policing

3Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

POLITICS

What’s Next For Policing Reform – Voters Rejected Plans To Replace The Minneapolis Police Department

Michelle S. Phelps, University of Minnesota Voters in Minneapolis rejected a measure that would have transformed the city’s policing 18 months after the killing of George Floyd thrust the city into the forefront of the police reform debate. By a 56% to 44% margin, voters said “no” to a charter amendment that would have replaced the Minneapolis Police Department with a new Department of Public Safety focused on public health solutions. Michelle Phelps at the University of Minnesota leads a project looking at attitudes toward policing in the city. The Conversation asked her to explain what happened in the Nov. 2, 2021, vote and where it leaves both Minneapolis’ beleaguered police department and police reform movements nationwide. An edited version of her responses are below. What have v...

Police unions are one of the biggest obstacles to transforming policing

15Jun

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

POLITICS, SOCIAL JUSTICE

Police unions are one of the biggest obstacles to transforming policing

Protesters and community organizers are increasingly calling for defunding and disbanding the police as a way to end police violence. Advocates argue that moderate reforms like enhanced training and greater community oversight have failed to curb police violence and misconduct. But there’s a major, and usually insurmountable, obstacle to reform: police unions. Research suggests that these unions play a critical role in thwarting the transformation of police departments. Union officials like John McNesby in Philadelphia, where I live and work as a scholar of law and the criminal justice system, do not deny this. Over the course of his 12-year career as president of the local chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police, he has derided the city’s civilian review board and predicted in 2010 th...

What policing during the pandemic can tell us about crime rates and arrests

15Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

COVID-19, IN OTHER NEWS

What policing during the pandemic can tell us about crime rates and arrests

Social distancing orders in place across the U.S. have added to the long list of low-level offenses that police are charged with enforcing as a routine part of their job. There are about 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States, with close to 800,000 police officers. To date most appear to be exercising judgment and restraint in taking action against those occupying public spaces during the current pandemic. But then, of course, there are the exceptions. I was a Boston police officer for 27 years before becoming an academic. My career on the force began with the large-scale unrest that accompanied Boston’s school desegregation and busing crisis of the 1970s and ended with the massive redeployment of police resources for the city’s hosting of the 2004 Democratic National Conve...

Will Caster Semenya Be the One to Finally Bring Down Gender Policing?

8May

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

Journalism

Will Caster Semenya Be the One to Finally Bring Down Gender Policing?

On what basis do you exclude athletes because of who they are? Natural testosterone is a human condition. Caster Semenya, one of the world’s greatest female middle-distance runners, may be forced to quit the event she has dominated for a decade. After easily winning the 800-meter race at an international meet in Doha on May 3, the South African athlete was defiant in saying she won’t comply with new restrictions that will be placed on her at future competitions. “No man, or any other human, can stop me from running,” she said after the race, her first—and possibly last—competition since a controversial ruling by the supreme court of international sport. Her defiant words were in reaction to a horrible ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which denied an appe...