Category: CRJ101 Intro CJ

Policing homelessness | Modern Policing

This guide from Arnold Ventures summarizes evidence about homelessness and provides recommendations for police. Suggestions include fostering collaboration, using data, providing training, and using a problem-oriented approach. The document offers examples from Philadelphia and Wichita, explains the negative consequences of punitive measures, and lists talking points for police to use with the public.
— Read on gcordner.wordpress.com/2020/03/14/policing-homelessness/

LAPD still all-in on data-driven policing after scrapping controversial LASER program — CBSN Originals documentary “Racial Profiling 2.0” – CBS News

Los Angeles police are convinced big data can help fight crime, even after shutting down a program that activists said targeted minorities unfairly.
— Read on www.cbsnews.com/news/los-angeles-police-department-laser-data-driven-policing-racial-profiling-2-0-cbsn-originals-documentary/

Infamous NYPD Transit Cop Gives Secret Testimony About Racist Policing Practices – VICE

In a deposition, Constantin Tsachas rationalized quotas, targeting Black and Latino males, punishing minority cops more harshly than white ones, and having cops lurk in subway station closets.
— Read on www.vice.com/en_us/article/7kzw5b/infamous-nypd-transit-cop-gives-secret-testimony-about-racist-policing-practices

Ending the War on Drugs in Travis County, Texas How Low-Level Drug Possession Arrests are Harmful and Ineffective

There is widespread understanding that the War on Drugs intentionally targeted communities of color,

while depriving those same communities of harm-reduction resources to address the damaging effects of drug use. Nonetheless, Austin and Travis County,Texas, continue to use drug enforcement practices that harm communities, worsen racial disparities, and increase the health and financial consequences that people most directly impacted must bear. Further, local use of police as the primary means of enforcing harsh drug laws consistently fails to achieve its stated goal of reducing drug activity. Travis County residents, particularly in areas most heavily populated by people of color, have seen time and again that current practices are not working.

www.texascjc.org/system/files/publications/Report – Ending the War on Drugs in Travis County Texas.pdf

Less Is More: How Reducing Probation Populations Can Improve Outcomes

In this NEW REPORT, co-authored by Michael Jacobson, Vincent Schiraldi, Reagan Daly, and Emily Hotez, the authors discuss the consequences of the tremendous growth in probation supervision over the past several decades in the United States and argue that the number of people on probation supervision needs to be significantly downsized.

The authors find that probation has often not served as an alternative to incarceration, but rather as a key driver of mass incarceration in the United States. Despite the large numbers of individuals under supervision, probation is the most underfunded of agencies within the criminal justice system. This leaves those under supervision, often an impoverished population, with the responsibility of paying for probation supervision fees, court costs, urinalysis tests, and electronic monitoring fees among a plethora of other fines. These financial obligations have incredibly detrimental implications on the mental and economic state of those under supervision and is argued to be an unjust and ineffective public policy.