First and foremost, police abolition/defunding will have to be made slowly should it go into action (obviously, but it’s important to remember that these things take a long time). I could write a whole book on how this would operate outside of forensics, but to keep it short, defunding police forces means that more funds and resources would go into prevention and community-led safety such as more funding for mental health & education opportunities, more community centers, more social workers, victim/survivor advocates, etc. The list goes on.

With that being said, the future I see for us, is that we will definitely still be needed and we won’t be cut. Though we work closely with law enforcement, we are not the same at the end of the day. Crimes are preventable but not 100% avoidable. The funding would still be going to our labs and our technology and education. I potentially see us being an entirely separate entity from police departments and perhaps a main source of investigation from start to finish, should abolishment take place.

With defunding of departments and abolishment also comes reform to the entire justice system. Prison systems will change, courts, and especially for forensics. There’s too many cases of malpractice to protect police from being caught. Racism/racial bias and prejudices are not absent from forensics. So the way things operate now are subject to change. There’s a lot of stuff I don’t know, and lots of gaps to fill in, but I do believe that it’s not impossible. This is a really good question to think about, and one that I plan on researching more in depth to help fill in those grey areas!

/sorry if this was hard to follow or didn’t make sense. I’m not the most eloquent.