Defund: Black Lives, Policing, and Safety for All by Sandy Hudson; 2025. Hardcover.

Time and again history has watched as police respond to minor calls with escalation, wrongful arrests, and even murder. Reform programs are often poorly implemented and their impacts short-lived. Calls to "defund the police" have rung out across the nation, yet the actual meaning of the phrase remains unclear to many. In Defund Sandy Hudson explains what it means to "defund the police," and why it matters, by exploring today's criminal landscape and the patterns and structures that result in safer, well-resourced communities.

Hudson explores the origins of commonly held ideas about police and safety to show how police-related social policies are based more on a sensationalized idea of safety than on outcomes and data. Through interviews and sociological research, she demonstrates, for instance, that law enforcement solve only a small number of the crimes, and even the process of assigning cases depends more on optics than large-scale crime reduction. Conversely, safe neighborhoods, rather than featuring an increased police presence, are rich in resources and social programs.

After laying out the history and data behind our broken policing system, Hudson paves a path forward by exploring how communities can save both money and lives by investing in themselves rather than in policing. She shows how simple changes to educational resources, community centers, and civic engagement can not only make communities safer but also better able to provide for citizens in countless ways.