Much excellent work has been written about the need for systemic reform of policing in the US, the discrimination and inequalities faced by Black Americans, and the brave struggles of anti-racist protesters amidst the ongoing police repression and the unprecedented COVID-19 global pandemic. As social movements go, the ongoing mobilizations
Read moreThe Importance of Demonstrating that Communities Can Police Themselves
Chloe Haimson, University of Wisconsin-Madison, haimson@wisc.edu Note: This piece is based on research collected for a forthcoming paper in Mobilization. In recent weeks, heated interactions nationwide between protesters and police, were sparked by the murder of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American, by a white Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin.
Read moreDismantling the Minneapolis Police Department
Note: This post originally featured on scatterplot. Over the past 4 years, I’ve studied community perceptions of the Minneapolis Police Department. With a team of students, we conducted qualitative interviews with over 100 residents and 20 leaders of police reform/transformation/abolition groups; tracked reform efforts by the MPD; and attended city
Read moreThe Harmful Effects of Implicit Racial Bias in the Police
In a study of police body camera footage recently undergone by researchers at Stanford University, it was found that police officers on average spoke less respectfully to black residents than their white counterparts. This meant that black community members were less likely to be addressed with a formal greeting, titles
Read moreVictim or villain? Racial/ethnic differences in the portrayal of individuals with mental illness killed by police
News reports about individuals killed by police have dominated the news cycle in the past few years. But how are individuals killed by police portrayed in the media? Are there racial/ethnic differences in media portrayals? If there are differences, what are the implications for public perceptions of these killings? In
Read moreSome thoughts about building community trust of police
A local reporter sent me an email asking my opinion of proposals to increase community trust of police. My “some general comments” turned out to be really long, so I decided to put them in a blog post. Then I edited it a bit more. As I write, this has
Read moreCommunity Control Over Police
M Adams and Max Rameau have a forthcoming article titled “Black Community Control Over Police in the Wisconsin Law Review that they were kind enough to let me see in advance of publication. (UPDATE: Publication available here.) The key argument of the article is that traditional ways of thinking about
Read moreNuisance, Criminal History, and Housing Discrimination
In many cities, one of the sources of homelessness for many people is nuisance ordinances that fine landlords if there are too many police calls to a property. Desmond and Valdez’s 2013 article “Unpolicing the Urban Poor: Consequences of Third-Party Policing for Inner-City Women” published in the American Sociological Review
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