States of Security, Democracy’s Sanctuary, and Captive Maternals in Brazil and the United States (original) (raw)
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Critical Inquiry, 2021
Now is a suitable moment to revisit the US Department of Justice's Ferguson Report. 1 What the report suggests, I propose, is that explicitly disparaging and stigmatizing antiblack racial stereotypes shaped the ordinary, business-as-usual, communications of the FPD, and that we may err in taking these stereotypes simply, or primarily, as evidence of bias or of the intent to discriminate-that is, as evidence of psychological states attributable to discrete individuals. To be sure, I do not deny the power of such an approach. Here, however, I take a different tack and suggest that we take FPD employees' taken-for-granted and quotidian email communications of pejorative stereotypes as evidence of the workings of a practice of policing in which police officers participated-as evidence, that is, of what the DOJ report describes as a policing "culture." In recent work, law professors Bryan Stevenson and Paul Butler have considered racist policing in a similar perspective. According to Stevenson, "People of color in the United States. .. are burdened with a presumption of guilt and dangerousness.. .. This presumption of guilt and the racial narrative that created it have significantly shaped every institution in American society, especially our criminal justice system." 2 In a similar Critical Inquiry 47 (Winter 2021)
Federal investigations of police misconduct: a multi-city comparison
Crime, Law and Social Change, 2018
Over the past two decades, high-profile federal investigations have examined the policies and practices of several American police departments where civil rights violations and police misconduct were deemed serious by the Department of Justice. This paper focuses on four recent investigations: Baltimore, Chicago, Ferguson, and New Orleans. We examine the specific types of misconduct highlighted by the investigation of each department. Findings reveal both important similarities and differences across the four cases.
Policing and Racial Discrimination: Throwing Out the Baby with the Bath Water
The Ethics of Policing and Imprisonment, 2018
Virtually all of the current commentary about policing in America places the issue of race at center stage. As a result of this narrow focus, many of the most fundamental questions are bypassed. For example, it is crucial to decide what powers the police should possess in a modern democratic society. But this basic issue is rarely addressed unless it is filtered through the lens of race. I do not pretend to be clueless about why the topic of race is so frequently raised when policing is scrutinized. The rash of highly publicized video shootings of unarmed minorities by zealous law enforcement officials is the most important factor in elevating the issue to its present stature. Although it is perilous to construct meaningful generalizations across each of the many autonomous and diverse departments throughout the United States, all reasonable persons concede that policing needs to be improved in light of its uncontested disparate
Perceptions of Police Conduct: Media Coverage of the Ferguson Conflict
2016
This thesis describes the framing and sequencing tendencies of the mass media and chronicles the implementation and usages of the framing and sequencing theories by the New York Times and the Washington Post at three key intervals throughout the Ferguson conflict; the death of Michael Brown, the Grand Jury's decision, and the resignation of Police Chief Jackson. In the process of researching and writing this thesis, the author coded all of the articles published, by the two media sources, one week after each key event were coded in an effort to decipher a pattern of framing and sequencing tendencies. 1 CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION On Saturday August 9 th , 2014 an unarmed African American teenager, Michael Brown, was walking home from a convenience store with a friend. A police officer in the area, Darren Wilson, saw Michael Brown and his friend jaywalking and called them over. The ensuing altercation became highly controversial as numerous witnesses came forward, each with a different memory of transpiring events. The only solidarity in the conflicting witness' accounts was that Officer Wilson had shot (at least six times and twice in the head) and killed Michael Brown. Some of the witnesses and Officer Wilson said that Officer Wilson was forced to shoot Michael Brown out of self defense, while others (Michael Brown's friend being among them) said that Michael Brown was attempting to surrender and had his hands in the air. The events in Ferguson were by no means an isolated incident between the police in the United States of America and an unarmed African American; Rodney King in the 1990's in Los Angeles, John Crawford III in Ohio, Kendrec McDade in Pasadena, Sean Bell in New York, and Eric Garner also in New York are just a few other casualties in the living memory of the African American community, with all of the aforementioned dying at the hands of police in 2014 (besides the beating of Rodney King in the 90's). The African American community's cries for justice would go unheeded as Officer Darren Wilson was exonerated from any wrongdoing, as a grand jury decided to not indict Officer Wilson on November 24 th ,
2019
Researchers suggest that as public scrutiny and video recording of violent/tumultuous police encounters increase, police would back away from proactive enforcement, resulting in an increase in crime-the Ferguson Effect. Recent scholarship refined these concerns over police disengagement with the study of de-policing, while other scholars explored police selflegitimacy, in order to explain law enforcement behavior, given the immediacy and ubiquity of social media and digital communication. This study surveyed 792 law enforcement officers from 10 different police agencies in the United States, to ascertain if police officers' personal and contextual characteristics influence their decision to either take enforcement action (i.e., summons or arrest) or extend discretion (i.e., let them go) to the people they interact with during minor offenses. Respondents were presented with six vignettes, which included cars stops, public demonstrations, and street fights. The first three scenarios established a behavioral baseline for law enforcement action, while the next three scenarios had the added variable of presenting challenges to the officer's authority: cell phone recording, verbal challenge, or a passive challenge (e.g., jotting down name, badge number, etcetera). Respondents were v provided open fields in the survey to explain their enforcement decisions. Logistic regression testing found significance between challenging law enforcement and the resulting enforcement decision. The presence of cell phones recording police-public interactions will often not end in enforcement. Verbal and passive challenges however, will result in the officer taking enforcement action. When police are dealing with members of minority communities they are likely to extend discretion 65% of the time. Enforcement action taken for teenage offenders is about 49%. Testing for intersectionality demonstrated significant relationships for race and gender, that would not be readily discernable with traditional variable designations. This study concludes with a policy recommendation based on the New York City Police Department's recruitment strategies to address one of the primary concerns in policing-effective recruitment policy to create tomorrows equitable and inclusive police departments.
2021
The Ferguson Effect, which has resulted in de-policing or disengaging from proactive community policing in response to increased violence against police since 2014 and fear of civil liability, has led to increases in crime and attacks on law enforcement officers. Previous research focused on exploring law enforcement officers’ perceptions of media and public scrutiny, crime rates, self-legitimacy, and willingness to engage in community relations. No studies identified have attempted to predict the source of the Ferguson Effect and its effect on crime. Moreover, no studies have conducted a time-series analysis of crime and de-policing focusing solely on the St. Louis, MO metropolitan area. To better understand the phenomenon, Bandura’s model of reciprocal determinism was applied. Data were analyzed from open-source publications made available by the Missouri State Highway Patrol, Missouri Attorney General’s Office, U.S. Census Bureau, and American Community Survey, The research inten...
Racial profiling and searches: Did the politics of racial profiling change police behavior?
Criminology & Public Policy, 2009
Scholarly research has documented repeatedly that minority citizens are disproportionately stopped, searched, and arrested relative to their baseline populations. In recent years, policymakers have brought increased attention to this issue as law-enforcement agencies across the United States have faced allegations of racial profiling. In the 1990s, the politics generated by accounts of racially biased policing placed heightened pressure on law-enforcement agencies. However, to date, few studies have explored whether the increased social and political scrutiny placed on police organizations influenced or changed their general pattern of enforcement among black and white citizens. Using data in the search and citation file from the North Carolina Highway Traffic Study, this research specifically examined whether the politics generated by the media coverage of racial profiling and racial profiling legislation in North Carolina influenced the search practices of officers of the North Carolina State Highway Patrol's drug interdiction team. The findings suggest that media accounts and the passage of new legislation were particularly powerful influences, which thereby reduced racial disparity in searches. Declines in the use of consent searches and an increased probability of finding contraband also were influenced by the politics of racial profiling. 343 \\server05\productn\C\CPP\8-2\CPP204.txt unknown Seq: 2 5-JUN-09 8:30