[1] At the time of its publication, Brooklyn College held a panel with Vitale and Heather Mac Donald, who argued that modern policing is not institutionally racist.

[4] Following the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, a public discourse about defunding or abolishing the police led to Vitale appearing in a wide range of news media.

Vitale argues that the purpose of police is not to deal with instances of social ills, but to uphold inequalities in society on the axes of class, gender, race and sexuality.

[6] He believes that the conditions for crime arise due to the implementation of conservative policies such as support for a trickle-down economics model, austerity, redlining and union busting.

He recommends drug rehabilitation centers for addicts, improved education and a different employment system, as well as more mental health care availability and open borders.

[5] Micol Siegel of the journal Social Justice recommended it as "particularly useful to activists seeking material for self-edification, reading groups, or popular education campaigns".

Murji argued that Vitale "does not dismiss police reform in its entirety", believing that he could have taken ideas from prison abolitionism, and that he could have made further comments about how his suggested policies could gain traction.

[11] Vox's Matthew Yglesias reviewed that Vitale fails to address economic and sociological literature suggesting that increased police numbers correlate with a reduction in violent crime, arguing that reform is valuable.

He found that in The End of Policing, "the causal reasoning is a little shaky and the willingness to consider trade-offs nonexistent", though it "contains some good ideas" about housing and mental health policy.