For those folks, the picture changes because hopefully they won’t have so many problematic things to deal with. The reality is a lot of people just don’t call the police as it is because they feel like it’s just going to make their lives worse. That is a deep truth. And so what we want to do is not just to leave them on their own, we want to try and start fixing their problems. Like domestic violence, which goes grossly underreported because huge numbers of survivors feel that getting the police involved is just going to make the situation worse. Police come, either do nothing, arrest both parties, or arrest the man whom the woman was financially dependent upon. He’s pissed off when he gets out of jail, and he comes and beats her up again. Where’s the community resource center? Where are the supports for families, so that maybe they can fix their problems? Where are the outlets for women so that they can live independently, to get away from an abuser?

— What a World Without Cops Would Look Like Mother Jones, Madison Pauly in Mother Jones