Police redistricting reforms and urban governance

Abstract

Police redistricting reforms are surprisingly understudied. While many understand redistricting in other realms as a mechanism of social inclusion and exclusion, police redistricting is often overlooked as merely technocratic. We argue that, in fact, police redistricting reforms are substantively and theoretically important because they articulate urban policy amid the pressures of neoliberal governance. Redistricting defines the functions and activities of the police, responds to political and economic pressures, and redistributes resources across racial spaces. To illustrate, we analyze publicly available materials describing 43 police redistricting reforms in 35 major cities in the United States. We find in these reforms an enduring emphasis on the role of the police as emergency service providers. Urban austerity and growth politics inflect redistricting and impact the distribution of police service across the city. While redistricting can theoretically result in more equitable policing, it can also amplify racial inequities by triaging resources toward downtowns and predominantly white neighborhoods, at the expense of police response in communities of color. We call for more attention to police redistricting as an arena of urban governance.