence deters crime, resolves conflicts, maintains order, and provides a sense of safety accessible to all residents, regardless of wealth or social status.
However, like any public good, policing suffers when subject to market incentives. When governments do not adequately fund law enforcement from general revenues, they unintentionally create pressures that distort its mission. The result is a transactional form of policing that prioritizes revenue over service—a dangerous outcome with well-documented consequences.
II. The Perverse Incentives of Revenue-Driven Policing
Many local police departments—particularly in smaller municipalities—struggle to meet their operating budgets. As a result, they often rely heavily on:
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Traffic citations and fines
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Administrative fees for arrests or court processing
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Civil asset forfeitures (even without convictions)
This practice, known as revenue policing, creates a perverse incentive structure where officers are rewarded for extracting wealth from the very citizens they are sworn to protect. It undermines the core function of policing as a public service and shifts it toward a model that resembles taxation through punishment.
The 2015 Department of Justice report on Ferguson, Missouri famously illustrated this issue. It found that city officials used the police department as a revenue-generating tool, disproportionately targeting African-American residents with aggressive ticketing, court summons, and legal fees—largely unrelated to public safety. Such practices damage legitimacy and fuel distrust, particularly in communities already skeptical of police motives.
III. Underfunding Erodes Core Police Functions
When departments are forced to focus on revenue generation, they lack the resources and time for more impactful, preventive, and restorative activities, including:
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De-escalation and non-violence training
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Community engagement and public safety programs
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Mental health crisis response
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Officer wellness programs, including psychological counseling
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Recruitment of diverse, high-quality candidates
Departments that are under-resourced are often reactive rather than proactive. They cannot afford to invest in the long-term strategies proven to reduce crime and improve outcomes. This fuels a vicious cycle where mistrust leads to less cooperation, which leads to more forceful and less effective policing, which in turn increases public resentment and demands for reduction.
IV. Reframing the Debate: From “Defund” to “Reinvest with Purpose”
The slogan “Defund the Police” emerged from a place of frustration over police abuses and lack of accountability. But as a policy framework, it was poorly articulated and politically unviable. In practice, many of the reforms activists seek—non-violent response teams, mental health intervention units, restorative justice programs—require more funding, not less.
Rather than divest, communities should:
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Reinvest with purpose: Increase funding with clear priorities such as officer training, support services, and non-lethal tools.
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Reduce dependency on fines: Prohibit or severely limit the use of ticket quotas and civil forfeiture as budget tools.
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Fund complementary services: Ensure police are not the sole responders to mental health crises, homelessness, or drug addiction.
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Use state and federal matching funds to help smaller municipalities transition away from ticket-based financing.
This restructured funding model preserves the best of law enforcement while aligning it more closely with public safety and professional excellence.
V. Toward a Ticket-Free Funding Model
Imagine a world where a police department’s success is not measured by how many tickets it writes, but by how few citizens need to be policed. In such a world, officers could focus on conflict resolution, youth outreach, neighborhood engagement, and genuine crime prevention. But this ideal can only be realized if departments are guaranteed the funding they need—regardless of how many citations they issue.
To achieve this, municipalities should:
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Budget for police as a fixed public service, not a revenue generator.
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Ensure funding covers the full range of necessary training, staffing, and public safety programs.
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Encourage local departments to pilot ticket-free revenue models, with safety-based outcomes instead of citation quotas.
Conclusion: Policing Our Future
The United States faces a fundamental choice about the role and nature of law enforcement. We can continue to starve police departments and then blame them for failing to live up to idealistic standards. Or we can acknowledge that public safety—like education, infrastructure, and clean water—requires meaningful, sustained investment.
Policing is a public good. When properly resourced and structured, it offers communities stability, safety, and peace. If we want fewer tickets, fewer violent confrontations, and fewer tragic outcomes, we must stop treating police like fee-for-service agents and start funding them as the essential civic institutions they are.
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