Professionalizing Police Hasn’t Worked. Try Privatizing Instead.

The Minneapolis City Council’s plan to dismantle the city’s police department following the death of George Floyd in police custody has some people concerned about how order will be maintained afterward.

It’s a reasonable concern. All too often in public policy, overreaction to a scandal creates its own problems. The flip side of that, though, is tolerating abuse, mismanagement, or incompetence. That’s too common in government.

Police abuse has qualities that make it especially troubling. There’s an asymmetry between an armed police officer and a mostly unarmed civilian population. Since many of us operate with the starting assumption that the