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Sen. Ted Cruz held up Alex Vitale’s book and waved it before Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson and the others watching her confirmation hearing.

Cruz, a Texas Republican, was joining with Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley and other extremist Republicans in an attempt to trash Jackson’s sterling reputation and resume. ÁñÁ«ÊÓƵ want to stop President Joe Biden from appointing the first Black woman to the U.S. Supreme Court.

It won’t work. But to that end, Cruz tried to drag Jackson into the GOP culture wars by asking her about Vitale’s book, “ The book is on a recommended reading list at a school where Jackson is on the Board of Trustees.

The gambit backfired, first, because Jackson has more poise and class than her inquisitors, and second, because Vitale’s book is not what Cruz believes it is.

Vitale is a in New York. He’s one of the nation’s foremost experts on policing. Last month, he and I shared a virtual stage as we talked about the criminalization of poverty, and how to fix America’s criminal legal system so that it is not used to take money from poor people.

Here’s how Vitale described his book:

“‘The End of Policing’ is both a critique of the criminalization of vulnerable populations but it’s also a road map for what we could do differently: investing in community based violence reduction programs, investments in school counselors and wrap around services, investments in supportive housing and drug treatment on demand and harm reduction services, the kind of investments that would create real public safety by building up communities and individuals, rather than tearing them down.�

In fact, Vitale’s ideas are being tried all over the country, from St. Louis to Denver to Oregon, and, yes, even in Cruz’s home state of Texas. Earlier this month, in fact, Cruz’s senior Texas colleague, John Cornyn, Dallas Police Department Chief Eddie Garcia to his Senate colleagues, in part to bring attention to a program called .

Similar to a program in St. Louis, mental health workers now accompany police officers on some 911 calls in Dallas, in an attempt to better deal with those who need health care more than they need policing. The programs, many versions of which are being tried around the country, are working, decreasing incarceration and cutting down on conflict between police and the communities they serve.

There is debate over whether mental health professionals should respond to many such calls on their own, as happens in Denver, or in conjunction with police, as happens in St. Louis and Dallas, but the concept is the same, to seek a better outcome for citizens and taxpayers.

Vitale, of course, believes that for such programs to be sustained long term, funding must shift from police departments to mental health workers, from incarceration to programs intended to reduce poverty and homelessness. If it takes dramatic slogans such as “The End of Policing� or “defund police� to spark the very real conversations that are happening in communities across the country, so be it. That’s what educators and researchers like Vitale do.

The good news is, even if he mischaracterized a book he probably hasn’t read, Cruz did Vitale a favor last week. After he denounced Vitale’s 2017 book, , to a first-place ranking on Amazon’s sociology of race relations category.

“My real hope with the book is that we would be able to talk about how to advance the sorts of demands that might bring relief to some of our communities,� Vitale said last month during our discussion. “Obviously, if all police disappeared tomorrow, there would be negative consequences about that. But that’s not what anybody’s talking about. We’re talking about putting in place alternative interventions that work better.�

The book is not yet written on which interventions work best. That will take years of data to determine. What Vitale knows, and writes, is that existing data is clear: More money for police does not necessarily increase public safety, and it often leads to other negative outcomes, such as crowded jails and prisons.

In time, programs being tested in cities across the country will yield data that should offer lawmakers who care about serious legislation a roadmap to improving public safety.

Vitale will write about it. Thanks to Ted Cruz, it might just be a bestseller.