barriers to problem solving in community policing

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Crime control, community relations, and barriers to community-based reforms in policing.

• Kevin Petersen Kevin Petersen Department of Criminology, George Mason University
•  and  Danielle S. Rudes Danielle S. Rudes Department of Criminology, Law and Society, George Mason University
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264079.013.740
• Published online: 22 November 2022

Efforts to prevent crime often involve high concentrations of police presence in disadvantaged minority communities. When combined with aggressive enforcement and proactivity, these efforts may negatively affect police–community relations. There is often a tendency to view community relations and crime reduction as discrete goals; however, citizen cooperation is an important component of efficient crime control. Policing strategies that incorporate problem-solving and community involvement show promise in their ability to simultaneously reduce crime and improve community relations. Despite the growing number of police agencies that report implementing these strategies, however, police–community relations have not shown widespread improvement. Organizational frameworks help to identify factors that might lead police agencies to prioritize enforcement and crime control over community relations, as well as the organizational barriers to effective community-based reform. A reliance on efficiency and centralized authority, resource dependency, and symbolic legitimacy all may help to explain police agencies’ lack of effective community-based reform efforts.

• criminal justice
• proactive policing
• community policing
• problem-oriented policing
• rational systems theory
• natural systems theory
• open systems theory
• loose coupling
• institutional isomorphism

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2.2 Stakeholders in community policing

Policing is example of a community service with a complex range of stakeholders. Take a look at Figure 3. These are just some of the stakeholders we can identify in community policing

Series of three concentric circles each containing text.

Smallest central inner circle contains the phrase ‘ Community Policing’

First outer circle is labelled ‘Primary Stakeholders’ at 12 o’clock and contains the following examples in a clockwise direction around the circle: Home Office; Police Officers; PCSOs/Community Safety Wardens; Police Force; Neighbourhood crime prevention groups; Local, regional and national governments; other community services; local politicians; local media; community members.

Second, outermost circle is labelled ‘Secondary stakeholders at 12 o’clock and contains the following examples in a clock-wise direction around the circle: probation and offender rehabilitation services; prosecuting authorities; police leadership bodies; national media; national voluntary crime prevention organizations; policing professional bodies; judiciary; national police service organizations e.g. NCA; National politicians.

The inner ring of the diagram – directly circling community policing – depicts the primary stakeholders. These are individuals and groups that have a direct, specific interest in how community policing is run, its mission, its effectiveness and other day-to-day issues.

The outer area depicts the secondary stakeholders, who may also have an interest in the community policing but perhaps not as directly or as specifically as those in the inner circle. Of course, secondary stakeholders can also take a direct interest – for example, in the case of inter-service partnerships, the partners will want to ensure that partnership commitments are being upheld by the police force in question.

Watch this video of Ben Hargreaves, a Chief Inspector in Dorset Police, talking about the work of neighbourhood advisory groups in community policing. Where do you think these groups will fit on Figure 4 above.

Activity 4 Mapping your stakeholders

In your learning journal, make a list of the primary and secondary stakeholders of a community activity, project or organisation with which you are familiar. This can be any aspect of the community where you live, work or volunteer.

You might like to create a stakeholder diagram, similar to Figure 4 to depict the stakeholders you identify. Your diagram will have your chosen activity, project or organisation in the centre.

What similarities and differences with the case example did you note and why?

You probably found both similarities and differences – depending on the size of the activity you chose, as well as what field it is in (e.g. health and social care, environmental, hobby or sports and so on). You might also have found that Figure 4 made you think more widely about the people who might have an interest in your community.

This activity will have helped you think about who the stakeholders are in the context of community safety. We will return to the theme of how to work and communicate with community stakeholders later in this course. For now though it is time to look at a different model of relationships which both contrasts with and complements the stakeholder model.

Breaking Down Barriers

[dropcap]F[/dropcap]ist-bumps, high-fives and bear hugs flow easily from Lt. Terrell Smith to the dozens of students who greet him as he waits for his lunch partner. A thousand-watt smile spreads across his face, as he gives a, “Hey there!” to one student, “How you doin’?” to another, and a “It’s good to see you! You doin’ OK?” to yet another. Like catching a favorite song on the radio, or finding a forgotten $20 bill in a winter coat, “Lt. T” as he’s known, gives a lift and radiates warmth to those he encounters.

Community policing isn’t limited to events or programs held on campus. When Lt. Terrell Smith found a resident facing a driveway full of snow, Smith took action.

The interactions mostly stem from the Lunch with a Cop program that Smith leads on Ball State’s campus. Over lunch, students and officers move from sports to books, movies, classes, plans for the future, and even why cops do what they do or why students do what they do. Sometimes the conversations are a challenge, sometimes breezy. But at all times, Smith said, the lunches provide dedicated space and opportunity for the people hauling the backpacks to get to know the people behind the badges.

So hard or easy, he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Best part of the day,” Smith said. “Absolutely. Any time with students is the best part of the day.

“You can’t sit and have a meal with someone and walk away from the table and not have a better understanding of who they are. Well, you can I guess, but we don’t. This is all about building relationships, building respect.”

Lunch with a Cop is one of about a dozen programs incorporated into the community policing efforts of Ball State University Police . It’s a passion that’s been at the heart of Chief James Duckham’s approach to policing since he started out nearly three decades ago.

Because Duckham doesn’t do fads.

He’s quick to note that community policing is a philosophy, not a program. It’s a manifest that informs every member of his department, a guide for how to work for and partner with the members of the community they serve and protect.

Crime goes down

Departments large and small, from San Bernardino, California, to Norwalk, Connecticut, are diving in to community policing, as experts across the nation say the programs do make a difference in a department’s ability to build positive relationships within neighborhoods and communities and in turn reduce crime. In the most recent The State of Policing in the United States report, volume one, experts with the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) division of the U.S. Department of Justice noted the group awarded nearly $12 million in grants in 2016 to departments building community policing efforts.

In 2017, the budget request for program development grants increased to $20 million. In all, according to the Department of Justice COPS office budget documents, $14.9 billion in federal funds have gone to develop community policing programs since that division of the DOJ was established in 1994.

Officer Travis Stephens shares information about the department’s community policing initiative with families taking a campus tour. Introducing families and students to officers during tours is just one more way the department can connect with community members. (Photo by Domenic Centofanti)

The results? According to a 2007 study in the Journal of Public Economics, researchers found that an average hiring grant “generated a statistically significant reduction in the violent crime rate by 3.7 percent and a reduction in the property crime rate of 1 percent.”

While they won’t quibble about the results, police officers like Duckham, Smith and others will tell you there’s more to keeping the peace than lower crime stats.

“Barriers break down when you take this approach, and I think that’s tremendously important,” Duckham said. “This is labor intensive, but it’s so important to do — to branch out across, in our case, our campus and reach out to all the groups we may meet and interact with on a regular basis.

“Especially with those groups, or those students, who may have had a difficult or uncomfortable relationship with police officers in the past, this time spent is invaluable.”

Aside from a dip in on-campus burglary rates, Duckham said an even greater benefit is the comfort students have developed with the officers. That’s critical, he said, when officers must investigate sensitive situations. If a student feels comfortable talking with someone, that can sometimes help a victim of a crime find closure.

And, Duckham said, the students will take what they learn and carry it forward.

“These interactions will guide students’ perceptions of officers when they move on to wherever it is they are going to live.”

What’s more, he said, the community policing efforts — those relationships that are built — provide a blueprint to students of how they can get involved in their future neighborhoods and communities.

“We have more than 170 students, just in one semester alone, who want to take their lunch time to meet with one of my officers, because they want to gather and discuss their thoughts, and they know they’ll be heard,” Duckham said. “How does that not inform them as they become professionals, or parents, or community leaders?”

It’s a philosophy that last year gained greater momentum, when then-U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch used the occasion of National Community Policing Week to talk about how residents and police could come together to find common ground.

“Community policing uses our shared interest as the foundation for deeper understanding, mutual respect and closer partnership,” Lynch wrote in an op-ed in The Washington Post. “In practice, community policing encourages officers and citizens to communicate regularly, to share concerns and collaborate on solutions, and, above all, to get to know one another as people rather than stereotypes.”

Warm reception from students

That piece, that “getting to know one another” has been the takeaway for students who have become involved in a program or event.

“All of the things the cops are doing — it’s awesome,” said Brandon Jones, a junior political science and classical cultures major who participated in a drunken driving demonstration. The event, hosted in a parking lot on campus, featured a police officer, a golf cart and special “drunk” goggles that simulated the effects of alcohol on a driver’s perception of the roadway. “Things like this make me more comfortable with the police. If something happens, I want to be able to feel like I can report it to them, and now I do. To me, that matters.”

Cpl. Michael Lucas puts his trust in students participating in a drunk driving demonstration sponsored by Ball State Police. The goggles worn by the students simulate the effects of impaired driving, giving them a real feel for the dangers of operating under the influence, but in a safe and controlled environment. (Photo by Samantha Blankenship)

Malik Brown, a freshman from Indianapolis, agreed.

“It’s nice they try to get out and bridge the gap between the community and the police,” he said. “Having that feeling of safety, because you know they know you, gives you a sense that you can get out and try new things.”

Cpl. Michael Lucas rode along with all the goggled drivers. He said all the programs — the bike registry, Dunk-A-Cop, dorm trivia, guest lectures — begin and end with the same goal in mind.

“All of them just give us one more opportunity to talk with students and to get to know them,” Lucas said. “That makes a difference.”

It did for sophomore Sarah Walls.

“This was hard,” she said, laughing about the driving. “But I already knew Cpl. Lucas. He helped me look for my keys one night for, like, an hour in Cooper (Science Complex). He just kept saying, ‘We’ll find them.’

“It’s good that he knows us, he definitely knows me. That’s really nice.”

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Social Innovation Narratives

Confirmation bias: a barrier to community policing.

Michael D. Schlosser * , Jennifer K. Robbennolt † , Daniel M. Blumberg ‡ , Konstantinos Papazoglou § ABSTRACT This is a very challenging time for police–community relations, one characterized by a mutual lack of trust between police and citizens. But trust is an important tenet of effective community policing. Trust between police and communities can result in better problem solving, fewer legal violations by citizens, less frequent use of force by the police, less resistance by citizens during arrests, greater willingness to share information, less inclination to riot, and greater willingness of community members and police to cooperate. One key obstacle to fostering trust between the community and police is confirmation bias—the tendency for people to take in information and process it in a way that confirms their current preconceptions, attitudes, and beliefs. Recognizing and addressing confirmation bias, therefore, plays a critical role in fostering more productive engagement. If we are to improve police–community relations and co-create a way forward, learning to approach debates with open minds, an awareness of the lens of our own perspectives, commitment to considering the opposite, and the goal of listening with curiosity are essential. Key Words: Police-community relations , police , trust

INTRODUCTION

This is a challenging time for police–community relations. Citizens and police officers lack trust in each other ( Pew Research Center, 2020 ). Trust-building through community policing has been hampered by a global pandemic ( Montgomery, 2020 ). And trust has been undermined by highly publicized incidents in which officers have used deadly force on black and brown men and women.

These use-of-force incidents have become flashpoints in police–community relations. Although most arrests are made without using force, many prominent use-of-force incidents have involved the use of deadly force, including some in which the use of force was unlawful. At the extremes, citizens and police officers may agree that a particular use of force was appropriate or inappropriate, lawful or unlawful. However, in many cases citizens and police officers view these incidents quite differently. On the one hand, officers tend to justify the use of force by focusing on the possible risks of not using force. Citizens, by contrast, see the same use of force as excessive and unnecessary. These strong and opposing views contribute to an “us against them” mentality.

It is critical for citizens and law enforcement to develop mutual trust so that they can work together to identify needs, reduce crime, solve community problems, and enhance quality of life. While such “community policing” initiatives are vital, basic differences in how events are understood can make it difficult for the community and police to work together. Indeed, the divergent and often strongly held understandings, beliefs, and attitudes of police officers and community members create obstacles to advancing the goals of community policing. Understanding the ways in which “confirmation bias” influences our perceptions and interpretations of what we experience can help us make progress in this regard.

What is Confirmation Bias?

Confirmation bias is the tendency for people to receive information and process it in a way that confirms their current preconceptions, attitudes, and beliefs ( Nickerson, 1998 ). We seek out, pay closer attention to, and better remember information consistent with our own preferences and beliefs. By contrast, we tend to avoid, discount, and forget information that challenges those beliefs and preferences ( Klayman & Ha, 1987 ). When information is ambiguous, we are adept at interpreting it in ways that concur with our preconceptions, attitudes, and beliefs. These processes are an inherent and often unconscious part of our human cognition.

Take an example that most of us have experienced—watching sports. A classic study asked students from rival schools to watch a video of a football game between their teams and make a variety of assessments. Although students watched the same game, their evaluations of the behaviour of the players and officiating depended on which school they attended. Students’ perceptions and interpretations of the action on the field were influenced by their pre-existing preferences and loyalties ( Hastorf & Cantril, 1954 ).

In this example, preferences based on team loyalty influenced the way fans of opposing teams understood what happened on the field. However, our beliefs, attitudes, and preferences are wide ranging. We each carry with us a set of assumptions and stereotypes about race or ethnicity, gender, age, occupation, sexual orientation, how someone speaks or dresses, what sports team they like, and so on. These assumptions can help us rapidly process a great deal of information and make decisions quickly, but they influence our judgments in other ways as well. Each of us also has our own mix of preferences and hopes and we have each had different experiences and developed a variety of attitudes. All these aspects of our worldview can unconsciously affect our understandings, actions, and decisions. When it comes to confirmation bias, it is these attitudes, beliefs, and preferences that we are prone to confirm and that shape the way we perceive and interpret the world.

Confirmation bias influences a range of perceptions and judgments, many of which are more directly relevant to police–community relations than how we watch football. Consider a different example. In another more tightly controlled study, people were asked to watch a video of a protest and evaluate whether the protesters were blocking access, the risk of violence, and the extent to which they were engaging in persuasion or intimidation. Half of the participants were told that the protest occurred outside an abortion clinic; the other half were told that it occurred at a campus recruitment centre to protest the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Although they watched the same recording, people with different pre-existing views on these two issues interpreted the protests and protesters differently. Protest activity was judged more favourably when the purpose of the demonstration was consistent with participants’ views on that issue and more negatively when the purpose of the protest conflicted with their views. In other words, people seeing the same video footage judged the risk of violence differently depending on their attitude toward the issue motivating the protest ( Kahan et al., 2012 ).

Similar findings come from research that explores how people perceive and interpret video evidence of interactions between police officers and citizens. How people assess the interaction and their judgments about the officer are influenced by their prior attitudes towards the police ( Granot et al., 2014 ), stereotypes ( Salerno & Sanchez, 2020 ), and other attitudes and beliefs ( Jones et al., 2017 ; see also Granot et al., 2018 ). Police officers are inclined to look for circumstances to justify the use of force, emphasize the risks of not using force, and focus on the moment at which force was used. Citizens, by contrast, typically focus on how force could have been avoided and on the interactions leading up to the point at which force was used. In addition, police officers are more likely to focus on whether the use of force was legal , whereas citizens’ judgments of legitimacy draw on perceptions that go beyond the question of legality ( Celestin & Kruschke, 2019 ; Meares et al., 2015 ).

Other studies have shown that confirmation bias can influence the trajectory of a police investigation ( Charman et al., 2017 ; O’Brien, 2009 ), the ways in which suspects are interrogated ( Hill et al., 2008 ; Kassin et al., 2003 ; Lidén et al., 2018 ; Narchet et al., 2010 ), and how jurors and judges make decisions ( Goodman-Delahunty et al., 1998 ; Lidén et al., 2019 ). In addition, we tend to pay more attention to and find more credibility in news and research that support the things that we believe and want to be true, while downplaying information that opposes our worldview ( Lord et al., 1979 ).

One aspect of confirmation bias that can make it particularly harmful to good relations is that, although it is a human phenomenon and has a pervasive influence on perceptions and judgments, it is hard to realize that it is happening. It feels as if we are experiencing the world as it is—that our perceptions are objective ( Ross & Ward, 1996 ). These feelings of objectivity make it difficult to appreciate that what we see and experience is significantly influenced by our perspective. Indeed, we each experience a “bias blind spot,” typically finding it easier to recognize these sorts of influences on other people’s thinking and judgment than on our own ( Pronin et al., 2004 ).

Confirmation Bias and Community Policing

Various forms of community policing have long been adopted in the United States and other countries. The terms used to describe this set of practices, including police–community relations, community-oriented policing, and simply community policing, have varied over time. But no matter the name, community policing practices reflect the need for the police to work with the community to not only prevent and solve crimes, but also improve the quality of life for everyone in their jurisdictions. As the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing (2015 , p. 45) puts it, law enforcement and communities need to “co-produce public safety.”

Community policing is both a philosophy and a set of real actions. The Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (2003 , p. 2) defines community policing as “a philosophy that promotes organizational strategies that support the systematic use of partnerships and problem-solving techniques to proactively address the immediate conditions that give rise to public safety issues such as crime, social disorder, and fear of crime.” According to Lawrence and McCarthy (2013) , the three essential components of community policing are organizational transformation, community partnerships, and problem solving. Community policing requires officers and citizens to be willing to meet, discuss issues, and collaborate to solve community problems, with police officers at all levels (Administrative, Command, Sergeants, and Patrol Officers) developing relationships and collaborating with community members and community organizations (e.g., local governments, schools, churches, businesses, social service agencies).

An essential aspect of community policing is trust: citizens trusting the police and the police trusting citizens. Developing trusting relationships makes both citizens and officers safer ( Tyler et al., 2015 ). A trusting relationship between the police and community can mean fewer legal violations by citizens, less frequent use of force by the police, less resistance by citizens during arrests, greater willingness to share information, less inclination to riot, and greater willingness of community members and police to cooperate ( Tyler et al., 2015 ).

Confirmation bias can undermine the trust that is central to community policing. Different perceptions of events— whether those events are high-profile encounters or everyday interactions—expand the gap between the police and the citizens they serve, making it difficult to work from a common understanding. Moreover, the bias blind spot makes it hard to appreciate that our own perceptions are influenced by our worldviews. Because we each feel like we are experiencing the world objectively, it is hard to imagine that a reasonable person could see the same events so differently. It is then easy to conclude that someone who does not see the same facts is blind, biased, unreasonable, or worse. Research has found that when others disagree with us, we tend to conclude that they are biased ( Kennedy & Pronin, 2008 ).

Both sides, therefore, conclude that the other side is biased and fail to recognize the influences of confirmation bias on their own thinking. This can lead each side to see the differences as wider than they are, the conflict as more extensive, and cooperation as likely to be less productive. It can also lead both sides to treat each other in ways unlikely to lead to finding common ground. The result can be a downward spiral ( Kennedy & Pronin, 2008 ; Robinson et al., 1995 ). These patterns interfere with productive conversations and the kind of police–community engagement central to community policing efforts.

Addressing Confirmation Bias

How can police officers and community members address the effects of confirmation bias in ways that foster more productive engagement? First, data and video footage can be helpful because they can place important limits on the range of interpretations that can be drawn. Think back to the football fans who “saw” different games. While they made different judgments about things like which team was responsible for the rough play, whether the nature of the play was unsportsmanlike, and the number of rule violations, few observers from either team thought that the game was “clean and fair,” and they did see their own team commit at least some rule violations ( Hastorf & Cantril, 1954 ). What actually happened in the game influenced their perceptions and limited the possible interpretations.

The less ambiguous the situation, the less room there is for divergent interpretation or justification ( Hsee, 1996 ). Similarly, the more robust the research base, the less likely that research will be interpreted in different ways. As MacCoun (1998 , p. 281) notes, few people “see whatever they want in the data. The available evidence constrains our interpretations… and the stronger and more comprehensive the evidence, the less wiggle room available for bias.”

This intuition helps explain why members of both groups may welcome body cameras. Police officers and community members may have different beliefs about what body cameras are likely to reveal. Cops may expect that the cameras will show them acting appropriately, while citizens may expect such cameras to reveal misconduct. But both groups share an expectation that the footage will reduce disagreement about what happened.

Simply presenting new data or relying on camera footage may be insufficient given that confirmation bias means that different people can look at the same research or videos and come to different conclusions. But data and camera footage place some bounds on interpretation: “People do not seem to be at liberty to conclude whatever they want to conclude merely because they want to.…[P]eople motivated to arrive at a particular conclusion attempt to be rational and to construct a justification of their desired conclusion that would persuade a dispassionate observer. They draw the desired conclusion only if they can muster up the evidence necessary to support it” ( Kunda, 1990 , pp. 482–483). When a more robust body of evidence is available, understandings are more likely to converge.

Second, research has also found that one way to reduce the effect of confirmation bias is to explicitly “consider the opposite” ( Kray & Galinsky, 2003 ; Lord et al., 1984 ). In other words, it is useful to consciously reflect on what a situation would look like from another vantage point, to deliberately look for aspects of a situation that could be interpreted differently, to look for evidence inconsistent with one’s hopes or expectations, and to consider how one would evaluate the quality of a research study if it had come to the opposite conclusion. These sorts of active strategies are more effective at reducing reliance on preconceptions than simply trying to “be unbiased.” Recognizing that our perspective influences our perceptions and that the bias blind spot clouds our ability to see our own biases can help motivate this active search for broader insights.

Third, and relatedly, this process of considering the opposite is likely to be the most effective when departmental culture supports disclosure and is open to acknowledging error, and when members of the police and community engage with each other, exchange information about their perspectives, and actively listen ( Eyal et al., 2018 ). When people feel misunderstood, it is hard to work together. But when people feel that their perspective is understood by the other side, increased trust and more positive intentions towards each other are more likely ( Livingstone et al., 2020 ). Listening also tends to lead to more listening on the other side and makes it more possible to grapple with complexity ( Itzchakov et al., 2017 ). This highlights the importance of engaging from a curiosity-oriented stance directed at learning more about each other’s contrasting perspectives, even if the two groups ultimately continue to see things differently.

The Role of Law Enforcement

Police leaders committed to improving relations with the community must understand and address confirmation bias. A first step is to understand why confirmation bias exists and how it can impact officers’ performance. As is the case for members of all professions, career is often central to police officers’ identity. When the issues involved are closely connected with one’s self-concept in this way, confirmation bias is even more likely to occur ( Kunda, 1990 ; Sharot, 2017 ). This is because it can be difficult to simultaneously maintain a positive self-concept as a member of a profession sworn to serve and protect the community and recognize that fellow officers or practices of the profession have caused harm to the community or the profession ( Tavris & Aronson, 2020 ).

Because the police occupy a position of authority, they bear the weight of responsibility for developing and maintaining good relations with the community. Training in the academy, mandated continuing education classes, and police news outlets all present opportunities for helping officers understand how their perspectives influence their perceptions, how confirmation bias interferes with good policing and contributes to a lack of trust, and how to take steps to recognize and address these influences.

Police leaders can adopt specific strategies to address confirmation bias. This should begin in the recruiting and hiring phase, with greater attention paid to the breadth of experiences of job applicants. The narrower an individual’s pre-existing beliefs and experiences, the more likely he or she is to take a narrow view of new information. Agencies, therefore, should seek to hire applicants with wide-ranging experiences. Background investigation, for example, could identify evidence of diversity in applicants’ friendships, work experiences, and group memberships or affiliations ( Blumberg et al., 2014 ); a demonstrable willingness to engage with and maintain broad networks across race and ethnicity, gender, nationality, religion, disability, or sexual orientation; and a sense of curiosity. In California, a 2020 bill was signed into law that directs every law enforcement agency to “review the job description that is used in the recruitment and hiring of those peace officers and…make changes that emphasize community-based policing, familiarization between law enforcement and community residents, and collaborative problem solving, while de-emphasizing the paramilitary aspects of the job” ( California Legislative Information, 2020 , para. 13651). Leaders from agencies nationally should consider ways to adopt these guidelines. One unintended benefit of this approach may be to reduce the negative impact of confirmation bias among newly hired police officers.

Law enforcement agencies can also take steps to address confirmation bias during training. As agencies incorporate initiatives to improve policing practices and police–community relations, such as increased transparency and accountability, use-of-force policies, de-escalation training, implicit bias awareness, cultural competency benchmarks, and procedural justice ( Quattlebaum et al., 2018 ), greater attention needs to be paid to training officers in ways that reinforce these principles and the ways in which traditional training fosters some of the problems police leaders are trying to correct ( Blumberg et al., 2020 ). With regard to confirmation bias, officers can be taught to recognize that things are not always the way they initially appear and should practice testing their assumptions about the reasons underlying someone’s behaviour or demeanor during an encounter. Training can focus on producing independent thinkers and creative problem-solvers by “increas(ing) opportunities for recruits’ autonomous decision-making” ( Blumberg et al., 2019 , p. 5). Building skills associated with mental flexibility and the ability to recognize and adapt to ambiguity can increase recruits’ capacity to consider alternative perspectives and interpretations.

In addition to training that makes police officers aware of the ways in which confirmation bias can impact their own perceptions and behaviour, it is critical for officers to be aware that community members will come into encounters with law enforcement with their own existing perspectives, including a range of different experiences with and expectations about law enforcement. These experiences and expectations can shape citizens’ behaviour for reasons that may not be transparent to the officers. Considering alternative explanations for and testing assumptions about such behaviour is important. In addition, when an officer’s demeanor, body language, tone of voice, and actions reinforce negative expectations, situations can escalate quickly. In addition to teaching de-escalation and non-escalation skills, training and supervision must focus on ways in which officers can build and reinforce positive, rather than negative, public expectations. Other promising philosophies and training include procedural justice and fair and impartial policing.

Implementing trauma-informed practice that “realizes the widespread impact of trauma and understands potential paths for recovery; recognizes the signs and symptoms of trauma in clients, families, staff, and others involved with the system; and responds by fully integrating knowledge about trauma into policies, procedures, and practices, and seeks to actively resist re-traumatization” ( SAMHSA, 2014 , p. 9) would fundamentally alter the way in which police officers think about and interact with members of the community. A trauma-informed approach is service-oriented and compassionate and encourages officers to consider (and ask) “what has happened to you?” rather than approaching community members with the mindset of “what’s wrong with you?” ( Blumberg et al., 2020 , p. 9). Officers with a trauma-informed mindset approach members of the community, including victims, perpetrators, and witnesses, in a respectful, compassionate manner, appreciating that part of their responsibility is to do what they can to avoid traumatizing or re-traumatizing others. Effectively teaching and implementing practices like this can expand the ways in which officers and community members see each other and decrease the negative bases for confirmation bias.

It is imperative that law enforcement agencies collaborate with scholars, policy makers, and community members to develop comprehensive training programs that address confirmation bias in police work. To this end, the training of police recruits, early career police officers, and administrators should make clear that police work is not just about fighting crime or using force. Instilling a sense of the nuanced contexts of policing and the broad range of circumstances that officers may encounter can provide a broader base of expectations and beliefs in which to root interpretation and decisions. Failing to clearly provide this perspective early in police careers risks interpretation and decisions that are more likely to confirm more narrow and unfounded assumptions. An ongoing organizational environment that supports and reinforces this perspective is also essential.

Law enforcement researchers should further explore the circumstances and expectations that ground confirmation bias in policing. More nuanced exploration of how factors such as a citizen’s racial or ethnic cultural background influence officers’ perceptions, interpretations, reactions, and decision-making through confirmation bias is important. The circumstances in which confirmation bias may be less likely to occur should also be explored. It would furthermore be valuable to explore differences in the bases for and operation of confirmation bias among officers from different cultural backgrounds. In addition, research should explore how evidence-based training programs might best help officers address confirmation bias, hence minimizing the likelihood that pre-existing attitudes and expectations will interfere with their decision-making in the line of duty or broadening the base of expectations on which they can draw. Studies that explore all of these issues will help inform strategies for addressing and mitigating confirmation bias as part of police work.

Recognizing and addressing confirmation bias is only one step in a much larger process of reform. But it is a step that can help pave the way to a better understanding, increased trust, and more effective collaboration. Confirmation bias is deeply embedded in all of us. If we are to improve police–community relations and co-create a way forward, learning to approach these debates with open minds, an awareness of the lens of our own perspective, a commitment to consider the opposite, and the goal of listening with curiosity are essential.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST DISCLOSURES

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.

AUTHOR AFFILIATIONS

* University of Illinois Police Training Institute, Champaign, IL, 671820, USA, † College of Law, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL, USA, ‡ The POWER Project, San Diego, CA, USA, § Clinical, Police, & Forensic Psychologist, The POWER Project, San Diego, CA, USA; ProWellness Inc., Toronto, ON, Canada.

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A Supreme Court Ruling on Homelessness That’s Both Crucial and Useless

City of Grants Pass v. Johnson skips over the real issues.

Later this summer, the Supreme Court will rule on City of Grants Pass v. Johnson , one of the most important cases on homelessness to come up in a long time. The court will decide whether someone can be fined, jailed, or ticketed for sleeping or camping in a public space when they’re homeless and have nowhere else to go. In oral arguments, the justices engaged in a lively debate about the central legal issues: Are states criminalizing people for the act of sleeping outside or for their status of being homeless? Does arresting an unhoused person for sleeping outside constitute cruel and unusual punishment? Should federal justices even be addressing this issue, or is it more appropriate to leave up to local officials? One thing this landmark decision will not really address—the actual problem of homelessness.

In this episode of Radio Atlantic, we talk to Atlantic writer and Good on Paper host Jerusalem Demsas about City of Grants Pass v. Johnson and what it may or may not solve. Homelessness has exploded since the 1980s, mostly in cities where housing costs have gone up. Criminalizing—or not criminalizing—people sleeping in public does not change the fact that many people have nowhere to sleep, and that people who do have places to sleep can’t help but notice that their cities have a huge homelessness problem.

Listen to the conversation here:

The following is a transcript of the episode:

Hanna Rosin: Here is a basic American idea: If something is illegal, it has to be equally illegal for everyone.

So, sleeping: Can you arrest someone for sleeping in a public space? Meaning—could city officials agree to arrest people who fall asleep in public, as long as they say the law applies to everyone, equally, in the spirit of fairness?

That’s one important thing that the Supreme Court is trying to figure out this summer.

[U.S. Supreme Court oral argument, City of Grants Pass v. Johnson ] Sonya Sotomayor: And the police officers testified that that means that if a stargazer wants to take a blanket or a sleeping bag out at night to watch the stars and falls asleep, you don’t arrest them. You don’t arrest babies who have blankets over them. You don’t arrest people who are sleeping on the beach, as I tend to do if I’ve been there a while. You only arrest people who don’t have a second home. Is that correct? Theane Evangelis: Well— Sotomayor: Who don’t have a home? Evangelis: So, no. These laws are generally applicable. They apply to everyone. Sotomayor: Yeah, that’s what you want to say.

Rosin: This is Radio Atlantic . I’m Hanna Rosin. And today, we are talking about one of the most important cases for the rights of the unhoused in a long time.

[U.S. Supreme Court oral argument, City of Grants Pass v. Johnson ] John Roberts: We’ll hear arguments first this morning in Case 23-175, City of Grants Pass v. Johnson . Ms. Evangelis? Evangelis: Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the court. Like cities nationwide, Grants Pass—

Rosin: In Grants Pass v. Johnson , the Supreme Court will rule later this summer on whether someone can be fined, jailed, or ticketed for sleeping or camping in a public space when they’re homeless.

Are they being punished because they are sleeping —the action? Or are they being punished because they’re homeless ? And should cities be free to make these decisions for themselves?

[U.S. Supreme Court oral argument, City of Grants Pass v. Johnson ] John Roberts: Municipalities have competing priorities. I mean, what if there are lead pipes in the water? Do you build the homeless shelter, or do you take care of the lead pipes? What if there aren’t—isn’t enough fire protection? Which one do you prioritize? Why would you think that these nine people are the best people to judge and weigh those policy judgments?

Rosin: So in a way, Grants Pass shines a big, bright spotlight on the real issue, which is that many city governments have made a series of decisions about housing over the last few decades that have resulted in a growing number of people who have nowhere to sleep.

Jerusalem Demsas: We’ve put a lot of power into the hands of local governments to decide who can and can’t be somewhere, and what kinds of people can and can exist in different places.

Rosin: This is Atlantic writer Jerusalem Demsas. She thinks a lot about what’s behind our policy dilemmas—housing is one of her obsessions. She also hosts The Atlantic ’s new policy podcast, Good on Paper .

Demsas: And so this kind of exclusion functions in so many different invisible ways. There are all these invisible jurisdictional lines that are affecting behavior, like what school was allowed to be built where 20 years ago. And thus, when your parents were looking for a place to live near a school, they generally were attracted to a certain set of neighborhoods. We think of these as free choices, but they’re actually the choices that are handed down to us by government policy from decades ago.

Rosin: And when it comes to housing, these series of choices have created impossible situations. City governments have an interest in keeping the order. Local citizens need somewhere to sleep. These competing interests have been battling it out in a string of important court cases, like Martin v. Boise .

Demsas: In that case, six homeless people sued Boise, Idaho, because of an anti-camping ordinance. And they claimed that their constitutional rights were being violated because they were being told that they couldn’t sleep in public, but there was nowhere for them to sleep. There were not housing shelters or things at capacity available for them. And so they said this is a violation of their civil rights, and the Ninth Circuit agreed with them.

And since then, the Ninth Circuit, of course, it covers a handful of states but really big ones that are at concern here, like California, for instance, which has the largest homeless population in the country. But, of course, other courts also pay attention and cite Martin v. Boise , as well. So this has become important to the whole country, even though this was just the Ninth Circuit case. So this has come before the Supreme Court before, and they have declined to listen to it.

But this time, in Grants Pass v. Johnson , they had oral argument. And what’s at stake here is basically what kinds of things constitute cruel and unusual punishment. And already there’s leeway given to local governments to have reasonable time restrictions and place restrictions on public land for where people can camp. But if the Supreme Court overturns Martin v. Boise and rules against the homeless individuals at play here, then basically what could happen is you could see a whole new raft of criminalization policies, of encampment sweeps without any concern for whether or not those people can actually go somewhere to sleep at night.

Rosin: Okay, so on one side, on the unhoused side, it’s really clear what the interests are there. They’re very basic. They’re like, I have no place to go, and there isn’t capacity in any shelter, and you are criminalizing just a basic life function of mine . What is the city’s interest? What’s Grants Pass or any of these cities—what’s at stake on their side of things?

Demsas: Yeah. So Grants Pass, Oregon, is—I think people outside of Oregon think of it as a liberal state, but this is a pretty conservative county. The city of Grants Pass is a county seat. You have some liberal homeowners, but you also have a lot of clear conservatives, things like that. Oregon’s a very idiosyncratic place, so just setting that context.

The entirety of the push towards criminalization begins because, in around 2013, they have this roundtable where they’re trying to discuss how to get rid of vagrants or the problem of vagrancy. And so they begin really heavily ticketing, penalizing, fining people to get them out. And the problem, of course, in Grants Pass is there’s basically one real shelter in Grants Pass, and it’s what local journalists have referred to as a high-barrier shelter.

Rosin: Mm-hmm.

Demsas: And what that means is that they have requirements on someone to come in. You have requirements about attending daily Christian services. They have requirements around not using nicotine. They have requirements around not using any substances. They have prohibitions around interacting with the opposite sex. They have prohibitions around trans people or identifying as the opposite gender or wearing clothes that identify as the opposite gender.

So there’s tons of restrictions. And that’s a place where homeless research has been really clear: that if you make it really, really hard for people, it obviously raises the stakes for them. And if you’re an individual who doesn’t think that you’re forever homeless—you think that you’re just trying to figure it out right then, which is most people who are homeless (they don’t expect to be homeless for decades)—then it’s like, Oh, I’m not going to just stop speaking to my wife or my girlfriend. I’m not going to just separate from my dog. I’m not going to cold turkey nicotine , which is a very hard thing to do, you know? So it’s a lot of things that make it really difficult in Grants Pass.

Rosin: Okay. Just to stick with the city’s position for a minute, it sounds like from what you’re describing it, it’s somewhere between aesthetic and safety?

Demsas: I think it’s public order. There’s real concerns about the parks themselves—they’re public parks. It’s not just for homeless folks. It’s for everyone who’s in Oregon or anyone who wants to come to Oregon. They’re public parks. You know, so I think there are legitimate concerns about public order and safety that are on the city’s part.

Rosin: Right, right. Okay. And then the other thing that comes into this case is the Eighth Amendment, which was surprising to me. That’s the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. I, personally, have never thought of it as being used in this particular way. I think of it as having to do with sentencing or presentencing. Why that? Why does that come up in all the cases?

Demsas: So there’s decades-old precedent that established that it was cruel and unusual to punish someone because of their status. Basically, you can punish behavior—there’s something that you do —but if it’s something that you are , you can’t just punish that existence. And so homeless folks in the Martin v. Boise ruling—and in that case—they were trying to prove that homelessness itself was a status that you couldn’t just criminalize. And so what was happening is that you have to criminalize specific behavior. And so what’s interesting is in the oral arguments we heard, you have—

Rosin: In the Grants Pass case.

Demsas: In the Grants Pass case, yes. You have these questions around, Well, are you criminalizing everyone who’s sleeping? Because if you’re not, then you’re criminalizing someone’s status. And the respondents from Grants Pass really struggled with this question.

[U.S. Supreme Court oral argument, City of Grants Pass v. Johnson ] Evangelis: It’s very important that it applies to everyone. Elena Kagan: Yeah, I got that. But it’s a single person with a blanket. You don’t have to have a tent. You don’t have to have a camp. It’s a single person with a blanket. Evangelis: And sleeping in conduct is considered—excuse me, sleeping in public is considered conduct. This court, in Clark, discussed that—that that is conduct. Also, the federal regulations— Kagan: Well, sleeping is a biological necessity. It’s sort of like breathing. I mean, you could say breathing is conduct, too, but presumably you would not think that it’s okay to criminalize breathing in public. Evangelis: I would like to point to the federal regulations— Kagan: And for a homeless person who has no place to go, sleeping in public is kind of like breathing in public. Evangelis: Well, two points. Even for the federal regulations …

Demsas: So for the cruel-and-unusual part, sleeping is sort of like a necessity. It’s not just a thing where you can just make yourself not sleep, you know?

Rosin: Right. Okay, so the core issue for each side is, on the homeless side—forgetting about the policy for a minute—the core issue is: Are you essentially criminalizing a state of being? And then for the city, it’s the city’s right to decide how it wants to create public order and police in the city.

Demsas: And to be clear, it’s not just that the folks on Grants Pass —or on the side of the homeless advocates, in this sense—are saying the city should not be able to move people out of public spaces. They’re saying, You have to provide them an alternative . If you’re going to say, You can’t be here , and then they go, Where should we go?, you have to have an answer to that question.

But, you know, to bolster a little bit of the case on the side of the city, I think it’s important to also note that, for instance, you could be starving to death, and it’s still illegal to steal, right? It’s illegal to steal bread or something like that. I mean, we’ve all seen Les Mis . So that’s not allowed. But at the same time, the distinction that’s being made here is: You don’t criminalize starvation; you criminalize the stealing of bread , versus, Are you just criminalizing homelessness in this case, or are you criminalizing sleeping in this place at a specific time. Are you providing reasonable restrictions?

Rosin: Yeah. This does sound a lot like a lot of other dilemmas that cities are facing now—a lot of other dilemmas around social services versus public order. That seems to be a central conundrum that liberal, urban places don’t quite know how to solve right now.

Demsas: And not just liberal. I mean, Grants Pass is not a liberal place. I think this is a problem that has existed for a while.

And I think that, in some ways, it’s a real tension. And sometimes there’s a tension between, you know, How do you provide for order while allowing people to be free and do what they want to do? And, in some ways, it’s not a real tension. Like with the homelessness—I think that’s why I’m so interested in it. And I’m just like, There’s actually a solution to the crisis. You could just provide housing that is sufficient for the people who need it, and then you would not have homelessness .

But, you know, I think people forget—because we’re so in it now—but mass encampments were not normal for most of American history. The modern encampments and modern tent homelessness began in the 1980s. And so, to me, it’s just like, Yes, of course. Now there is this tension . But it’s come after decades of terrible policy.

Rosin: After the break—we get into that policy. And also: What happens if the Supreme Court case rules in favor of the city?

Rosin: Okay. What has happened over the last few decades, both in numbers of homelessness, demographics—what’s been the changing picture? Do you want to start in the ’80s? Is that the right place to start?

Demsas: Homelessness has skyrocketed since the ’80s. Half a million people, roughly, are homeless on a given night when they do the point-in-time count to figure out how many people are homeless in America.

Rosin: What is the point-in-time count?

Demsas: Yeah. It’s a very difficult thing: How do you figure out how many homeless people there are? It’s not like you can just do a simple survey to figure that out.

Rosin: Right. And nobody’s like, Checking on the census: I’m homeless now .

Demsas: Yeah, exactly. So what they do is by the end of January, basically, every single continuum of care, which is just the jurisdiction that they reference—sometimes it’s counties, sometimes it’s cities, whatever. So every single jurisdiction has to count up their homeless. And by that, I mean—literally—they need to go around and count people up. There’s a lot of problems with it, but that’s kind of the count we have.

So homelessness has been really on the rise, and it’s really tracked alongside the rising unaffordability of housing, and that has been really the core cause of rising homelessness.

Rosin: So is it evenly distributed? Is it mostly West Coast? Over the last—since the ’80s—what else has changed besides just total numbers?

Demsas: Yes. You see it concentrated in places where you see high housing costs. So you see it concentrated in places like Los Angeles, like New York, like Boston, like D.C., like San Francisco, like Seattle—these are the places where you see homeless encampments on the rise.

And I think there’s also distinctions in the types of homelessness. So in places like New York, it famously has a right to shelter. And the East Coast, because of the blisteringly cold temperatures, there’s a lot more incentive—both humanitarian and just because, I mean, you don’t want a bunch of people dying in your city—to provide a lot more shelter capacity. And the East Coast tends to have a lot more shelters, and so it’s often less visible than on the West Coast, where there’s less of that concern that people are going to die outside. And so the visibility of the homelessness is much larger in places like Los Angeles, for instance.

Rosin: Yeah. I was just in Seattle, and I had forgotten about the particular nature of West Coast homelessness. I mean, Seattle, Portland—there are places where there are just huge populations downtown—

Demsas: Yep.

Rosin: Especially at this time of year. And it’s just an accepted part of the city infrastructure. That’s true in East Coast cities, too, but in a different way and a little more recently and a little more season dependent. So yeah, I was reminded of that.

Now is it that obvious and well accepted that rising housing costs and homelessness have moved in tandem? Is that a universally accepted principle?

Demsas: I don’t think there’s anything universally accepted anymore.

Rosin: ( Laughs .)

Demsas: But yeah, as universally accepted as you can get, yes.

I think that this is something that requires taking a step back to talk about what we mean by something causing something else. So people are saying things like, Oh, so-and-so is homeless because they were addicted to drugs, and then they lost their job, and then they couldn’t make their rent, and now they’re living on the street . They’re not wrong if that story happened, right? So there are individual vulnerabilities that make someone more likely to become homeless.

But when you reduce the supply of affordable housing to the extent that we have, we have guaranteed basically that someone will be homeless. Who becomes homeless is a question of vulnerability, right? People who are less well off, people who have mental-health issues, people who are addicted to drugs, people who are more likely to lose their jobs or who are volatile in some way—so they’re going to get into arguments with their family members or with roommates, so they’re going to end up on the street—that’s all true. Those things are a part of the story of how they become homeless.

But all of those things happened before 1980, and yet we didn’t see those people become homeless. They still had mental-health issues. There were still drug-addiction issues. There were still epidemics of different kinds of drugs. And yet people were experiencing those things, and they were housed. And why that is: because there was just a lot more availability of really, really cheap housing stock.

You can have high poverty, even, like Detroit, Philadelphia—these are places with high poverty. They do not experience the level of homelessness that you see in places like Boston or D.C. or San Francisco. So I think that that’s trying to figure out causally from a policymaker’s standpoint: What could I do as a policy maker to reduce the level of homelessness? You could have low poverty. San Francisco: very low-poverty place. You can’t reduce it by that much more, and yet you still see high rates of homelessness. And so, to me, the lever that policymakers really need to focus on is increase in supply of affordable housing as much as possible.

Rosin: Right. So for you, there are two things that are obvious: One is that the causes of homelessness are a particular interaction between personal qualities and structural realities in a city. And the second is: If you do look at the interaction of those two things, what you end up with is lack of affordable housing.

Demsas: Yeah.

Rosin: Okay. Let’s wind back around to our central question. So, we have this Grants Pass case, which is the city versus the rights of the homeless people. From the logic that we’ve talked about—Debra Blake, who’s the original complainant, saying she has no place to go—from the way you’ve described things, she’s probably right. Like, she’s probably correct. That would be a common problem. And yet, from all accounts of Supreme Court oral arguments, they seem to be tipping towards Grants Pass’s side, right? Is that right?

Demsas: Yeah. External observers think that, on net, it’s likely that they—I mean, it’s also possible that they choose not to; they resolve on a question that is completely kind of below. Often, the Supreme Court will just resolve on this lowest-available question that doesn’t require them to actually engage with some of these bigger issues. And so they could do that and kick it back down.

And even right now, cities are clearing encampments, too. So whether the policy reality looks very, very different is really unclear if the Supreme Court doesn’t rule. But, yeah, I mean, the Supreme Court does not look favorable for the homeless plaintiffs.

Rosin: Okay, so let’s say the Supreme Court does rule in favor of Grants Pass’s desire to be able to maintain jurisdiction and control over the homeless population. How do you read that decision? Is that just avoidance of the bigger problem? Does it cause its own set of problems? Where does that leave us?

Demsas: I think that we’ve danced around this a lot in this conversation, but there’s almost two different policy issues at play here. There is: Do we want to see fewer people homeless? And then there is: Do we want our communities to feel better? Because for everyone, it just feels bad to see people living in that way. That’s just really striking. It makes people not want to go towards those areas. You see decreased engagement with the businesses.

And so, to me, it keeps the conversation in this place of: The problem is order . And the reason I dislike that is because you actually can’t solve it in that space. If you keep it focused on order, you just end up moving homeless people around. Maybe you move them to jail. Maybe you move them to another city. Maybe you are able to incentivize more of them to live in cars and be better at evading, if they’re able to get there. And some people might count that as a win if you just end up not having to see these encampments everywhere. But to me, that’s a lot, a lot, a lot of public money spent on not solving a problem.

Rosin: So you’ve neither solved the homelessness problem, nor have you solved the problem you wanted to solve and narrowly focus on, which is the order problem.

Demsas: Yes. Because, to me, it’s the idea that—I mean, California’s governor, even, has submitted an amicus brief in favor of Grants Pass in this case. And he’s someone who, you know—it’s a liberal state where they focus on this issue.

I mean, there are a bunch of liberal city leaders who have also said they want more power in order to clear encampments. These are places that have devoted tons of money and energy and time to solving the problem. And I want to be very clear here that most of the people who are even, I think, counterproductive in solving the homelessness problem are devoting tons of energy and time and money towards a variety of different types of solutions.

And, to me, it’s not that they don’t care about this. But I think if the Supreme Court decides it’s just going to keep us again in this spiral of talking about and dealing with this problem as a function of encampments, as a function of order, as a function of policing and of people putting people in jail, I just worry that we end up stuck there, and we don’t actually try to solve the problem of disorder.

Rosin: Right. So if the Supreme Court does, as expected, side with Grants Pass, either nothing changes or you get more license to criminalize, in which case nothing changes. Is there a universe where the emptiness of that decision leads to something positive?

Demsas: I think a lot of states have started to realize the futility of their own housing policy and of allowing local governments to continue on in the way they have for the past few decades. You see energy, most recently, in Colorado, in Montana, in California, and a lot of places around the country—in Texas. And these are places where people have said, Okay. The housing crisis has gotten so bad. We cannot continue the status quo. We’re going to make it much easier to build all types of housing . And that has happened adjacent with the rise in homelessness. It has happened adjacent with the run-up in home prices and rent unaffordability. And that has really spurred action.

I think people were really shocked to see, in 2020, that this crisis—which a lot of people had thought, All right, well, that’s just because of those crazy Californians and those New Yorkers and those Bostonians. That’s them. That’s their problem. It’s not our problem —it moved. It spread to the rest of the country. As the housing unaffordability crisis spread, so, too, did the homelessness crisis, and that really spurred policymakers to take action.

And so I have some serious concerns about what’s going to happen in the future, but I do see some shining lights of optimism in that state governments have taken on an extremely difficult political issue and been able to find some level of solutions here. Now, the track record of places staying on course on a policy path when you don’t see results immediately is not the greatest. You know, I’m always cautious. You’re trying to get me to end on a positive note. And I’m just like, You know, I don’t know!

Rosin: No, no, no. You know what I’m trying to do? I’m trying to build up anticipation. So Jerusalem, on your show—and congratulations—we can just listen for constant updates, since this is such a central issue. So I’m just setting you up for figuring this out for us and all its complications over the next few years.

Demsas: Okay, well, you just brought up my new show, Hanna. It’s called Good on Paper .

Rosin: Such a good name.

Demsas: Thank you. So Good on Paper is a policy show, and it’s one where we are investigating ideas that fly in the face of some existing narrative. Maybe it’s a broad one held by a lot of people in the U.S. Maybe it’s a narrative held by an academic community. But it wants to take seriously the ideas that seem in the face of what we already generally believe.

We’ve kind of already done an episode here on your show now that’s like this—you know, the idea that homelessness is not really about drugs, not really about mental health; it’s about housing. That is, in some ways, a narrative violation. It’s also a lot about academic papers, so it’s about good-on-paper ideas and also papers that are good on— That’s a good paper ! ( Laughs .)

Rosin: Yeah. That’s something I love. It’s so delightful to come upon academics who have cut through the ways that everybody else has done it and just figured out how to factor in some very either obvious or complicated things. It’s so delightful to come upon a good, clear paper, you know?

Demsas: Yeah. Well, thanks for having me on your show. I can’t wait to have you on mine.

Rosin: Yes. I would love to. It was really fun.

Demsas: Yes, yes. Thank you so much. I’m really excited.

Rosin: Jerusalem’s show, Good on Paper , is out now, with new episodes every Tuesday. I hardly know anyone who sees the world as clearly as Jerusalem does. She sees through and behind and under all of these policy decisions. And if you listen to Good on Paper , you’ll develop that superpower, too.

This episode of Radio Atlantic was produced by Jinae West. It was edited by Claudine Ebeid, fact-checked by Yvonne Kim, and engineered by Rob Smierciak. Claudine Ebeid is the executive producer of Atlantic audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor.

I’m Hanna Rosin. Thank you for listening.