On Race Matters and Social Justice

A New York Times article describing how law enforcement handled the George Floyd protests last summer. It found a widespread failure in policing nationwide, with the exception of Baltimore, MD. Posted online, March 20, 2021. Written by Kim Barker, Mike Baker, and Ali Watkins. The New York Times is available to all CUNY students.

Chart and figures, from Statista.Com, showing the number of people shot to death by police by race, from 2017 to current period.

The mission of Mapping Police Violence mission is to collect, analyze, and make public data on police violence in the United States, with the goal of increasing transparency and accountability in law enforcement. Established in 2015, this organization is focused on collecting and publishing comprehensive data on police violence across the United States. Their focus expands beyond fatal incidents, as they also collect data on non-fatal use of force, filing thousands of public records requests across all 50 states to gather detailed information on how often and against whom force is used. They publish annual reports and analyses that highlight trends, disparities, and systemic issues in policing practices.

Started in 2015, this investigative report from The Washington Post offers historical data on police shootings. The report finds that "although half of the people shot and killed by police are White, Black Americans are shot at a disproportionate rate." Charts from figures from police shootings database show that "the rate at which Black Americans are killed is more than twice as high as the rate for White Americans." The article was updated with 2023 numbers on August 2024.

Taken from the abstract, this article "discusses the improvement of policing process in Cincinnati, Ohio. Topics covered include the establishment of the Citizen Complaint Authority (CCA) in Cincinnati, the reasons that motivated the city government to adopt a far-reaching police reform and the city's efforts to further improve transparency, community engagement and diversity." Written by Nathalie Baptiste for The American Prospect, Summer 2015. The CSI Library has a current subscription to The American Prospect.

From the scientific journal, Nature, journalist Lynne Peoples examines a collection of newspaper reports of shootings by police. It raises the question "How do racial biases play into deadly encounters with the police?" This report also includes figures of deaths of police officers by shootings and other criminal acts. (September 2019, v.573, pages 24-26)

Mariame Kaba argues for the need to literally abolish the police in this New York Times op-ed. Ms. Kaba is the director of Project Nia, a grass roots group that works to end youth incarceration, and an anti-criminalization organizer. Published online on June 12, 2020, and in print on June 14, 2020.

This podcast is part of a series about hope from "To the Best of Our Knowledge" from WI Public Radio. Inspired by stories of police brutality and the Rodney King beating, civil rights attorney Connie Rice says she declared "war" on the LAPD in the 1990s. These days, she trains and supervises 50 officers in one of Los Angeles' toughest communities. 13:14mins. Original air date December 21, 2014. Post date June 5, 2020.

From NPR, the series "Throughline" presents the origins of policing in America. It features Khalil Gibran Muhammad, Professor at Harvard Kennedy School and author of The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban American. Caution: some descriptions of graphic violence and heavy content included. 64mins. June 4, 2020.

Author David A. Harris, Professor of Law, takes a look at two decades of racial profiling by American police departments. He answers the questions: Where does the practice stand now? What evidence exists on how it works to achieve crime-fighting and public safety goals? and What effects does the practice have in the communities supposedly served by aggressive forms of policing? David A. Harris is Professor of Law at the University of Pittsburgh and author of Racial Profiling Injustice: Why Racial Profiling Cannot Work (2002); Good Cops: The Case for Preventive Policing (2005); and Failed Evidence: Why Law Enforcement Resists Science (2012). This article was published in Criminal Justice, v34:4; Winter 2020.

Growing attention to the unique ways in which women of color's bodies are racially profiled and policed has prompted questions concerning gender-specific impacts of law enforcement practices. Arrest statistics, patterns of enforcement, and high-profile cases of police violence against Black women and other women of color suggest that gaps in policy and implementation will disproportionately affect women of color. In the current research, the policies of 36 police departments across the country were examined to ascertain the degree to which they address profiling, police sexual misconduct, and other gendered experiences of policing. This article was published in Women and Criminal Justice, 2017, v.27(1), p. 21-50. The CSI Library has a current subscription to Women and Criminal Justice.

The author's abstract states "Using millions of records of police-citizen interactions alongside officer interviews, I evaluate the impact of a change to the protocol for stopping criminal suspects on police performance. An interrupted time series analysis shows the directive produced an immediate increase in the rate of stops producing evidence of the suspected crime. Interviewed officers said the order signaled increased managerial scrutiny, leading them to adopt more conservative tactics. Procedural changes can quickly and dramatically alter officer behavior, suggesting a reform strategy sometimes forestalled by psychological and personality-driven accounts of police reform." Published in Journal of Politics by Jonathan Mummolu, Princeton University (Jan 2018, v80:1, p1-15). The CSI Library has a current subscription to Journal of Politics.

This article discusses the efforts and outcomes made by English and Welsh police forces to increase ethnic minority from 2000 - 2010. Published by Sounman Hong, Yonsei University (Public Administration Review, Mar/Apr 2017, v77:2, p195-205). The CSI Library has a current subscription to Public Administration Review.

The author of this article presents the "game of imperfect information between residents and a municipal police chief to show that a chief's inability to prevent officer behavior that residents perceive to be abusive, coupled with resident unwillingness to assist police in the aftermath of this behavior, creates an incentive for the chief to choose and learn about new policing strategies that rely less on resident assistance." This article was written by Andrew McCall and published in the Journal of Politics (July 2019, v 81:3, p1133-1142). The CSI Library has a current subscription to Journal of Politics.