Tag: Criminal Justice System

Vital City | Calling the Cops Less Often

Polling shows that public safety is among New York City voters’ top concerns. But it’s important to be specific when talking about the issue. Candidates in the recent Democratic mayoral primary focused mainly on quality-of-life issues — homelessness, mental illness, public drug use — and not on violent crime. There’s good reason for that: New York has seen a remarkable drop in murders, with the NYPD reporting shootings at an all-time low through the first half of the year. Of course, there is work left to do, including stemming a years-long rise in felony assaults — but it seems as though lower-level crimes are top-of-mind for many New Yorkers.
— Read on www.vitalcitynyc.org/articles/calling-the-cops-less-often

How You Start is How You Finish? The Slave Patrol and Jim Crow Origins of Policing

Originating in Virginia and Maryland, the American slave codes defined slaves from Africa as property rather than as people (Robinson 2017); that is, without rights. American slave codes were rooted in the slave codes of Barbados. According to Dr. Robinson (2017), the British established the Barbadian Slave Codes (laws) “to justify the practice of slavery and legalize the planters’ inhumane treatment of their enslaved Africans.” American policing in the South would begin as an institution—slave patrols—responsible for enforcing those laws (Turner et al., 2006), as slave uprisings were a threat to the social order and a chronic fear of plantation owners.

The first slave patrols were founded in the southern United States, the Carolina colony specifically (Reichel, 1992), in the early 1700s. By the end of the century, every slave state had slave patrols. According to Dr. Potter (2013), slave patrols accomplished several goals: apprehending escaped slaves and returning them to their owners; unleashing terror to deter potential slave revolts; and disciplining slaves outside of the law for breaking plantation rules.
— Read on www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/resources/human-rights/archive/how-you-start-how-you-finish-slave-patrol-jim-crow-origins-policing/

Intercept Briefing Podcast: Policing’s Past Haunts the Present

Rick Loessberg and Akela Lacy trace the trajectory of America’s unfinished reckoning with policing, from the 1967 Kerner Report to the George Floyd protests to Trump 2.0.
— Read on theintercept.com/2025/08/01/briefing-podcast-racism-police-protests-kerner/

See also at:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-intercept-briefing/id1195206601?i=1000720202827

Community Voices: A Public Primer on News Reporting on Police Violence

As you read this report keep the following in mind:

  • News report is supposed to report the facts and not sell an AGENDA
  • Police Violence is not DEFINED
  • In this report Police Violence is naively considered as ANY police use of force
  • The report ignores CONTEXT of the police-citizen contact
  • People’s feeling are not FACTS
  • The FACTS are that police use force in less that 5% of police-citizen contacts and Deadly Force in less that 0.1% police-citizen contacts.

The research report, Community Voices: A Public Primer on News Reporting on Police Violence offers a practical review of the community impacts of, helpful and harmful narrative patterns in, and recommended standards for reporting on police violence. Through participatory analysis conducted in partnership with Community Co-Lead Mo Korchinski and clients at the Unlocking the Gates Services Society, these findings have been developed by community members who have experienced police violence to offer guidance to journalists, editors, and others who are interested in critical heart-based storytelling. The Student Co-Lead on this project, Emily R. Blyth, developed the research behind this publication through her time with the 2023-2024 CERi Graduate Fellowship program as a part her doctoral research which examines policing practices in Canada as a source of health inequity. This action-driven and accessibly written publication centers the voices of impacted community members to support the difficult work of reporting on police violence in ways that can expose the harms that police cause and that refuse to perpetuate those harms though uncritical narratives.

Get the Report HERE

Police stops and naïve denominators | Crime Science

A comparison of the racial composition of police stops to the entire population of a city or jurisdiction is frequently cited as evidence of racial bias in proactive policework. This article argues that using base population is naïve to the realities of the distribution of crime and policing. Using the example of Philadelphia, PA (USA), the impact of different benchmarks to estimate racial disparity in stop data is demonstrated. The range of alterative benchmarks include the spatial distribution of calls for service, the locations of violent crimes, and the demographic composition of suspects in crime as reported by the public. The article concludes by arguing that if cities ask police departments to prioritize certain problems and places, benchmarks to which police are held accountable should better reflect those priorities.
— Read on link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40163-025-00252-y