Step 1 on reimagining policing-- shifting traffic enforcement from police to civilians. This experiment is beginning to go live around the country. Here's a story from DC's wealthy but very diverse suburbs: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/montgomery-police-bias-traffic-/2020/08/07/818fd860-d72e-11ea-aff6-220dd3a14741_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-banner-low_policebias-1249am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans

The impetus is that there is are big differences in who gets stopped by race. Objectively, cameras ticket more white drivers and women then subjective stops by an officer. Cameras fix this. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1514032617300016

Once stopped, the racial disparities start to pile up: black drivers are much more likely to be searched (although there is no difference in the likelihood of finding anything) and arrested. And jailed. And given higher bail or no bail. Etc.

Civilian traffic patrols fix this by and large. And here's the crux: according to that @washingtonpost article it doesn't take a lot of resources. In Montgomery County, MD, there are "73 officers and 26 civilians in the police department."

That's 100 or so employees in a department of 2,000 (1,300 sworn officers and 700 civilians). So, 5% of Montgomery County, MD law enforcement staff are working on traffic stops. How much of policing in MoCo is traffic stops?

Nationally, @Jerry_Ratcliffe has produced this amazing graphic that suggests traffic stops are 10-20% of local law enforcement calls for service (or more since 'unfounded radio calls' include traffic-related incidents).

Plus, @Crimealytics and @Vox find that in MoCo specifically, traffic-related calls for service are 14% of all calls (or more, again, b/c some traffic stops are including in the catch-all 'non-criminal calls).

But wait! There's more. Automated traffic enforcement is vastly more effective then officers in patrol cars in responding to traffic law violations. The automated detection rate is orders of magnitude higher.

If you believe, as I do, that the primary means by which police prevent crime is through deterrence, this switch to automated and civilian traffic patrols buys a lot more deterrence.

Bottom-line. 5% of the budget is responsible for 15-20% of the calls and could be transferred to civilians. With a knock-on effect of dramatically improving deterrence. While reducing racial disparities in traffic stops and their terrible knock-on effects. That's good policy.