Efforts to reduce reliance on police have gained momentum since 2020, driven by a growing recognition that public safety is better served when addressed by experts in medicine, mental health, houselessness, and behavior intervention. But this rush to reimagine public safety carries a serious risk: a long history of abuse exists within social welfare systems, and the laws protecting us from police who perpetrate these types of abuses largely do not apply to EMTs, social workers, and other nonpolice responders. While commending efforts to remove police from places they do not belong, The New Public Safety: Police Reform and the Lurking Threat to Civil Liberties raises the alarm on the dangers these reforms can pose if undertaken without proper restraints and protections and offers practical, achievable solutions to address these threats.
Shawn Fields is Professor of Law at California Western School of Law and author of Neighborhood Watch: Policing White Spaces in America.
"The New Public Safety argues that, whether dealing with the unhoused, people with mental illness, or traffic stops, public safety can be enhanced if we replace the police with other types of first responders—but only if we ensure that those replacements do not turn into another version of the police. In this well-written book, Shawn Fields combines searing descriptions of how poorly we handle disarray on the streets with proof that we can do a much better job through sensible legal reforms designed to prevent past mistakes."—Christopher Slobogin, author of Rehabilitating Criminal Justice: Innovations in Policing, Adjudication, and Sentencing
"Fields offers a crucial intervention in the debate over police reform. In this book, he closely examines constitutional law and existing reform efforts to show that without careful safeguards, well-meaning efforts to shift responsibilities away from the police could have troubling effects. His insights will be invaluable to anyone serious about designing alternatives to policing that avoid reinforcing the problems they are meant to solve."—Rachel Harmon, author of The Law of the Police
“An illuminating and thought-provoking perspective on the thorny questions of authority, oversight, and power that must be addressed as advocates seek to shift public safety functions away from police.”—Joanna Schwartz, author of
Shielded: How the Police Became Untouchable "
The New Public Safety sounds a thought-provoking warning about devolving duties from police to alternative responders who are subject to more relaxed Fourth Amendment scrutiny. Fields offers valuable cautions about the unintended consequences of well-intentioned reform proposals."—Mary Fan, author of
Camera Power: Proof, Policing, Privacy, and Audiovisual Big Data "In
The New Public Safety, Shawn E. Fields confronts the urgent push to reform American policing, exposing a hidden paradox: as we move toward nonpolice crisis responders and alternative safety strategies, we may also be weakening the very constitutional protections that guard against government overreach. Through gripping real-life cases and cutting-edge legal analysis, Fields reveals how well-meaning reforms can lead to new threats to civil liberties—and offers a blueprint to ensure that justice and freedom remain at the heart of public safety. A groundbreaking exploration for activists, policymakers, and citizens alike, this book is both a powerful call for change and a cautionary tale about how we pursue it."–Seth W. Stoughton, Professor of Law, University of South Carolina School of Law
238 pp.6 x 9Illus: 1 table
9780520396005$29.95|£25.00Paper
Aug 2025