A strong consensus has taken hold in the legal academy. Criminal Justice Localism, espoused by scholars of every stripe, promotes greater local control of every facet of the criminal justice system. But Criminal Justice Localism largely overlooks an institution that plays a critical role in the criminal justice system, and which has been the subject of intense public criticism: the police. That oversight is remarkable for two reasons. First, calls for increased local control of the police seem to ignore that America operates one of the most—if not the most—decentralized policing models in the world, with its thousands of local, autonomous, and tiny police departments. Second, and more importantly, Criminal Justice Localism has failed to identify, let alone grapple with, the downsides of our decentralized police model. And there are plenty. Decentralization can increase the competition for police labor, which can prompt departments to lower hiring and training standards. That competition pushes labor costs up, discouraging departments from punishing officers who use force excessively. Because decentralization shrinks the size of the median police department, it also prevents agencies from promoting officers who use force appropriately. Decentralization also leads to over-enforcement and over-criminalization, as local officials use their departments to collect more and more fines and to send local offenders to prisons for which they do not pay. Finally, decentralization may hinder efforts to fight crime, as it generates a panoply of coordination problems and prevents an efficient allocation of police resources to those communities that need them the most. Whether the system’s cons outweigh the pros, this Article does not say. But it does start a long overdue conversation about the unexplored and undertheorized links between decentralization and a policing system in crisis.
Volume 174 Issue 5 2026 Article Criminal Justice; Criminal Law;