There have been moments—in response to high profile human rights abuses by police and, on a worldwide scale, in response to the murder of George Floyd—when large numbers of people have experienced a collective expansion of their moral imaginations and have glimpsed how abusive policing shapes everyday life for some of their neighbors. We have not, however, been able to sustain and build upon intermittent awareness of that harsh reality.

Looking back, it’s apparent that what many hoped for was a paradigm shift in the operation of public safety. Modest improvements in the functioning of a dysfunctional system do not fulfill that aspiration.