In the coming days, you will see Camden, N. J., held up as a shining example of the miraculous effects of “reimagining policing.” This supports the narrative that achieving racial justice requires us to defund the police, reallocating law enforcement dollars to more useful and compassionate social programs.

That Camden might someday become an example of good urban policy seemed laughable in 2012, when its homicide rate was 87 per 100,000 population. That’s 50 percent above the prevailing rate in Baltimore, America’s most murderous large city. Since then, however, Camden has made great strides, reducing its homicide rate almost two-thirds by last year.

Step one was busting their police union by disbanding the force in 2013.

At the time, the cop cartel had pumped up average annual costs per officer (including extraordinarily generous fringe benefits) to $182,168. At that monopoly price, poor Camden could afford to employ just 175 cops, and during peak nighttime crime hours only a dozen might be on patrol.

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