Tag: officers

What’s Driving The Pandemic In Prisons – Correctional Officers
COVID-19

What’s Driving The Pandemic In Prisons – Correctional Officers

COVID-19 Danielle Wallace, Arizona State University Prisons and jails have hosted some of the largest COVID-19 outbreaks in the U.S., with some facilities approaching 4,000 cases. In the U.S., which has some of the highest COVID-19 infection rates in the world, 9 in 100 people have had the virus; in U.S. prisons, the rate is 34 out of 100. I study public health issues around prisons. My colleagues and I set out to understand why COVID-19 infection rates were so high among incarcerated individuals. Using data from the Federal Bureau of Prisons, we discovered the infection rate among correctional officers drove the infection rate among incarcerated individuals. We also found a three-way relationship between the infection rate of officers, incarcerated individuals and the communities arou...
Police officers accused of brutal violence often have a history of complaints by citizens
VIDEO REELS

Police officers accused of brutal violence often have a history of complaints by citizens

As protests against police violence and racism continue in cities throughout the U.S., the public is learning that several of the officers involved in the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville share a history of complaints by citizens of brutality or misconduct. Decades of research on police shootings and brutality reveal that officers with a history of shooting civilians, for example, are much more likely to do so in the future compared to other officers. A similar pattern holds for misconduct complaints. Officers who are the subject of previous civilian complaints – regardless of whether those complaints are for excessive force, verbal abuse or unlawful searches – pose a higher risk of engaging in serious misconduct in the future. A study published in...
School resource officers aren’t arrested often – but when they are, it’s usually for sexual misconduct
IN OTHER NEWS

School resource officers aren’t arrested often – but when they are, it’s usually for sexual misconduct

The presence of law enforcement in schools – better known as school resource officers – has become increasingly common. These officers, who have full law enforcement powers, are supposed to keep students safe. Earlier this year, however, a former Michigan school resource officer – Matthew Priebe – was convicted and sentenced to one year in jail for doing just the opposite. Instead of protecting students from threats, Officer Priebe had been sexually preying on female students, using his power as a school police officer to engage in inappropriate and nonconsensual sexual acts with students. This latest headline is not a singular event. Within the past year, several other school resource officers have been arrested or convicted of sexual misconduct with students. The good news is this kin...
IN OTHER NEWS

How This Database Is Tracking and Exposing Officers’ Bigoted Facebook Posts

It’s found more than 5,000 racist, sexist, and Islamophobic Facebook posts and comments by law enforcement. It’s a good day for a chokehold. This was the Facebook post of a Phoenix police officer. In a different post, a Philadelphia police lieutenant recounted a courthouse scene in which a defendant and his family walk off an elevator: “… indignant about the fact that those of us actually working are going the other way. I fucking hate them.” Another lieutenant commented: “I fucking hate the [sic] too.” An online database called the Plain View Project has collected more than 5,000 bigoted, racist, sexist, Islamophobic Facebook postings and comments like these by former and current law enforcement officers in jurisdictions across the country. The database was started tw...