police

20Nov

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WORK

The good-guy image police present to students often clashes with students’ reality

Eight days after George Floyd was killed during an encounter with Minneapolis police in an incident that sparked protests around the world, Minneapolis Public Schools terminated its contract for the Minneapolis police to provide officers in schools. “I value people and education and life,” school board chairwoman Kim Ellison told a local newspaper. “Now I’m convinced, based on the actions of the Minneapolis Police Department, that we don’t have the same values.” On June 4, Guadalupe Guerrero, the superintendent of Portland Public Schools in Oregon, followed suit, saying: “We need to re-examine our relationship” with the Portland Police Bureau. “The time is now,” Guerrero tweeted. “With new proposed investments in direct student supports (social workers, counselors, culturally-specific p...

College Requirements For Police Forces Can Save Black Lives – At What Cost?

4Apr

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IN OTHER NEWS

College Requirements For Police Forces Can Save Black Lives – At What Cost?

Police forces requiring at least a two-year college degree for employment are less likely to employ officers who engage in actions that cause the deaths of Black and unarmed citizens, according to our new peer-reviewed study of data on 235 U.S. city police departments from 2000 to 2016. Findings from our analysis conducted alongside colleagues professor William Sabol and David Snively, interim police chief in Morrow, Georgia, also revealed that Black citizens were no more likely than white citizens to die during police encounters in places where police are required to have more college education. With a few exceptions, most prior research shows officer education level and department college requirements do not significantly affect deadly police outcomes. That research is mostly limited b...

Police Fight Against Defunding, Thin-Skinned Blue Line Showing Their True Colours

4Apr

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Police Fight Against Defunding, Thin-Skinned Blue Line Showing Their True Colours

Since the police killing of George Floyd in May 2020 and the subsequent mass mobilizations for police defunding and abolition, the defund movement has continued to organize. Has this work had an impact in Canada? Have there been successful challenges to reducing Canadian police budgets? The answer is complicated and depends on how you define success. Raised awareness Some argue the mobilization and movement-building that has transpired — people brought together in campaigns for police abolition that reimagine community safety — is a huge success in and of itself. Abolition has entered the public consciousness like never before. Dozens of books have been published by academics, lawyers and activists, building on the work of Black feminists in the United States and Canada who have long ar...

11May

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

SOCIAL JUSTICE

Are Fatal Police Interactions Avoidable

The police killing of 26-year-old Congolese refugee Patrick Lyoya in Michigan has many of us swirling in the fear, grief, and confusion that accompany such a tragedy. In this case, confusion also played a key role in Lyoya’s killing. When Lyoya was pulled over by police, he stepped out of his car. When the officer demanded that he to return to the car, he asked, “Why?” A tussle ensued until the officer shot Lyoya in the back of the head. Lyoya was a refugee, a father of two, had no police record, and was unarmed. His confusion about what to do when pulled over by the police should not have cost him his life. It’s true: Stressful situations can lead to confusion among all parties involved. But not all forms of confusion have equal consequences. In some cases, confusion can result in death...

Posing Potential Risks To Kids – Police Presence On School Grounds

15Apr

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EDUCATION

Posing Potential Risks To Kids – Police Presence On School Grounds

In fall 2020, I got an email from the Phoenix Elementary School District #1, a K-8 school district, requesting feedback on whether to continue using school resource officers in seven of the district’s 14 elementary schools. As a researcher who specializes in the policing and development of children and adolescents, I responded by sharing a summary of the research on the subject of police in schools and offering my consultation. The school board president asked me to present research to the board on the effects school resource officers had on overall student well-being, school safety and school climate. The school board was under pressure to make a decision about a divisive issue with a pending deadline. Parents and teachers were split on the use of school resource officers. Youth were a ...

Police Accountability And The Concrete Effects Of Body Cameras

17Nov

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Police Accountability And The Concrete Effects Of Body Cameras

Suat Cubukcu, American University; Erdal Tekin, American University; Nusret Sahin, Stockton University, and Volkan Topalli, Georgia State University Without video evidence, it’s unlikely we would have ever heard of George Floyd or witnessed the prosecution of his killer, a Minneapolis police officer. The recording of Floyd’s killing echoed the documentation in the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, two Black men who were killed at the hands of police. The circulation of such videos – witness cellphones, dashcams and police body-worn cameras – have helped awaken a protest movement centered on police accountability and systemic racism in the United States. They have also diminished trust in law enforcement, which has dipped to its lowest level since 1993, according to a 2020 Gallup...

In Official Statistics Police Killings Of Civilians In The US Have Been Under-Counted By More Than Half

4Apr

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In Official Statistics Police Killings Of Civilians In The US Have Been Under-Counted By More Than Half

Moshen Naghavi, University of Washington; Eve Wool, University of Washington, and Fablina Sharara, University of Washington The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. The big idea The number of people killed by police officers in the U.S. has been massively under-reported in official statistics over the past four decades, with an additional 17,000 deaths over that period, according to our new research. Our study, which was published on Oct. 2, 2021, in The Lancet, compared statistics from the National Vital Statistics System, a federal database that looks at death certificates, with data from three nongovernmental organizations that more accurately track police violence: Mapping Police Violence, Fatal Encounters, and The Counted. We found more than 30,000 deaths...

Capitol Police Prepare For A Return Of Insurrectionists – More On The Symbols They Carried On Jan. 6 Washington

16Sep

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POLITICS

Capitol Police Prepare For A Return Of Insurrectionists – More On The Symbols They Carried On Jan. 6 Washington

Jeff Inglis, The Conversation A rally in Washington, slated for Sept. 18, 2021, is being billed as an effort to support people who face criminal charges for their involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Many of the same groups who participated in January are expected to return to the nation’s capital for this demonstration. Capitol Police are reportedly preparing for violence and erecting protective fencing around the building. The groups involved in January’s attack on the Capitol carried a variety of political and ideological flags and signs. The Conversation asked scholars to explain what they saw – including ancient Norse images and more recent flags from U.S. history – and what those symbols mean. Here are five articles from The Conversation’s coverage, explain...

Traumatizing Black People And Communities Across US The Pain Of Police Killings Ripples Outward

4Apr

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Traumatizing Black People And Communities Across US The Pain Of Police Killings Ripples Outward

It’s been one year since George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer set off the largest protests in U.S. history and a national reckoning with racism. Beyond the protests, every police killing – indeed, every violent act by police toward civilians – can have painful and widespread consequences. Each year, U.S. police kill about 1,000 people, which equals approximately 8% of all homicides for adult men. This risk is greater for Black men, who are about 2.5 times more likely to be killed by the police than white men. The effects of these killings ripple from the individual victim to their families and local communities as they cope with the permanence of injury, death and loss. People victimized by the police have demonstrated higher-than-usual rates of depression, psychologica...

Police Body Cameras Can Invade People’s Privacy But Help Monitor Police

4Apr

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CULTURE, Journalism, VIDEO REELS

Police Body Cameras Can Invade People’s Privacy But Help Monitor Police

In the course of their work, police officers encounter people who are intoxicated, distressed, injured or abused. The officers routinely ask for key identifying information like addresses, dates of birth and driver’s license numbers, and they frequently enter people’s homes and other private spaces. Police see some difficult scenes; body cameras can record those and make them public. Tony Webster via Flickr, CC BY-SA With the advent of police body cameras, this information is often captured in police video recordings – which some states’ open-records laws make available to the public. Starting in the summer of 2014, as part of research on police adoption of body-worn cameras within two agencies in Washington state, I spent hours riding in patrol vehicles, hanging out at police stations, ...