tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/policing-278/articlesPolicing – The Conversation2024-02-22T13:43:49Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2179892024-02-22T13:43:49Z2024-02-22T13:43:49ZPhilly mayor might consider these lessons from NYC before expanding stop-and-frisk<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572924/original/file-20240201-27-r8f6fh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">New York City's use of stop-and-frisk was found to be unconstitutional in 2013.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-walk-past-a-police-car-in-the-in-the-brownsville-news-photo/1188492384">Spencer Platt/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/crime/alexander-spencer-philadelphia-police-shooting-fairhill-20240128.html">police killing of 28-year-old Alexander Spencer</a> in a North Philadelphia corner store in January 2024 reignited debate about whether expanding stop-and-frisk in Philly can reduce violence in the city.</p>
<p>As part of her promise to reduce crime, Philadelphia’s newly elected mayor, Cherelle Parker, has <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/stop-and-frisk-philly-mayors-race-2023-20230419.html">indicated her support</a> for the expansion of <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-road-map-for-the-lawful-use-of-stop-and-frisk-in-philadelphia-and-elsewhere-217878">stop-and-frisk policies</a>.</p>
<p>Parker’s approach is not surprising. Historically, when crime increases, American society assumes that lax or lenient crime-control strategies <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Cycle_of_Juvenile_Justice.html?id=8IE8DwAAQBAJ">are to blame</a>. </p>
<p>Yet, since the mid-1990s, data repeatedly shows that tough-on-crime approaches – such as <a href="https://umbc.edu/stories/just-what-are-zero-tolerance-policies-and-are-they-still-common-in-americas-schools">zero-tolerance policies</a>, <a href="https://famm.org/wp-content/uploads/FS-MMs-in-a-Nutshell.pdf">mandatory sentencing</a> and <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/history-mass-incarceration">mass incarceration</a> – cost taxpayers large sums of money, are inefficient and can even <a href="https://www.iirp.edu/news/stop-and-frisk-policies-increase-youth-crime-study-shows">make crime worse</a>, specifically among youth.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=yQqgnOUAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">professor of sociology, criminology and public policy</a>, I believe that Mayor Parker and the Philadelphia Police Department should heed the lessons learned from other jurisdictions regarding the dangers of stop-and-frisk – most notably New York City. </p>
<p>The greater use of stop-and-frisk in Philadelphia could lead to a myriad of unwanted consequences, such as lawsuits against the city, greater racial disparities in the criminal justice system, citizen unrest and distrust of the police. Meanwhile, there is little evidence that an expanded stop-and-frisk policy will actually reduce crime. </p>
<h2>What is stop-and-frisk?</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/constitutional-amendments-amendment-4-right-privacy">Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution</a> ensures an individual’s right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. But who determines what is reasonable? </p>
<p>A 1968 U.S. Supreme Court decision took up that question. In <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/392/1/">Terry v. Ohio</a>, the court ruled that a police officer can stop, question and frisk a person as long as the officer has a reasonable suspicion that the person has committed, is committing or is about to commit a crime. Frisking was allowed to protect the police officers only if the individual was suspected to be armed or if during questioning the level of suspicion rose to probable cause. Probable cause, most simply, is a higher standard of evidence that an individual may have committed a crime and is required for a judge to issue a warrant for an arrest or a search.</p>
<p>However, in the decades following Terry v. Ohio, police departments across the country have used stop-and-frisk in ways that stretch the limits of the decision and potentially violate Fourth Amendment rights.</p>
<p>New York City is perhaps the most notorious example.</p>
<h2>A tough-on-crime policy</h2>
<p>In 1993, Rudy Giuliani famously ran his New York City mayoral campaign on a tough-on-crime platform. Upon election, he hired Bill Bratton as police commissioner. Bratton had previously served as Boston’s police commissioner and also as the chief of the NYC Transit Police.</p>
<p>Under this new administration, police began aggressively pursuing minor offenses such as marijuana possession, alcohol use, motor vehicle violations and vagrancy. In addition, officers were encouraged to stop and frisk individuals <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479835881/stop-and-frisk/">who merely looked suspicious</a> based on location, dress, demeanor or other characteristics of the individual.</p>
<p>When Michael Bloomberg replaced Giuliani as mayor in 2002, he expanded on these practices with “<a href="https://www.nyc.gov/html/unccp/gprb/downloads/pdf/NYC_Safety%20and%20Security_Operation%20Impact.pdf">Operation Impact</a>.” </p>
<p>Operation Impact flooded officers into areas that were designated as “impact zones” because of high levels of existing crime. Unsurprisingly, most of these neighborhoods had high poverty rates, high rates of renters compared with homeowners and were communities of color – the three factors that <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/2151797">suggest a community will have high levels of crime</a>.</p>
<p>With police officers disproportionately placed in such communities, and encouraged to stop and frisk with low levels of suspicion, it is not surprising that research finds high levels of racial disparity in the decisions to stop and frisk. Minorities were over <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep27210.4">3.5 times more likely</a> than whites to be subject to these policies. Law professor Jeffrey Bellin detailed how the minor impact that stop-and-frisk may have had on illegal gun carrying in New York was <a href="https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/facpubs/1706">tied to its unconstitutionality</a>.</p>
<h2>Lessons from NYC</h2>
<p>New York City’s experience with stop-and-frisk policies provides, I believe, important lessons for Philadelphia’s mayor to consider. </p>
<p>First and foremost, <a href="https://casetext.com/case/floyd-v-city-of-ny-2">multiple</a> <a href="https://casetext.com/case/davis-v-city-of-new-york-5">lawsuits</a> <a href="https://casetext.com/case/ligon-v-city-of-ny-8">related to stop-and-frisk</a> were filed against the NYPD and the city government during Bloomberg’s third term as mayor. In each of these cases, the city was found liable for unconstitutional practices.</p>
<p>The NYPD and the city itself were rebuked by the courts for the discriminatory nature of stop-and-frisk searches. Perhaps not surprisingly, stop-and-frisk became a central issue in NYC’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/28/nyregion/bill-de-blasio-kicks-off-campaign-for-mayor.html">2013 mayoral race</a>. In 2013, a federal district court judge found that stop-and-frisk, as implemented in New York City, was <a href="https://casetext.com/case/floyd-v-city-of-ny-2">unconstitutional because of its reliance on racial profiling</a>, and the practice was eventually curtailed.</p>
<p>While some touted stop-and-frisk policies as the cause for the reduction in crime in the city during the early 2000s, the same decreases were happening across the U.S. and Canada – in many areas that did not invoke these policies. This suggests that the drop in crime was part of a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-4469.2010.01192.x">broader trend</a>.</p>
<p>In addition, much research has indicated that the vast majority of incidents of stop-and-frisk, <a href="https://www.aila.org/files/o-files/view-file/89318407-E4E7-42CD-80F6-A9DDB3E34C33">particularly with individuals of color</a>, do not result in officers finding drugs or guns, or making an arrest. Thus, they waste valuable police time and money. In addition, a report from New York’s state attorney general found that only <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/14/stop-and-frisk-new-york-conviction-rate#:%7E:text=New%20York%27s%20controversial%20stop%2Dand,attorney%20general%20released%20on%20Thursday">about 3% of stop-and-frisks</a> in New York City from 2009 to 2012 led to a conviction.</p>
<p>Even when it does not lead to a formal conviction, stop-and-frisk can be <a href="https://beforetheblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Walking-While-Black.pdf">humiliating and traumatic</a> for the individual. They can also lead to further <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1098611117708791">police brutality</a> and <a href="https://www.vera.org/downloads/publications/stop-and-frisk-summary-report-v2.pdf">greater mistrust of the police</a>.</p>
<p>Finally, I would like to point out that as stop-and-frisk policies drew to a close in 2014, the murder rate within the city fell while the number of stops declined. In fact, the biggest drop occurred precisely when the number of stops also <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/fact-sheet-stop-and-frisks-effect-crime-new-york-city">fell dramatically</a>, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.</p>
<h2>Community policing and other alternatives</h2>
<p>Given stop-and-frisk’s controversial nature and questionable results, Parker may want to prioritize other policing policies that have more evidence of success and foster better relationships with communities. These include <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0011128793039004009">community policing</a>, “hot spot” policing where officers also receive <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2118780119">intensive training in procedural justice</a>, and expanded use of specialty courts such as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2013.06.005">drug courts</a>, veterans courts and <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16619410/">mental health courts</a>. </p>
<p>This is far from a complete list of alternatives. Many crime-reduction strategies are less controversial than stop-and-frisk, put the city at lower risk of lawsuits, lead to better police-citizen interactions and save taxpayer dollars that can be spent on crime prevention and other programs that improve the quality of life of Philadelphians.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217989/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Megan Kurlychek does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Evidence from NYC shows that stop-and-frisk policing leads to greater mistrust of police and more racial disparities in the criminal justice system.Megan Kurlychek, Professor of Sociology, Criminology, and Public Policy, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2216772024-02-12T13:24:56Z2024-02-12T13:24:56ZCan anyone make a citizen’s arrest? The history and legalities of catching criminals yourself<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574490/original/file-20240208-28-q5mmu6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C6%2C4600%2C2452&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Can you detain someone you just saw break the law?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/man-mugging-woman-in-street-royalty-free-image/BC3542-001">Alan Thornton/The Image Bank via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/curious-kids-us-74795">Curious Kids</a> is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">curiouskidsus@theconversation.com</a>.</em></p>
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<blockquote>
<p><strong>Can anyone make a citizen’s arrest, even me? – Henry, age 12, Winter Hill, Massachusetts</strong></p>
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<p>What does Spider-Man do when he sees someone commit a crime and there are no police officers around to help? He swings in, wraps the wrongdoer in his web and leaves them hanging from a telephone pole until the cops take over. </p>
<p>But is he allowed to do that? Are you?</p>
<h2>Seizing criminals</h2>
<p>Until about 200 years ago, uniformed police officers and police departments as we know them today <a href="https://time.com/4779112/police-history-origins/">didn’t exist in the United States</a>. It was up to the citizens to arrest criminals.</p>
<p>In 1285, England introduced what we now know as “citizen’s arrests” in a law called <a href="https://study.sagepub.com/rowe3e/student-resources/chapter-3/the-statute-of-winchester">the Statute of Winchester</a>. It allowed any person to arrest – in other words, capture – lawbreakers. This concept spread throughout the English colonies, which ultimately became their own countries, including Australia, Canada and the United States. Other <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen%27s_arrest">countries have adopted similar rules</a>.</p>
<p>In the United States, citizen’s arrests have a pretty dark history. Originally, <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90528764/the-troubling-history-of-citizens-arrests-from-slave-patrols-to-ahmaud-arbery-to-ice">only white men could make citizen’s arrests</a>. By the mid-1600s, many militias and city watchmen, especially in the South, used that power to <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90528764/the-troubling-history-of-citizens-arrests-from-slave-patrols-to-ahmaud-arbery-to-ice">intimidate and terrorize enslaved and free Black communities</a>.</p>
<p>This practice continued <a href="https://racism.org/articles/law-and-justice/criminal-justice-and-racism/134-police-brutality-and-lynchings/9617-a-legacy">through the Civil War</a>, <a href="https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/175619">the Jim Crow era and even into the 1900s</a>, with vigilantes – people who appoint themselves to catch and punish others – engaging in heinous abuses, <a href="https://theconversation.com/lynching-memorial-shows-women-were-victims-too-95029">including lynchings</a>. Just recently, in 2020, Ahmaud Arbery, a Black man who was jogging around his Georgia neighborhood, <a href="https://theconversation.com/jury-finds-3-georgia-men-guilty-of-ahmaud-arbery-murder-3-essential-reads-172493">was shot and killed</a> by a group of white men who accosted him because they wrongly thought he had committed a crime.</p>
<p>Despite this history, most states still have citizen’s arrest <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/11/05/ahmaud-arbery-citizens-arrest-vigilante/">laws on the books</a>.</p>
<h2>Making a legal citizen’s arrest</h2>
<p>Arrest literally means “to stop.” If someone wants to leave, you usually can’t stop them – that could be considered false imprisonment or even kidnapping. Citizen’s arrest laws are an exception to that general rule; they allow everyday people to make an arrest.</p>
<p>When the police make an arrest, they typically handcuff the subject and take them in a secure transport vehicle to a booking facility, such as the county jail. When Spidey webs a wrongdoer, he can’t just take them back to Aunt May’s apartment. Making a citizen’s arrest means holding the lawbreaker in place until the police arrive and take over.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574491/original/file-20240208-24-qtcx1d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A blurry, dark black-and-white picture of a figure holding what could be a knife, or something else entirely" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574491/original/file-20240208-24-qtcx1d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/574491/original/file-20240208-24-qtcx1d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574491/original/file-20240208-24-qtcx1d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574491/original/file-20240208-24-qtcx1d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574491/original/file-20240208-24-qtcx1d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574491/original/file-20240208-24-qtcx1d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/574491/original/file-20240208-24-qtcx1d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">You’d better be sure about what you think you saw.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/man-holding-knife-in-kitchen-rear-view-silhouette-royalty-free-image/588312130">Glasshouse Images/The Image Bank via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>When can someone make a citizen’s arrest? The rules are a bit different in every state, which can make things confusing. You can ask a librarian to help you find information about the law in your state, but here are some common requirements to get you started:</p>
<p><strong>Who can make a citizen’s arrest?</strong> Although some state laws use the word “<a href="https://www.scstatehouse.gov/code/t17c013.php">citizen</a>,” most states allow any “<a href="https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/CR/htm/CR.14.htm">person</a>” or any “<a href="https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/629.37">private person</a>” – as opposed to a public employee such as a police officer – to make a citizen’s arrest. Despite the name, you usually don’t have to be a citizen. And most states don’t require any minimum age, so it looks like high school student Peter Parker, Spider-Man’s alter ego, is good to go.</p>
<p><strong>Did you see it, and how serious is it?</strong> Most states allow you to make a citizen’s arrest for a minor crime – those <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/crime-law/Classification-of-crimes">categorized as a misdemeanor</a> – only if you actually saw the person commit the crime. Some states allow a citizen’s arrest for a minor crime only if it is considered a “breach of peace,” meaning the crime is likely to disturb other people, such as fighting in public. For felonies, a more serious category of crime, the law usually allows you to make a citizen’s arrest even if you didn’t see the person commit the crime.</p>
<p><strong>You’d better be sure!</strong> In most states, citizen’s arrest laws apply only if the person actually committed a crime. If you make a mistake by making a citizen’s arrest of someone who didn’t actually commit a crime, the <a href="https://www.findlaw.com/injury/torts-and-personal-injuries/false-imprisonment.html">person you arrested can sue you</a>. You might even get <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/false_imprisonment">arrested</a> yourself!</p>
<p>This is different from when police arrest someone. Law enforcement officers need “<a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/probable_cause">probable cause</a>,” which is the legal standard for how sure you need to be that a person committed a crime before arresting them. As long as an officer meets the probable cause standard, they won’t get in trouble, even if they’re ultimately mistaken about the person committing a crime.</p>
<p><strong>Try not to rough anyone up.</strong> Someone making a citizen’s arrest is usually allowed to use a reasonable amount of physical force to ensure that the lawbreaker stops committing the crime and can’t leave. But that doesn’t mean you can do anything you want. The type and amount of force you use must be <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479814657/evaluating-police-uses-of-force/">closely related</a> to whether the other person is trying to get away and, if so, what they’re doing.</p>
<p><strong>Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.</strong> Making a citizen’s arrest is no joke. There’s the danger of making a mistake about what the person did and whether it was a crime. After all, most people don’t know exactly what the law allows or prohibits, so it’s easy to get something wrong.</p>
<p>And there’s the danger of getting hurt. Most people aren’t trained or equipped to arrest someone safely, and they rarely have backup available like the police do. If you see a crime occur, it’s better to call the police and be a good witness than it is to try to make a citizen’s arrest yourself. </p>
<p>So, what do you think: Is Spider-Man allowed to make a citizen’s arrest? And if he is, does that make him a hero or a vigilante?</p>
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<p><em>Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com</a>. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Stopping someone against their will can be false imprisonment or even kidnapping. There are laws that determine who is acting as a hero and who is acting as a vigilante.Seth W. Stoughton, Professor of Law, University of South CarolinaCaroline McAtee, Law Student at the University of South Carolina School of Law, Research Assistant for the Excellence in Policing and Public Safety Program, University of South CarolinaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2226992024-02-07T13:19:28Z2024-02-07T13:19:28ZDOJ funding pipeline subsidizes questionable big data surveillance technologies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573845/original/file-20240206-28-bp34iu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6720%2C4476&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Predictive policing aimed to identify crime hot spots and 'chronic' offenders but missed the mark.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/los-angeles-ca-lapd-captain-elizabeth-morales-speaks-during-news-photo/624080088">Patrick T. Fallon for The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Predictive policing has been shown to be an ineffective and biased policing tool. Yet, the Department of Justice has been funding the crime surveillance and analysis technology for years and continues to do so despite criticism from researchers, privacy advocates and members of Congress.</p>
<p>Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and U.S. Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., joined by five Democratic senators, called on Attorney General Merrick Garland to <a href="https://www.wyden.senate.gov/news/press-releases/wyden-and-clarke-press-justice-department-to-end-funding-for-flawed-predictive-policing-systems">halt funding</a> for <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/predictive-policing-explained">predictive policing technologies</a> in a letter issued Jan. 29, 2024. Predictive policing involves analyzing crime data in an attempt to identify where and when crimes are likely to occur and who is likely to commit them.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.wyden.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/letter_to_doj_predictive_policing_and_title_vi_1242024.pdf">request</a> came months after the Department of Justice <a href="https://gizmodo.com/justice-department-kept-few-records-on-predictive-polic-1848660323">failed to answer</a> basic questions about how predictive policing funds were being used and who was being harmed by arguably <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-020-09557-x">racially discriminatory algorithms</a> that have <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci10060234">never been proven to work as intended</a>. The Department of Justice <a href="https://gizmodo.com/justice-department-kept-few-records-on-predictive-polic-1848660323">did not have answers</a> to who was using the technology, how it was being evaluated and which communities were affected.</p>
<p>While focused on predictive policing, the senators’ demand raises what I, a law professor who <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=5ZX7SbEAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate">studies big data surveillance</a>, see as a bigger issue: What is the Department of Justice’s role in funding new surveillance technologies? The answer is surprising and reveals an entire ecosystem of how technology companies, police departments and academics benefit from the flow of federal dollars.</p>
<h2>The money pipeline</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://nij.ojp.gov/">National Institute of Justice</a>, the DOJ’s research, development and evaluation arm, regularly provides seed money for grants and pilot projects to test out ideas like predictive policing. It was a National Institute of Justice grant that funded the first predictive policing <a href="https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/predictive-policing-symposium-november-18-20-2009">conference in 2009</a> that launched the idea that past crime data could be run through an algorithm to <a href="https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/facsch_lawrev/750/">predict future criminal risk</a>. The institute has <a href="https://nij.ojp.gov/funding/awards/list?field_award_status_value=All&state=All&field_funding_type_value=All&field_served_nationally_value=All&form_topic=&fiscal_year=&combine_awards=Predictive+Policing&awardee=&city=#awards-awards-list-block-jyhir1inpckhocqi">given US$10 million dollars</a> to predictive policing projects since 2009. </p>
<p>Because there was grant money available to test out new theories, academics and startup companies could afford to invest in <a href="https://www.npr.org/2013/07/26/205835674/can-software-that-predicts-crime-pass-constitutional-muster">new ideas</a>. Predictive policing was just an academic theory until there was cash to start testing it in various police departments. Suddenly, companies launched with the financial security that federal grants could pay their early bills. </p>
<p>National Institute of Justice-funded <a href="https://nij.ojp.gov/library/publications/risk-terrain-modeling-spatial-risk-assessment">research</a> often turns into for-profit companies. Police departments also benefit from getting money to buy the new technology without having to dip into their local budgets. This dynamic is one of the hidden drivers of police technology.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WXnElg9alF8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">How predictive policing works – and the harm it can cause.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Once a new technology gets big enough, another DOJ entity, the <a href="https://bja.ojp.gov/">Bureau of Justice Assistance</a>, funds projects with direct financial grants. The bureau funded police departments to test one of the biggest place-based predictive policing technologies – <a href="https://bja.ojp.gov/funding/awards/list?field_award_status_value=All&state=All&field_funding_type_value=All&field_served_nationally_value=All&fiscal_year=&combine_awards=Predpol&awardee=&city=#awards-awards-list-block-gkgdpm1ooymuyukj">PredPol</a> – in its early years. The bureau has also funded the purchase of other <a href="https://bja.ojp.gov/funding/awards/list?field_award_status_value=All&state=All&field_funding_type_value=All&field_served_nationally_value=All&fiscal_year=&combine_awards=Predictive&awardee=&city=#awards-awards-list-block-gkgdpm1ooymuyukj">predictive technologies</a>.</p>
<p>The Bureau of Justice Assistance funded one of the most <a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/05/11/predictive-policing-surveillance-los-angeles/">infamous</a> person-based predictive policing <a href="https://bja.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh186/files/media/document/losangelesspi.pdf">pilots in Los Angeles</a>, operation LASER, which targeted “chronic offenders.” Both experiments – PredPol and LASER – failed to work as intended. The <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5766472-BPC-19-0072#document/p32/a486274">Los Angeles Office of the Inspector General</a> identified the negative impact of the programs on the community – and the fact that the predictive theories did not work to reduce crime in any significant way.</p>
<p>As these DOJ entities’ practices indicate, federal money not only seeds but feeds the growth of new policing technologies. Since 2005, the Bureau of Justice Assistance has given <a href="https://bja.ojp.gov/doc/jag-program-fact-sheet.pdf">over $7.6 billion</a> of federal money to state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies for a host of projects. Some of that money has gone directly to new surveillance technologies. A quick skim through the <a href="https://bja.ojp.gov/funding/awards/list">public grants</a> shows approximately $3 million directed to <a href="https://bja.ojp.gov/funding/awards/list?field_award_status_value=All&state=All&field_funding_type_value=All&field_served_nationally_value=All&fiscal_year=&combine_awards=facial+recognition&awardee=&city=#awards-awards-list-block-gkgdpm1ooymuyukj">facial recognition</a>, $8 million for <a href="https://bja.ojp.gov/funding/awards/list?field_award_status_value=All&state=All&field_funding_type_value=All&field_served_nationally_value=All&fiscal_year=&combine_awards=shotspotter&awardee=&city=#awards-awards-list-block-gkgdpm1ooymuyukj">ShotSpotter</a> and $13 million to build and grow <a href="https://bja.ojp.gov/funding/awards/list?field_award_status_value=All&state=All&field_funding_type_value=All&field_served_nationally_value=All&fiscal_year=&combine_awards=RTCC&awardee=&city=#awards-awards-list-block-gkgdpm1ooymuyukj">real-time crime centers</a>. ShotSpotter (now rebranded as SoundThinking) is the leading brand of <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/technology/3558382-gunshot-detection-system-expanding-rapidly-in-us-despite-criticism/">gunshot detection technology</a>. Real-time crime centers combine security camera feeds and other data to <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/real-time-crime-centers-rtcc-us-police/">provide surveillance for a city</a>.</p>
<h2>The questions not asked</h2>
<p>None of this is necessarily nefarious. The Department of Justice is in the business of prosecution, so it is not surprising for it to fund prosecution tools. The <a href="https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/brief-history-nij">National Institute of Justice</a> exists as a research body inside the Office of Justice Programs, so its role in helping to promote data-driven policing strategies is not inherently problematic. The <a href="https://bja.ojp.gov/about">Bureau of Justice Assistance</a> exists to assist local law enforcement through financial grants. The DOJ is feeding police surveillance power because it benefits law enforcement interests.</p>
<p>The problem, as indicated by Sen. Wyden’s letter, is that in subsidizing experimental surveillance technologies, the Department of Justice did not do basic risk assessment or racial justice evaluations before investing money in a new technological solution. As someone who has <a href="https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/facsch_lawrev/749/">studied predictive policing</a> for over a decade, I can say that the questions asked by the senators were not asked in the pilot projects. </p>
<p>Basic questions of who would be affected, whether there could be a racially discriminatory impact, how it would change policing and whether it worked were not raised in any serious way. Worse, the focus was on deploying something new, not double-checking whether it worked. If you are going to seed and feed a potentially dangerous technology, you also have an obligation to weed it out once it turns out to be harming people.</p>
<p>Only now, after <a href="https://stoplapdspying.org/action/our-fights/data-driven-policing/predictive-policing/">activists have protested</a>, after scholars have <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479892822/the-rise-of-big-data-policing/">critiqued</a> and after the original predictive policing companies have shut down or <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/soundthinking-geolitica-acquisition-predictive-policing/">been bought by bigger companies</a>, is the DOJ starting to ask the hard questions. In January 2024, the DOJ and the Department of Homeland Security asked for public comment to be included in a report on law enforcement agencies’ use of facial recognition technology, other technologies using biometric information and predictive algorithms. </p>
<p>Arising from a mandate under <a href="https://cops.usdoj.gov/Public_Trust_and_Safety_EO">executive order 14074</a> on advancing effective, accountable policing and criminal justice practices to enhance public trust and public safety, the DOJ Office of Legal Policy is going to evaluate how predictive policing affects civil rights and civil liberties. I believe that this is a good step – although a decade too late. </p>
<h2>Lessons not learned?</h2>
<p>The bigger problem is that the same process is happening again today with other technologies. As one example, <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/real-time-crime-centers-rtcc-us-police/">real-time crime centers</a> are being built <a href="https://crosscut.com/investigations/2023/07/federal-aid-supercharging-local-wa-police-surveillance-tech">across America</a>. Thousands of security cameras stream to a <a href="https://statescoop.com/real-time-crime-centers-police-privacy/">single command center</a> that is <a href="https://www.policemag.com/technology/article/15635270/how-technology-powers-real-time-crime-centers">linked</a> to automated license plate readers, gunshot detection sensors and 911 calls. The centers also use video analytics technology to identify and track people and objects across a city. And they tap into data about past crime.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573642/original/file-20240206-21-hcjcrr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A wall of monitors shows aerial and street views of a city" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573642/original/file-20240206-21-hcjcrr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573642/original/file-20240206-21-hcjcrr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573642/original/file-20240206-21-hcjcrr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573642/original/file-20240206-21-hcjcrr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573642/original/file-20240206-21-hcjcrr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573642/original/file-20240206-21-hcjcrr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573642/original/file-20240206-21-hcjcrr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Real-time crime centers like this one in Albuquerque, N.M., enable police surveillance of entire cities.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/NewMexicoFightingCrime/edee0f4a6fcc4a12a30dfa1f0d5a8959/photo">AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Millions of <a href="https://www.themarshallproject.org/2022/09/07/how-federal-covid-relief-flows-to-the-criminal-justice-system">federal dollars from the American Rescue Plan Act</a> are <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/08/16/1194115202/real-time-crime-centers-which-started-in-bigger-cities-spread-across-the-u-s">going to cities</a> with the specific designation to <a href="https://epic.org/two-years-in-covid-19-relief-money-fueling-rise-of-police-surveillance/">address crime</a>, and some of those dollars have been <a href="https://epic.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/EPIC-ARPA-Surveillance-Funding-Table.pdf">diverted to build real-time crime centers</a>. They’re also being <a href="https://bja.ojp.gov/funding/awards/15pbja-22-gg-02156-jagx">funded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance</a>.</p>
<p>Real-time crime centers can do predictive analytics akin to predictive policing simply as a byproduct of all the data they collect in the ordinary course of a day. The centers can also scan entire cities with powerful computer vision-enabled cameras and react in real time. The capabilities of these advanced technologies make the civil liberties and racial justice fears around predictive policing pale in comparison. </p>
<p>So while the American public waits for answers about a technology, predictive policing, that had its heyday 10 years ago, the DOJ is seeding and feeding a far more invasive surveillance system with few questions asked. Perhaps things will go differently this time. Maybe the DOJ/DHS report on predictive algorithms will look inward at the department’s own culpability in seeding the surveillance problems of tomorrow.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222699/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>I have worked as an unpaid consultant on two NIJ grants. I did not receive any compensation. One grant was an early NIJ grant to the Risk Terrain Modeling folks at Rutgers (which became Simsi). I have not had any relationship with them in years and took no money. I was also on an NIJ grant around the ethics of predictive policing. Again, I did not receive any financial compensation for the role. </span></em></p>Predictive policing has been a bust. The Department of Justice nurtured the technology from researchers’ minds to corporate production lines and into the hands of police departments.Andrew Guthrie Ferguson, Professor of Law, American UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2178782023-12-13T13:35:04Z2023-12-13T13:35:04ZA road map for the lawful use of stop-and-frisk in Philadelphia – and elsewhere<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564015/original/file-20231206-21-afal66.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C7%2C5168%2C3437&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Police officers talk to students during a recruiting event at Temple University.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/philadelphia-pa-an-officer-from-the-lower-merion-police-news-photo/1258234246">Robert Klemko/The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Violent crime, and how to reduce it, dominated the 2023 Philadelphia mayoral campaign. </p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/philly-mayoral-election-2023/race-for-philly-mayor-how-would-top-dems-tackle-gun-violence/3561631/">a candidate</a>, Cherelle Parker suggested she would support using <a href="https://whyy.org/articles/philadelphia-cherelle-parker-policing-mayor-election-stop-and-frisk-gun-violence/#">stop-and-frisk</a> to combat gun violence. After being elected, Parker reiterated her stance, but emphasized “<a href="https://whyy.org/articles/philadelphia-cherelle-parker-policing-mayor-election-stop-and-frisk-gun-violence/">there is no place for unconstitutional stop-and-frisk</a>.” </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564037/original/file-20231206-27-dy2pwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A Black woman wearing a bright red outfit climbs a set of exterior stairs" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564037/original/file-20231206-27-dy2pwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564037/original/file-20231206-27-dy2pwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564037/original/file-20231206-27-dy2pwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564037/original/file-20231206-27-dy2pwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564037/original/file-20231206-27-dy2pwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564037/original/file-20231206-27-dy2pwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564037/original/file-20231206-27-dy2pwk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Philadelphia Mayor-elect Cherelle Parker.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Election2023PhiladelphiaMayor/2e92a305e7974196a623b14e476ed2df/photo">Ryan Collerd/AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The <a href="https://www.aclupa.org/en/news/stop-and-frisk-clear-failure-public-safety-policy">ACLU of Philadelphia</a> objected to the incoming mayor’s position during the campaign. The civil liberties advocacy organization pointed to the <a href="https://www.aclupa.org/en/cases/bailey-et-al-v-city-philadelphia-et-al">lawsuit it brought</a> against the Philadelphia Police Department in 2010, <a href="https://www.aclupa.org/en/press-releases/analysis-philadelphia-police-stop-and-frisk-data-shows-illegal-stops-continue-limited">stop data</a> that continued to show persistent racial disparities, and the <a href="https://crim.sas.upenn.edu/fact-check/does-stop-and-frisk-reduce-crime">lack of empirical support</a> for the effectiveness of the strategy. </p>
<p>As criminologists with expertise in <a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479835881/stop-and-frisk/">policing and law</a>, we <a href="https://theconversation.com/stop-and-frisk-can-work-under-careful-supervision-127785">previously explained</a> that stop-and-frisk can be both constitutional and useful if <a href="https://ccjls.scholasticahq.com/article/2723-reforming-stop-and-frisk">carefully controlled</a>. We agree with the Philadelphia Inquirer observation that this “<a href="https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/editorials/exonerations-larry-krasner-police-union-misconduct-cherelle-parker-20231119.html">requires a change in culture and accountability</a>.”</p>
<p>Below, we explain what stop-and-frisk is and how it has been used in Philadelphia. Then we describe those critically important controls. </p>
<h2>What is stop-and-frisk?</h2>
<p>In the landmark 1968 ruling <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/1967/67">Terry v. Ohio</a>, the U.S. Supreme Court authorized law enforcement to briefly detain and question criminal suspects based on reasonable, “articulable” suspicion. This standard of proof involves <a href="https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1588&context=vlr">more than a hunch</a> – but less than <a href="https://dsc.duq.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1111&context=law-faculty-scholarship">probable cause</a> – that the person stopped is involved in criminal activity. If there are reasonable grounds to believe the person is armed, officers may conduct a limited pat-down to check for weapons. </p>
<p>Over the next few decades, police departments <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197675052.003.0003">across the United States</a> morphed this tool into a broad, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/13/nyregion/stop-and-frisk-practice-violated-rights-judge-rules.html">unconstitutional crime-control strategy</a> that Howard University Law Professor Andrew E. Taslitz writes often relied on “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25766403">stereotypes, assumptions, [and] guilt-by-association</a>.” </p>
<h2>History of stop-and-frisk in Philadelphia</h2>
<p>In Philadelphia, stop-and-frisk gained a foothold in the 1990s. By 2007, it was broadly instituted <a href="https://www.aclupa.org/en/press-releases/aclu-pa-and-civil-rights-firm-file-class-action-lawsuit-against-philadelphia-police">as a formal policy</a>. </p>
<p>Two years later, Philadelphia police stopped <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/philadelphia/news/philadelphia-reaches-settlement-in-stop-and-frisk-lawsuit/">more than 253,000</a> people. African Americans accounted for more than 70% of these stops even though they comprised <a href="https://data.census.gov/table/DECENNIALPL2010.P1?g=160XX00US4260000">43% of the city’s population</a> at the time. Only 8.4% of stops resulted in arrests. </p>
<p>These disparities led to the <a href="https://www.aclupa.org/en/cases/bailey-et-al-v-city-philadelphia-et-al">class-action lawsuit</a> in 2010. </p>
<p>Philadelphia settled the lawsuit in 2011 by entering into a <a href="https://clearinghouse.net/doc/40559/">consent decree</a>, a <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/consent_decree">type of legal agreement</a>. The city promised to train its police officers on the legal parameters for valid stop-and-frisks, monitor how police conduct them, and discipline those who engaged in unconstitutional practices. </p>
<p>Philadelphia curtailed its use of stop-and-frisk in 2015 but never entirely abandoned the tactic. <a href="https://www.aclupa.org/sites/default/files/field_documents/106_plaintiffs_tenth_report_on_14th_amendment_issues.pdf">Racial disparities</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/2153368717730106">persist</a>. Nearly 40% of stops conducted in 2019 lacked reasonable suspicion, thereby violating the <a href="https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/educational-resources/about-educational-outreach/activity-resources/what-does-0">Fourth Amendment</a> protection against unreasonable search and seizures.</p>
<h2>Measuring effectiveness</h2>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565297/original/file-20231212-21-iyz9e9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two young people in an urban plaza hold up a sign that reads " src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565297/original/file-20231212-21-iyz9e9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565297/original/file-20231212-21-iyz9e9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565297/original/file-20231212-21-iyz9e9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565297/original/file-20231212-21-iyz9e9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565297/original/file-20231212-21-iyz9e9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565297/original/file-20231212-21-iyz9e9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565297/original/file-20231212-21-iyz9e9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Stop-and-frisk is not a new tactic in Philadelphia and has long been controversial. This protest took place in 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/after-the-city-issued-an-eviction-notice-sanitation-news-photo/1008589074?adppopup=true">Bastiaan Slabbers/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As the ACLU of Pennsylvania noted, at best “stop-and-frisk is a scary inconvenience.” The “average Philadelphia <a href="https://www.aclupa.org/en/news/stop-and-frisk-clear-failure-public-safety-policy">pedestrian stop lasts 13 minutes</a>” – long enough to delay people for work, child care or other key responsibilities. </p>
<p>Worse, encounters with the police have the potential to turn violent, with <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/45093949">police disproportionately</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1098611117708791">using force</a> again Black and Hispanic men. And as the deaths of <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/michael-brown-killed-by-police-ferguson-mo">Michael Brown</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/14/nyregion/eric-garner-police-chokehold-staten-island.html">Eric Garner</a> and <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/how-baltimores-police-policy-led-to-freddie-gray/">Tyre Nichols</a> illustrate, stop-and-frisks against men of color can end with police using deadly force. Notably, Black men are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1821204116">2.5 times more likely</a> than white men to be killed by police, although police killings are the sixth-leading cause of death among <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/police-killings-are-sixth-leading-cause-death-among-young-men-n1041526">men of all races aged 25 to 29</a>.</p>
<p>Despite these consequences, Philadelphia’s recent surge in violence prompted <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/philadelphia-votes-return-controversial-police-method-1801001">calls for re-implementation</a> of a broad stop-and-frisk strategy.</p>
<p>Some people believe the strategy works because between 2007 and 2009, a period when Philadelphia aggressively employed stop-and-frisk, homicides decreased <a href="https://www.phillypolice.com/crime-maps-stats/">by roughly 22%</a>. But <a href="https://controller.phila.gov/philadelphia-audits/mapping-gun-violence/">crime data</a> shows that when the city reduced its use of stop-and-frisk under the terms of the consent decree, violent crime did not significantly increase. </p>
<p>As Philadelphia’s public radio station WHYY explained, the “<a href="https://whyy.org/articles/behind-stop-and-frisk-the-history-the-controversy-the-findings/">major spike in gun violence didn’t begin until 2019</a>, and it worsened during the sustained period of socioeconomic instability following the COVID-19 pandemic.” Indeed, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-021-00605-3">firearm violence and homicides</a> <a href="https://voiceofsandiego.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Year_End_Crime_Update_Design.pdf">rose</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2021.101783">nationwide</a> <a href="http://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2021.1534">during</a> the pandemic. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2022.107020">Experts say</a> this trend “is much more likely related to unemployment, racism, mental health, and other systemic causes than it is to <a href="https://whyy.org/articles/understanding-stop-and-frisk-in-five-charts/">policing practices</a>.” </p>
<p>Perhaps counterintuitively, aggressive policing strategies like stop-and-frisk have the potential to increase crime. That’s because they can create <a href="https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/33661/413258-Stop-and-Frisk-Balancing-Crime-Control-with-Community-Relations.PDF">more distrust</a> of law enforcement <a href="https://ccrjustice.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/08/the-human-impact-report.pdf">among people of color</a> <a href="https://www.vera.org/newsroom/study-reveals-stop-and-frisk-significantly-impacts-trust-in-new-york-city-police">whom police target</a>. In turn, people in communities of color may then be less likely to call police and cooperate with them. </p>
<h2>A road map to avoid past problems</h2>
<p>So what would we tell Mayor-elect Parker and her choice for <a href="https://whyy.org/articles/philadelphia-police-chief-kevin-bethel-cherelle-parker/">police commissioner</a>, Kevin Bethel, if they asked us how to make it work? We would share these evidence-based suggestions that could minimize bias if stop-and-frisk were more widely implemented in Philadelphia.</p>
<p><strong>–</strong> Enhance and sustain efforts to recruit diverse officers. Like <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/02/us/police-departments-struggle-recruit-retain-officers/index.html">many</a> <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia-police-first-recruiting-academy-class-pandemic-20210712.html">police</a> <a href="https://www.newsnationnow.com/solutions/how-police-departments-are-addressing-their-staffing-shortages/">departments</a>, Philadelphia’s faces <a href="https://whyy.org/articles/philadelphia-police-department-academy-graduates-attrition-rates/">staffing</a> <a href="https://whyy.org/articles/philadelphia-police-department-academy-graduates-attrition-rates/">shortages</a>. The city is using its recruitment efforts as an opportunity to attract a <a href="https://billypenn.com/2023/09/25/philly-police-recruitment-triples-adds-diversity-after-1m-marketing-campaign-focusing-on-black-and-latino-communities/">racially diverse applicant pool</a>, a positive step. We’d also suggest evaluating <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550617728995">police recruits’ racial</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-022-01873-w">attitudes</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/PIJPSM-08-2021-0116">eliminate</a> anyone from that pool who demonstrates racial biases.</p>
<p><strong>–</strong> Pair stop-and-frisk training with <a href="https://counciloncj.foleon.com/policing/assessing-the-evidence/vii-implicit-bias">implicit bias training</a>, which educates officers on the subtleties of how racial biases can affect their decision-making. Police departments can also provide <a href="https://bja.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh186/files/bwc/pdfs/procedural-justice-and-police-legitimacy-paper-cpsc-feb-2015.pdf">procedural justice training</a>, which promotes <a href="https://counciloncj.foleon.com/policing/assessing-the-evidence/vi-procedural-justice-training">fair, respectful treatment</a> of community members. </p>
<p><strong>–</strong> Train police on the constitutional requirements of the tactic. As the court-appointed monitor for the New York City Police Department, <a href="https://www.law.nyu.edu/news/peter-zimroth-in-memoriam">Peter Zimroth</a>, observed, officers need to understand the <a href="https://ccrjustice.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/07/Floyd%20Monitors%20Report%207%209%202015.pdf">legal framework</a> for stop-and-frisks, and the types and levels of proof they need to satisfy before making them.</p>
<p><strong>–</strong> Implement community engagement strategies to offset some of <a href="https://www.vera.org/publications/coming-of-age-with-stop-and-frisk-experiences-self-perceptions-and-public-safety-implications">the harms</a> that stop-and-frisk can cause. For example, Mayor Parker’s <a href="https://www.cherelleparker.com/244-2/">current safety plan</a> includes hiring 300 foot and bike patrol officers who have the potential to engage the community in <a href="https://cops.usdoj.gov/html/dispatch/05-2018/walking_a_beat.html">ways that build</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1910157116">support for policing operations</a>. That’s smart, if they adhere to constitutional mandates and the tenets of community policing and procedural justice.</p>
<p><strong>–</strong> Require officers to <a href="https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/the-new-world-of-police-accountability/book259214">complete a written report</a> for each stop-and-frisk, and have supervisors review them regularly.</p>
<p><strong>–</strong> Require officers, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12293">with their body-worn cameras</a> <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/police-body-camera-policies-recording-circumstances">turned on</a>, to articulate why they are stopping someone. Their reasons should also be conveyed to the person who is stopped.</p>
<p><strong>–</strong> Harness body cam footage to monitor stop-and-frisk. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12293">Researchers examining the NYPD’s program</a> concluded that body cams increased compliance with stop-and-frisk reporting requirements. Supervisors should routinely review footage to assess the constitutionality of stops and the interactions that follow. Police departments might explore using <a href="https://www.truleo.co/">artificial intelligence technology</a> to examine the vast amounts of footage they capture. </p>
<p>By following these guidelines, we believe police in Philadelphia – and elsewhere – can use stop-and-frisk as a lawful mechanism to reduce crime and violence, while honoring residents’ constitutional rights. Without these essential controls, however, the failed history of stop-and-frisk is doomed to be repeated.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217878/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In a bid to reduce violent crime, the city’s new mayor is calling for a revitalization of a controversial practice the police department had mostly abandoned.Michael D. White, Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Arizona State UniversityHenry F. Fradella, Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2148202023-12-01T13:41:00Z2023-12-01T13:41:00ZA First Amendment battle looms in Georgia, where the state is framing opposition to a police training complex as a criminal conspiracy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560536/original/file-20231120-23-322rcw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C7%2C5216%2C3469&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bulldozed land at the planned site of a controversial police training facility, with Atlanta in the distance.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/section-of-bulldozed-land-is-seen-at-the-planned-site-of-a-news-photo/1246850758">Cheney Orr/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When does lawful protest become criminal activity? That question is at issue in Atlanta, where 57 people have been <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/dozens-indicted-on-georgia-racketeering-charges-related-to-stop-cop-city-movement-appear-in-court">indicted and arraigned on racketeering charges</a> for actions related to their protest against a planned police and firefighter training center that critics call “Cop City.” </p>
<p>Racketeering charges typically are reserved for people accused of <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/09/21/1200898062/rico-case-against-cop-city-protesters-in-atlanta-stirs-concerns-about-free-speec">conspiring toward a criminal goal</a>, such as members of organized crime networks or financiers engaged in insider trading. Georgia Attorney General Christopher Carr is attempting to build an argument that seeking to stop construction of the police training facility – through <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/05/cop-city-protesters-racketeering-charges-georgia">actions that include</a> organizing protests, occupying the construction site and vandalizing police cars and construction equipment – constitutes a “<a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/09/21/1200898062/rico-case-against-cop-city-protesters-in-atlanta-stirs-concerns-about-free-speec">corrupt agreement” or shared criminal goal</a>. </p>
<p>The indictment’s justification is rooted in <a href="https://immigrationhistory.org/item/1903-anti-anarchist-legislation/">long-standing anti-anarchist sentiments within the U.S. government</a>. However, some civil rights organizations <a href="https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/rico-and-domestic-terrorism-charges-against-cop-city-activists-send-a-chilling-message">call this combination of charges unprecedented</a>. </p>
<p>As scholars who study <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=pWgCJMMAAAAJ&hl=en">environmental change</a> and <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/David-Pellow-2">social justice</a>, we believe the charges seek to suppress typical acts of civil disobedience. They also target grassroots community organizing models and ideas rooted in the practice of mutual aid – people <a href="https://www.kqed.org/news/11909218/in-2020-mutual-aid-was-in-the-spotlight-how-are-organizers-holding-up-in-2022">organizing collective networks</a> in order to meet each other’s basic needs.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3MekiLV51Rs?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The RICO indictment against ‘Cop City’ protesters describes the accused protesters as ‘militant anarchists.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The ‘Stop Cop City’ movement</h2>
<p>“Cop City,” officially known as the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, was <a href="https://atlanta.capitalbnews.org/cop-city-timeline/">first proposed in 2017</a>. The facility is expected to <a href="https://www.atlantaga.gov/Home/Components/News/News/14700/672">cost US$90 million</a> and is located on 85 acres of public land in the Weelaunee Forest, once home to the Indigenous Muscogee Creek peoples. The site is owned by the city of Atlanta but sits on <a href="https://decaturish.com/2022/09/cop-city-explained-a-look-at-the-ongoing-controversy-surrounding-police-training-center/">unincorporated land in DeKalb County</a>, just outside the city.</p>
<p>The opposition campaign has garnered support from activists and environmentalists who are concerned about <a href="https://theconversation.com/militarization-has-fostered-a-policing-culture-that-sets-up-protesters-as-the-enemy-139727">militarization of police forces</a> and potential threats to <a href="https://stopcop.city">the Black community</a>, as well as to <a href="https://defendtheatlantaforest.org">climate resilience</a> in Atlanta. </p>
<p>Members of <a href="https://defendtheatlantaforest.org/">Defend the Atlanta Forest</a>, a decentralized movement of grassroots groups and individuals, argue that the threatened forest provides essential ecological services – filtering rainwater, preventing flooding, providing habitat for wildlife and cooling the city in a time of climate change. </p>
<p>Activists have led protest marches, written letters to elected officials and <a href="https://www.copcityvote.com/updates">organized a referendum</a> for the public to decide the future of the property. Some have camped out in the Welaunee Forest – a method that radical environmental defense groups like <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Earth-First">Earth First!</a> have used to <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/total-liberation">delay or prevent logging</a>. In one instance, activists reportedly <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/atlanta-protests-cop-city-georgia-state-of-emergency-forest-defenders/">set construction equipment on fire</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/CyeS2xhvy_r/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link\u0026igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Authorities have responded with force. </p>
<p>In January 2023, police <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/03/13/1163272958/cop-city-protester-autopsy-manuel-paez-teran">fatally shot activist Manuel “Tortuguita” Terán</a>, who had been camping on the Cop City site for months. Authorities assert that Terán had shot and wounded a state trooper, while Terán’s family contends that they were <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/no-charges-troopers-killing-cop-city-activist-manuel-paez-teran-georgia/">protesting peacefully</a>. </p>
<p>An independent autopsy concluded that Teran <a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/04/20/atlanta-cop-city-protester-autopsy/">was shot 57 times</a> while <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/03/11/1162843992/cop-city-atlanta-activist-autopsy">sitting with hands raised</a>. A prosecutor opted <a href="https://apnews.com/article/cop-city-atlanta-activist-shot-no-charges-421f6fe392a9202523ea154b2ddabb7d">not to file charges</a> against state troopers involved in the shootout, calling their use of deadly force “objectively reasonable.” </p>
<p>Attorney General Carr <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/05/us/cop-city-atlanta-indictment.html">indicted 61 activists</a> on Sept. 5, 2023, under <a href="https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/2021/title-16/chapter-14/">Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act</a>, which is a <a href="https://www.ajc.com/politics/what-to-know-about-georgias-rico-law/3Y2PBKLHWFDMLKYFEURTHLBVZY/">broader version</a> of the <a href="https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/rico-racketeer-influenced-and-corrupt-organizations-act-statute">1970 federal RICO law</a>. Three defendants have been charged with money laundering for <a href="https://www.ajc.com/news/crime/breaking-more-than-60-training-center-activists-named-in-rico-indictment/DQ6B6GHTAJAJRH4SLGIIBAMXR4/">transferring money to protesters</a> occupying the forest around the construction site, and five are charged with <a href="https://www.ajc.com/news/crime/breaking-more-than-60-training-center-activists-named-in-rico-indictment/DQ6B6GHTAJAJRH4SLGIIBAMXR4/">domestic terrorism and arson</a>. Some of the accused face up to 20 years in prison.</p>
<p>Clashes between protesters and police have continued. Protesters organized a march for Nov. 13 and were met by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/16/atlanta-police-cop-city-protest-grenades-snipers-terrorism">heavily armed police officers in riot gear</a>. When activists attempted to push past the officers, the police used <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/police-protesters-atlanta-clash-cop-city-rcna124956">tear gas and flash-bang grenades</a>. </p>
<h2>How does RICO apply?</h2>
<p>Georgia’s <a href="https://content.govdelivery.com/attachments/GAOAG/2023/09/05/file_attachments/2604508/23SC189192%20-%20CRIMINAL%20INDICTMENT.pdf">109-page indictment</a> of “Cop City” protesters paints a broad – and, in our view, troubling – picture of the actions and beliefs that allegedly contributed to what it describes as a corrupt agreement.</p>
<p>The indictment cites the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/31/us/george-floyd-investigation.html">2020 killing of George Floyd</a> by Minneapolis Police as the event that sparked the “conspiracy.” It refers to the Atlanta-based movement as the Defend the Atlanta Forest “Enterprise” and <a href="https://content.govdelivery.com/attachments/GAOAG/2023/09/05/file_attachments/2604508/23SC189192%20-%20CRIMINAL%20INDICTMENT.pdf">describes participants</a> as engaging with “anarchist” ideas and practices such as “collectivism, mutualism/mutual aid, and social solidarity.”</p>
<p>Protesters use these practices, the indictment asserts, to advance their goal of stopping construction of the training center. As evidence, it <a href="https://content.govdelivery.com/attachments/GAOAG/2023/09/05/file_attachments/2604508/23SC189192%20-%20CRIMINAL%20INDICTMENT.pdf">cites examples</a>, including posting calls to action on online blogs, reimbursement for printed documents and transferring money to activists for materials such as camping gear, food, communications equipment and, in two instances, ammunition. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560542/original/file-20231120-22-tq91hf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in a business suit speaking at a microphone" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560542/original/file-20231120-22-tq91hf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560542/original/file-20231120-22-tq91hf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560542/original/file-20231120-22-tq91hf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560542/original/file-20231120-22-tq91hf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560542/original/file-20231120-22-tq91hf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560542/original/file-20231120-22-tq91hf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560542/original/file-20231120-22-tq91hf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Georgia Attorney General Christopher Carr has filed a sweeping RICO indictment against dozens of activists protesting the planned police training site.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Election2022Georgia-AttorneyGeneral/09a8169fb9aa43f8b2c5bbd6d424a13e/photo">AP Photo/John Amis, File</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Threatening First Amendment rights</h2>
<p>As we see it, these activists are being criminalized for their political beliefs and for engaging in activities protected by the First Amendment, such as exercising free speech. Throughout the indictment, the Georgia attorney general uses the term “anarchist,” we believe, as a synonym for “criminal.” </p>
<p>Such language echoes the Immigration Act of 1903, also known as the <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/total-liberation">Anarchist Exclusion Act</a>. This law targeted anarchists for exclusion from the U.S. solely based on their political beliefs. Section 2 of the law states that “anarchists, or persons who believe in or advocate the overthrow by force or violence of the government of the United States or of all governments or all forms of law, shall be <a href="https://immigrationhistory.org/item/1903-anti-anarchist-legislation/">excluded from admission into the United States</a>.” </p>
<p>This wording reflects a widespread view of anarchy as a state of violent disorder. In fact, however, many anarchist thinkers actually proposed to organize society on the basis of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/anarchism">voluntary cooperation</a>, without political institutions or hierarchical government. </p>
<p>Another, broader view of anarchy is that it is an ideology and practice of <a href="https://www.akpress.org/featured-products/black-dawn.html">organizing communities and society</a> in ways that confront any and all forms of oppression, including <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/total-liberation">oppression by government</a>. </p>
<p>Why would such a philosophy be deemed threatening? Consider recent U.S. history.</p>
<h2>The Black Panthers</h2>
<p>In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the federal government sought to repress and criminalize the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-a-shootout-between-black-panthers-and-law-enforcement-50-years-ago-matters-today-153632">Black Panther Party for Self Defense</a> as part of a covert and illegal <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/COINTELPRO">counterintelligence program, known as COINTELPRO</a>. </p>
<p>The Black Panther Party created extensive <a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/body-and-soul">community survival and mutual aid programs</a> for Black communities at a time of ongoing government neglect. Offerings included free access to medical and dental clinics, ambulance service and buses to visit friends and relatives in prison. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tCGA4TLaq8g?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Black Panther Party organized dozens of social programs to directly meet local needs in underserved areas like New York’s South Bronx.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Black Panthers’ <a href="https://www.history.com/news/free-school-breakfast-black-panther-party">free breakfast for children program</a> fed thousands of children across the country. In Chicago, local police destroyed food the night before the program was set to begin operations. A memo by an FBI special agent called the program an attempt to “create an image of civility” and “assume community control,” thus <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00045600802683767">threatening the centralized authority</a> of the U.S. government. </p>
<p>Federal agencies relied mainly on covert tactics to surveil, infiltrate and discredit the Black Panther Party. Like the Cop City protesters, the Black Panthers also engaged in <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-a-shootout-between-black-panthers-and-law-enforcement-50-years-ago-matters-today-153632">direct confrontations with police</a>.</p>
<p>However, we see the current use of RICO charges to address political activism and protest activities as a new tactic. </p>
<h2>Future implications</h2>
<p>In our research, we have explored how mutual aid groups establish networks of care and survival in the face of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1089/env.2022.0104">climate change</a>. We expect mutual aid to become even more important for Black and Indigenous people of color as environmental disasters <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12986">become more frequent</a>.</p>
<p>From our perspective, efforts to stop Cop City demonstrate the interconnection between two critical issues: overpolicing of communities of color and climate change. We see Georgia’s RICO indictment as an attempt to repress social movement activity, using the state’s tools of legal interpretation and enforcement. </p>
<p>Criminalizing collectivism, mutual aid and social solidarity is particularly concerning for historically marginalized populations, who often rely on these tactics for survival. </p>
<p>Seeking to use the state’s political processes, organizers recently collected over 116,000 signatures supporting a <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-10-04/-cop-city-referendum-aims-to-repeal-planned-atlanta-police-training-center">ballot referendum</a> that, if approved, would cancel the lease of the city-owned site for the training center.</p>
<p>However, Atlanta officials have <a href="https://apnews.com/article/atlanta-cop-city-referendum-signatures-4b617a220807b6701c9f46745e4762c4">refused to verify those signatures</a> as they await a federal court ruling on whether the organizers missed a key deadline. Meanwhile, Atlanta is <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-10-04/-cop-city-referendum-aims-to-repeal-planned-atlanta-police-training-center?sref=Hjm5biAW">already clearing land</a> for construction at the training site.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214820/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>This isn’t the first time that US authorities have criminalized civil disobedience or framed grassroots organizing as a conspiracy.Rachel McKane, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Brandeis UniversityDavid Pellow, Department Chair and Professor of Environmental Studies and Director, Global Environmental Justice Project, University of California, Santa BarbaraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2170462023-11-28T23:49:49Z2023-11-28T23:49:49ZPolicing is not the answer to shoplifting, feeding people is<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561622/original/file-20231124-19-hilwzf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=150%2C66%2C3875%2C2752&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The social and financial costs of policing food theft are higher than the costs of addressing poverty and income inequality.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/policing-is-not-the-answer-to-shoplifting-feeding-people-is" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Big businesses like to tell us that, as consumers, <a href="https://www.saltwire.com/atlantic-canada/business/sylvain-charlebois-we-all-pay-for-grocery-theft-100812369/">we all pay for food theft</a>. We’ve been sold a narrative that as consumers who don’t steal, we pay for the theft of food by others on our grocery receipts. </p>
<p>Reported increases in food theft in Canada are <a href="https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/grocery-shoplifting-on-the-rise-in-canada-amid-inflation-industry-insiders-say">linked to pressures from rising inflation</a> along with <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/staffing-cuts-recreation-libraries-winnipeg-budget-1.6742002#:%7E:text=%22We%20see%20cuts%20in%20community,staff%2C%20while%20libraries%20lost%2011.">diminished investment in social supports</a> such as housing, mental health, transit and crisis and community supports. </p>
<p><a href="https://yellowheadinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/police-budgets-praire-cities.pdf">Research has shown that in Prairie cities municipalities disproportionately fund police</a> over essential services like housing and mental health support. But instead of increasing social supports, the response to food theft has been surveillance, security and policing in our grocery stores.</p>
<p>Retailers would have us believe that the cost of food theft is limited to retailers passing on their losses to consumers. However, retailer investment in surveillance, security and special duty police officers are costs that are also passed on to consumers: we pay for the surveillance systems that surround us.</p>
<p>The social cost of policing food is much higher, and deeply concerning because it produces unequal community impacts. </p>
<h2>Food theft</h2>
<p>Food theft is framed as a threat to paying customers. That furthers the divide between those who can still afford groceries, and those who cannot. Media coverage of food theft often focuses on exceptional examples of theft to emphasize that the crisis is an issue of worsening crime. But that framing ignores the broader economic conditions that perpetuate the problem. </p>
<p>In response to media coverage of grocery theft, some have tried to highlight the connection between rising theft and unaffordable food prices. <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/9425322/toronto-legal-firm-pro-bono-defence-shoplifting/">A Toronto-area law firm has even offered pro bono support for those charged for stealing groceries</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561623/original/file-20231125-20-qxiiqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in a supermarket surreptitiously placing a product in a backpack." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561623/original/file-20231125-20-qxiiqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/561623/original/file-20231125-20-qxiiqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561623/original/file-20231125-20-qxiiqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561623/original/file-20231125-20-qxiiqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561623/original/file-20231125-20-qxiiqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561623/original/file-20231125-20-qxiiqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/561623/original/file-20231125-20-qxiiqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Reported increases in food theft in Canada have been linked to pressures from rising inflation and diminished investment in social supports.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When food theft is disconnected from social conditions, it also collectively distracts us from the underlying issue of rising food costs.</p>
<p>Following calls from the Canadian government to stabilize prices as food inflation outpaces general inflation, <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-major-canadian-grocers-yet-to-confirm-discounts-price-freezes-federal/">grocers have submitted preliminary plans to lower food prices but have yet to implement them</a>. </p>
<h2>Policing food theft</h2>
<p>Buying into the food theft moral panic, divorced from its broader social conditions, has resulted in increased surveillance, security and policing. Retailers and police rely on these <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/8604171/canada-grocery-store-shoplifting-rise/">extraordinary accounts of food theft</a> to create moral panic to be managed through securitization and policing. </p>
<p>We are emerging from a global pandemic that severely impacted unemployment rates, as cities grapple with underfunded social services and inflated police budgets. In these contexts, thinking about food theft through a lens of criminality limits interventions and responses.</p>
<p>In 2020, the Manitoba government established a <a href="https://news.gov.mb.ca/news/index.html?item=49281">Retail Crime Task Force with the goal of “reducing the number of thefts.”</a> The press release announcing the partnership was held in front of a Winnipeg grocer — sending a strong message that food theft will not be tolerated. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/retail-crime-task-force-manitoba-government-1.5733988">Project Stop Lifting</a> is another initiative between the Winnipeg Police Service and Manitoba Justice, and in a two-month period in 2020 it led to 74 arrests and 592 total charges were laid. </p>
<p>Similarly, <a href="https://vancouversun.com/news/crime/vancouver-police-arrest-258-people-in-shoplifting-crackdown">Vancouver Police have been cracking down on theft</a> and between Sept. 11-26, 258 shoplifting arrests were made. </p>
<p>These arrests and charges raise important concerns about how increased policing is being used as a purported solution to food theft.</p>
<h2>Impacts on racialized people</h2>
<p>Increased policing will disproportionately impact racialized and other marginalized people who are most vulnerable to over-policing and criminalization.</p>
<p>A charge for theft under $5,000 may not result in incarceration for some, but we know Indigenous and other racialized people are more likely to be arrested for minor offences. In Manitoba, Indigenous people are subject to overpolicing, racial profiling and over incarceration. <a href="https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/jr/gladue/p2.html">Indigenous people represent 77 per cent of the provincially incarcerated population</a>. </p>
<p>Research shows that <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/en-ca/products/178-the-end-of-policing">increased policing</a> of grocery stores and pilot programs to increase arrests will <a href="http://www.ajic.mb.ca/volumel/toc.html">disproportionately impact</a> Indigenous and racialized shoppers. This is disconcerting given the <a href="https://ehprnh2mwo3.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Calls_to_Action_English2.pdf">Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Call to Action No. 30</a> which calls upon federal, provincial, and territorial governments to eliminate the overrepresentation of Indigenous people in custody. The cost of food theft does not justify the impacts of increased incarceration for Indigenous Peoples, as well as other racialized and marginalized people.</p>
<p>Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew has argued the province’s approach to cracking down on theft <a href="https://winnipegsun.com/news/crime/province-announces-new-retail-crime-task-force">fails to address the root causes of crime</a>, and that the underlying problems that lead to theft need to be addressed. Theft cannot be divorced from the social conditions that leave individuals with no other alternatives, especially for needs as basic as food. </p>
<h2>The cost of policing food</h2>
<p>The cost consumers pay for food theft when grocers offload costs to their customers may be significant. However, the cost of policing and incarceration is far more substantial. <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=3510001301">In 2021-2022 the average cost to incarcerate someone in Canada was $119,355</a>. Beyond the cost of incarceration, <a href="https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/jr/ccc2014/system-systeme.html">we have to consider the cost of responding to food theft within the criminal justice system</a> that results in police costs, court costs, prosecution costs, legal aid costs, correctional services costs, probation costs as well as the cost of incarceration.</p>
<p>The social cost of such measures is important to consider. Going through the justice system will compound financial distress, subject individuals to police violence, and if incarcerated, will disrupt lives.</p>
<p>The costs associated with policing food, and incarcerating those who find themselves in a position of needing to steal food, should be redirected to feed people. Calls <a href="https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/yes-city-councils-can-cut-the-police-budget">to defund</a> and <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/en-ca/products/2571-a-world-without-police">abolish the police</a> have argued for the reallocation of police budgets towards life-sustaining social services and non-carceral alternatives to address crime. </p>
<p>The redistribution of public spending would address people’s struggles to afford food and reduce the high social and fiscal cost of criminalization and policing. By contrast, directing funding to surveillance, security and policing in response to food theft <a href="https://theconversation.com/defunding-the-police-is-a-move-towards-community-safety-181376">will compound harms</a>. </p>
<p>We have a serious problem if we would rather see people in prison than fed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217046/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Merissa Daborn receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. </span></em></p>The food theft crisis is framed as a threat to paying customers. This furthers the divide between those who can still afford groceries and those who cannot.Merissa Daborn, Assistant Professor in Indigenous Studies, University of ManitobaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2181332023-11-23T11:45:14Z2023-11-23T11:45:14ZIf Kenya wants to help Haiti, it should push for colonial reparations not send in the police<p><em>As the security situation in Haiti deteriorates, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/kenyas-parliament-approves-police-deployment-haiti-2023-11-16/">Kenya</a> has offered to lead a new sort of UN mission to the country from 2024. In early October, the UN Security Council <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/02/haiti-un-security-force-kenya-gangs">authorised a Multinational Security Support mission</a> led by Kenya to confront the paramilitary-style gangs that control the capital city of Port-au-Prince and other parts of the Caribbean country.</em> </p>
<p><em>We asked <a href="http://www.jennygreenburg.com/research.html">Jennifer Greenburg</a>, who researches the effects of peacekeeping interventions in Haiti, some questions.</em></p>
<h2>What is the context in Haiti?</h2>
<p>The Multinational Security Support mission is a new form of international intervention. It’s authorised under <a href="https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/chapter-7">Chapter Seven</a> of the UN Charter. However, it’s not formally a peacekeeping mission, which would be composed of peacekeeping forces and (theoretically) regulated according to <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/standards-of-conduct">UN standards of conduct</a>.</p>
<p>The reticence to call this intervention a peacekeeping mission is a product of recent history. The <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2019/10/15/as-the-un-leaves-haiti-its-victims-still-wait-for-justice">last major UN peacekeeping mission</a> in Haiti – known by its French acronym <a href="https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/mission/minustah">Minustah</a> and which ran from 2004 to 2017 – was responsible for <a href="https://www.fidh.org/IMG/pdf/KeepingthepeaceJusticiaGlobal-4.pdf">killing civilians</a>. Peacekeepers fired machine guns from helicopters in the name of combating gangs in 2005. </p>
<p>Further, after Haiti’s devastating 2010 earthquake, faulty sanitation practices at a UN peacekeepers’ base introduced a <a href="https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/documents/pdf/Clinics/Haiti_TDC_Final_Report.pdf#page=6">cholera</a> strain in the country that killed at least 10,000 people. </p>
<p>Peacekeepers also <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/01/11/un-peacekeeping-has-sexual-abuse-problem">raped</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/they-put-a-few-coins-in-your-hands-to-drop-a-baby-in-you-265-stories-of-haitian-children-abandoned-by-un-fathers-114854">sexually abused</a> Haitians.</p>
<p>It’s no mystery why nobody wants to see blue helmets arrive in Haiti again. </p>
<p>The new mission is to be led by Kenya with troops participating from other Caribbean countries, such as Jamaica, the Bahamas, Antigua and Barbuda. The US has <a href="https://apnews.com/article/haiti-violence-united-nations-4acd3429d1bd84020efac538ba6c8746">pledged</a> US$100 million. </p>
<p>More than <a href="https://apnews.com/article/haiti-gang-violence-un-report-killings-5d3f7ff272b7303852869dfc67692a23">2,700 people</a> in Haiti have been reported murdered and 1,472 kidnapped in the eight months to June 2023, according to the UN. The numbers are likely to be higher. They don’t include indirect deaths caused by inadequate access to healthcare and nutrition, which is exacerbated by insecurity.</p>
<h2>What will the Kenyan police confront in Haiti?</h2>
<p>The question of whether they will go is still not decided.</p>
<p>Kenya’s <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-67437951">parliament</a> has approved the mission but a court hearing on its constitutionality is scheduled for 26 January 2024. </p>
<p>If Kenya does deploy to Haiti, its police officers will confront a <a href="https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501746994/street-sovereigns/">complex</a> web of <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/gangs-take-control-in-haiti-as-democracy-withers">more than 200 paramilitary-style criminal gangs</a>. They control territory across the capital city of Port-au-Prince and many other areas of the country. </p>
<p>Haiti’s insecurity and poverty are rooted in its punishment for winning freedom from racial slavery in 1804. <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-france-extorted-haiti-the-greatest-heist-in-history-137949">France forced Haiti</a> to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/20/world/americas/haiti-history-colonized-france.html">repay</a> French slaveholders. This instigated a cycle of indebtedness and is how Haiti became, in the words of Haitian poet <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2008/12/toward-end-poverty-haiti#:%7E:text=In%20July%202006%2C%20Haitian%20poet,as%20described%20in%20the%20media.">Jean-Claude Martineau</a>, the only country with a last name: “the <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/haiti/overview">poorest country</a> in the western hemisphere”.</p>
<p>Security was already in crisis before the 2021 <a href="https://theconversation.com/slain-haitian-president-faced-calls-for-resignation-sustained-mass-protests-before-killing-164131">assassination of de facto president Jovenel Moïse</a>. Today, gangs control about <a href="https://apnews.com/article/haiti-gangs-democracy-at-risk-7ddcea955fdd364e2b574e28daa71d03">two-thirds</a> of the country, which has a population of <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?locations=HT">11.6 million</a>. </p>
<p>There are more <a href="https://nacla.org/news/2021/political-anatomy-haiti-armed-gangs">guns</a> in Haiti now than before the last peacekeeping mission that ended in 2017. Like Haitian police, Kenyan police may find themselves <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/02/haiti-cops-outgunned-gangs">outgunned</a> by gangs who control (and trade in) vast troves of weapons.</p>
<p>Without in-depth knowledge of a complex and volatile situation, Kenyan police will somehow have to distinguish civilians from gang members, and gang members from police. </p>
<p>The notorious leader of the “G-9 Family and Allies”, <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/10/21/who-is-haitis-sanctioned-gang-leader-jimmy-barbecue-cherizier">Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier</a>, is a former police officer. Lines between police, government and gangs are deliberately blurred. </p>
<p>Chérizier is one of multiple gangsters, police officers and government officials implicated in the <a href="https://hrp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Killing_With_Impunity-1.pdf">2018 massacre</a> of at least 70 civilians.</p>
<p>After the assassination of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-57762246">Moïse</a>, the same political party responsible for this and <a href="https://web.rnddh.org/massacres-in-bel-air-and-cite-soleil-under-the-indifferent-gaze-of-state-authorities/?lang=en">multiple other massacres</a> remains in power. It continues to collude with gangs. </p>
<p>The Kenyan mission is allegedly coming to Haiti at the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/3/why-kenya-volunteered-to-lead-un-mission-to-haiti">request</a> of the Haitian government. But this government <a href="https://nacla.org/haiti-jovenel-moise-assassination-social-movements">doesn’t represent Haitian people</a>. It has massacred civilians by supplying gangs with information, weapons and uniforms through the police. </p>
<p>There is also a language issue: Kenyan troops speak English and Swahili. Haitians speak Krèyol and French.</p>
<h2>What are the concerns about Kenya’s police?</h2>
<p>The security support mission to Haiti will largely comprise Kenyan police, whom Kenyan civilians have described as treating them “<a href="https://theworld.org/stories/2016-05-23/police-officers-treat-nairobi-neighborhood-atm-machine-residents-say">like ATM machines</a>”. Extrajudicial <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20230601015425/https://www.matharesocialjustice.org/who-is-next/">executions</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-art-of-bribery-a-closeup-look-at-how-traffic-officers-operate-on-kenyas-roads-185551">extortion</a> and <a href="https://www.citizen.digital/news/kenya-police-have-killed-15-people-injured-31-in-covid-19-curfew-enforcement-ipoa-334522">abuse</a> are well-documented practices of the police force now charged with restoring legitimate policing in Haiti. </p>
<h2>What’s in it for Kenya?</h2>
<p>Kenya stands to benefit economically from leading the mission. In September, the US and Kenya signed a <a href="https://apnews.com/article/kenya-united-states-haiti-defense-austin-ed1496d72b426011f3e8a36a971ca12d">defence agreement</a> that gives Kenya resources and support to fight <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-al-shabaab-targets-kenya-and-what-the-country-can-do-about-it-87371">Al-Shabaab</a>. </p>
<p>Kenya’s own <a href="https://mod.go.ke/kenyas-peace-keeping-missions/#:%7E:text=Kenya%20has%20however%20remained%20cautious,little%20in%20peace%20enforcement%20operations.">defence ministry</a> has publicly stated that UN missions provide</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a rare opportunity to obtain UN allowances that are ordinarily not offered by the KDF (Kenya Defence Forces). </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Peacekeeping missions have also been an opportunity to gain international <a href="https://www.academia.edu/86172749/The_Strong_Arm_and_the_Friendly_Hand_Military_Humanitarianism_in_Post_earthquake_Haiti">credibility</a>, as my research in Haiti has shown. </p>
<h2>If not policing, what’s the best approach to solving Haiti’s crisis?</h2>
<p>Change in Haiti will not come through yet another UN or <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/11/07/haiti-kenya-invasion-gang-war-united-states/">outsourced</a> US intervention. </p>
<p>Speaking after UN approval of the Haiti mission, Kenya’s president William Ruto <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boCWMX3t0h8">said</a> Haitians were being punished for “choosing to be free human beings”. He was referring to the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Haitian-Revolution">country’s independence in 1804</a>. </p>
<p>In 2013, Britain agreed to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/uk-compensate-kenya-mau-mau-torture">compensate</a> 5,228 Kenyans who were tortured during the Mau Mau uprising against the colonial regime in the 1950s. Although the money hardly restores the dignity and livelihoods lost through colonialism, the decision to settle and award each claimant approximately US$4,000 is historic. </p>
<p>Real change for Haiti would begin with reparations. </p>
<p>If international bodies would only listen, <a href="https://www.haitiwatch.org/home/commissionforhaitiansolution">Haitian groups</a> representing broad swathes of civil society have been <a href="https://theworld.org/stories/2021-11-22/it-us-haitians-find-solution-haiti-crisis-adviser-says">vocal</a> about <a href="https://akomontana.ht/en/home/">what they want</a> and their <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/4/haiti_united_nations_forces">opposition</a> to a Kenyan-led intervention. </p>
<p>Money owed and respect deserved would be a more productive first step forward than <a href="https://jonathanmkatz.com/bigtruck">recycling</a> <a href="https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/killing-with-kindness/9780813553634/">pages</a> from the international community’s <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250284679/aidstate">playbook</a>. We need only look at Haiti today to see what violence this playbook has wrought.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218133/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Greenburg receives funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. She has previously received funding from the National Science Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the Association of American Geographers, Stanford University, the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, and the Department of Geography and the Graduate Division at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of At War with Women: Military Humanitarianism and Imperial Feminism in an Era of Permanent War (Cornell University Press).
</span></em></p>The security situation in Haiti must change – but another UN intervention may not be the way this happens.Jennifer Greenburg, Lecturer in International Relations, University of SheffieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2173442023-11-14T21:35:48Z2023-11-14T21:35:48ZCanadian cities continue to over-invest in policing<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/canadian-cities-continue-to-over-invest-in-policing" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Year-end debates about 2024 budgets have already begun across Canada, with cities <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/waterloo-regional-police-service-mark-crowell-1.7000460">like Waterloo</a> <a href="https://ottawa.citynews.ca/2023/11/08/ottawa-police-propose-13-4m-spending-increase-for-2024/">and Ottawa</a> proposing spikes in police budgets.</p>
<p>Despite <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/radio/day6/defund-police-2023-budgets-grow-1.6741711#:%7E:text=Following%20the%20murder%20of%20George,of%20Canadians%20supported%20the%20idea.">public calls to “defund the police” in 2020</a>, the budgets of Canadian police departments have continued to rise. In fact, when it comes to public safety budgets in Canada, the last five years have seen increasing investments in policing and under-investment in the social services and programs that contribute to safer cities. </p>
<p>The continued over-investment in policing is a limited and contradictory approach to safety. For one thing, police forces don’t address the root causes of violence and other harms. </p>
<p>Research has shown the “deterrence effect” of policing <a href="https://dc.law.utah.edu/scholarship/276">to be weak</a>, while aggressive policing often impairs the social relations and institutions that <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/want-to-reduce-violence-invest-in-place/">normally keep violence and conflict in check</a>. </p>
<p>It should be obvious that preventing violence and other harms is better than punishing perpetrators after the fact. However, as <a href="https://www.interruptingcriminalization.com/s/Cops-Dont-Stop-Violence">numerous studies have shown</a>, this requires an investment in a range of non-police services and programs. It means recognizing the inherent limitations of policing and adopting a broader approach to public safety. </p>
<p>Too often, however, city leaders equate safety with policing, and throw public money at an institution that actually creates unsafety for many people while failing to prevent violence and other harms.</p>
<h2>Contradictions in policing</h2>
<p>Policing is also a contradictory approach to safety. </p>
<p>While promising safety to some, policing is a source of “unsafety” for many communities. This is evident in <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/firsthand/m_features/heres-what-you-need-to-know-about-carding">police carding</a> <a href="https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/policing-black-lives">and violence</a> against Black people, the brutal repression of <a href="https://yellowheadinstitute.org/2020/07/15/police-brutality-in-canada-a-symptom-of-structural-racism-and-colonial-violence/">Indigenous people</a> and especially <a href="https://indiginews.com/first-person/in-the-aftermath-of-latest-raid-wetsuweten-decry-rcmp-harassment">land defenders</a>, the harassment of <a href="https://rapsim.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/VF2_Judiciarisation-de-litine%CC%81rance-a%CC%80-Montre%CC%81al.pdf">unhoused people</a> and the <a href="https://www.homelesshub.ca/sites/default/files/attachments/Overview%20of%20Encampments%20Across%20Canada_EN_1.pdf">destruction of their property</a>, the killing of people experiencing <a href="https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform-custom/deadly-force/">mental health crises</a>, the criminalization of <a href="https://sexworklawreform.com/infosheets-impacts-of-c-36/">sex work</a> and much more. </p>
<p>This is nothing new. Police forces were created specifically to enforce <a href="https://trackinginjustice.ca/analysis-policing-colonialism-and-discrimination/">a particular, white and bourgeois sense of order and safety</a>, and police “reforms” like multicultural training and hiring more racialized police officers <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2020.11.003">do not alter that core mission</a>. </p>
<p>Various studies and reports since 2020 have provided further evidence of anti-Black racism in <a href="https://spvm.qc.ca/upload/Rapport_Armony-Hassaoui-Mulone.pdf">police stops</a> and <a href="https://www.ohrc.on.ca/sites/default/files/Use%20of%20force%20by%20the%20Toronto%20Police%20Service%20Final%20report.pdf">use of force</a>, but none of this has stopped city leaders from further investing in the institution that causes these harms.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/state-of-georgia-using-extreme-legal-measures-to-quell-cop-city-dissenters-216482">State of Georgia using extreme legal measures to quell ‘Cop City’ dissenters</a>
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<p>If we view the police only as a source of safety, we are occupying a particular social position: a position of racial and class privilege.</p>
<h2>Policing spending: Before and after 2020</h2>
<p>In the spring of 2020, when the police killed <a href="https://justiceforbreonna.org/">Breonna Taylor</a> in Louisville, Ky., <a href="https://www.vera.org/news/what-justice-for-george-floyd-looks-like">George Floyd</a> in Minneapolis and <a href="https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2023/06/06/Three-Years-No-Justice-Chantel-Moore/">Chantel Moore</a> in Edmundston, N.B., new attention was brought to the contradictions and limitations of policing. </p>
<p>Historic protests filled the streets in the United States and around the world. <a href="https://btlbooks.com/book/disarm-defund-dismantle">The phrases “Black Lives Matter” and “Defund the Police” became synonymous</a>. </p>
<p>The rhetoric of defunding the police may have been new, but the core demand was consistent with longstanding critiques of policing and racial injustice. The core demand, as <a href="https://breachmedia.ca/toward-a-police-free-future-in-canada/">Black feminist scholar and organizer Robyn Maynard explains</a>, is to reallocate funding, power, equipment and force “away from agents of state violence and repression, and committing to invest instead in community-centred forms of safety.”</p>
<p>However, police budgets have continued to increase by an average of three per cent per year, adding to an almost 20 per cent increase over five years. Budgets for 2023 saw an especially large increase: an average of six per cent, with increases of more than eight per cent in Montréal, Vancouver and Peel Region. </p>
<p>Therefore, the 2020 protests had little impact on police budgets in Canada. In fact, police spending actually increased at a greater rate in the three years after 2020 than in the three years before it. In some cities, the change was especially significant. Montréal’s budget, for example, increased by 19 per cent after 2020.</p>
<p>As always, police spending is determined not just by what cities decide to provide, but what police forces themselves decide to spend. Police forces generally adhere to their budgets, but there are exceptions. </p>
<p>Between 2018 and 2022, Ottawa and Vancouver exceeded their budgets by $8.7 million and $12.2 million, respectively. The glaring outlier is the Montréal police, which exceeded its budget by $35.7 million per year and $178.6 million overall. </p>
<h2>Choosing safety, not policing</h2>
<p>The political message these budget choices sends is clear. Whatever <a href="https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/after-the-2020-protests-we-were-told-things-would-be-different-so-why-are-police/article_07d8c81c-ffa4-5dbb-bb67-972a0f8fe138.html">statements city leaders might have made in 2020</a>, Black lives do not matter to them in practice. </p>
<p>More broadly, cities have failed to incorporate the key argument that progressives have always made, reinforced in 2020: services and programs other than policing are required to prevent violence and other harms. </p>
<p>There have been some moves in this direction. Both <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-community-crisis-service-report-expansion-city-council-committee-1.7007108">Toronto</a> and <a href="https://reachedmonton.ca/initiatives/24-7-crisis-diversion/">Edmonton</a> have introduced crisis response teams that see health workers, rather than police, respond to calls related to mental health. <a href="https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/ottawa-will-be-getting-a-new-emergency-number-for-mental-health-crises-1.6477699">Ottawa</a> will follow suit next year. </p>
<p>The amount invested in these teams, however, is much less than the new money provided to police.</p>
<p>As the end of 2023 approaches, Canadian urban leaders need to recognize that the safety of their cities means investing in safety, not police.</p>
<p>There is no shortage of guidance for this shift, from Mariame Kaba and Andrea Ritchie’s book <a href="https://thenewpress.com/books/no-more-police"><em>No More Police</em></a> to the excellent <a href="https://www.halifax.ca/sites/default/files/documents/city-hall/boards-committees-commissions/220117bopc1021.pdf">report by Halifax Board of the Police Commissioner’s Subcommittee</a> and the <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ee804787469504a54387fd9/t/62d9a5671916485cdc753921/1658430826746/La+vision+des+communaute%CC%81s+-+finale+%28FR%29.pdf">alternative city budget from the Montréal Defund the Police Coalition</a>. </p>
<p>The broad imperative is to significantly reduce police budgets for 2024, while reallocating funding to some of the many services and programs that give people more safety and police less work to do.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217344/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ted Rutland receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).</span></em></p>Despite public calls to defund the police in 2020, the budgets of Canadian police forces have continued to rise.Ted Rutland, Associate professor, Geography, Planning and Environment, Concordia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2166972023-11-13T16:25:49Z2023-11-13T16:25:49ZLocal police officers on the decline: what happened to bobbies on the beat?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557500/original/file-20231103-25-hei3cb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=108%2C56%2C3686%2C2468&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/police-hivisibility-jackets-policing-crowd-control-244903102">Brian A Jackson/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The neighbourhood officer was key to the founding tradition of policing in Britain. The concept of “policing by consent” depended on the view of police as
citizens in uniform – <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Police.html?id=fZXaAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">visible, local figures</a> there to watch, listen and intervene where needed, in a community they knew and understood. </p>
<p>But new figures show that these local, community-focused officers are on the decline in England and Wales. In London, there has been a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-67231805">64% decline</a> in safer neighbourhood police officers since 2015. Across the country, the figure is 27%.</p>
<p>In 2005, the government introduced the <a href="https://assets-hmicfrs.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/uploads/metropolitan-police-service-phase2-neighbourhood-policing-citizen-focus-20080830.pdf">Neighbourhood Policing Programme</a>, recruiting 13,000 police officers and 16,000 Police Community Support Officers over three years. In this model, response policing (when police react to 999 and urgent calls, often with blue lights) was meant to supplement the community policing of the local bobby. But ultimately, it began to replace them. </p>
<p>Investment and police numbers had been going up year-on-year from 2000. But 2010 marked a significant change due to changes in spending. The Institute for Fiscal Studies reports that <a href="https://ifs.org.uk/publications/police-workforce-and-funding-england-and-wales">police funding fell</a> by 14% between 2010 and 2014.</p>
<p>For a while, funding reserves allowed neighbourhood policing to hang on. But steadily, resources were diverted to maintaining emergency response capability. As local councils and other organisations also faced cuts, they too prioritised critical services over preventative safety programmes and youth services.</p>
<p>The number of local police began to fall, and the <a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/markmoore/files/the_evolving_strategy_of_policing_1188.pdf">benefits of a local officer</a> – visibility, reassurance, local knowledge and “nipping things in the bud” eroded. They were replaced with graded response systems and online reporting, given that several police stations closed too. </p>
<h2>Declining trust in the police</h2>
<p>As a result, an entire generation has grown up not experiencing neighbourhood policing as it had been known the decade before. Relationships were lost and never repaired, and some communities <a href="https://academic.oup.com/policing/article/doi/10.1093/police/paad038/7214006">felt abandoned</a>. </p>
<p>The flow of information from the public to the police slowed, as a result of less informal contact between people and their local bobby. As that intelligence dried up, so did the police’s chances of stopping crime. And, up went the confidence of young, experimenting criminals who found they could get away with things easily. Increases in shoplifting and antisocial behaviour are likely due in part to a perceived sense of impunity.</p>
<p>This intelligence is the lifeblood of policing, and relies upon having some sort of relationship of trust, something that is sorely missing in UK policing today.</p>
<p>Trust and confidence in the police has <a href="https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/POST-PN-0693/POST-PN-0693.pdf">declined in recent years</a>. The crime survey for England and Wales found that overall confidence in local police fell from 78% in 2017-18 to 69% in 2021-22. This has also been influenced by high-profile cases of police misconduct and criminality, such as the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving officer.</p>
<p>The Independent Office for Police Conduct monitors public confidence in policing and has found that 20% of people say an increased local police presence would help <a href="https://www.policeconduct.gov.uk/sites/default/files/documents/IOPC_Yonder_Public_Perceptions_Tracker_Annual_Summary_Report_2021_22_Final.pdf">improve their confidence</a>.</p>
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<img alt="A group of four police in uniform, with distinctive bell shaped hats" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557502/original/file-20231103-19-rzozus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557502/original/file-20231103-19-rzozus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557502/original/file-20231103-19-rzozus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557502/original/file-20231103-19-rzozus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557502/original/file-20231103-19-rzozus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557502/original/file-20231103-19-rzozus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557502/original/file-20231103-19-rzozus.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Community police have been on the decline for years.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/bristol-england-july-2-part-police-80568472">pjhpix/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<h2>The changing nature of policing</h2>
<p>In 2019, the government pledged to recruit 20,000 officers under the national Uplift programme by March 2023. This goal was achieved, but while new members were joining, existing personnel were retiring and larger numbers were leaving early. The impact, numerically, was blunted. </p>
<p>With resources dwindling since 2010, much policing experience was lost and not replaced. The urgent recruitment campaign from 2019 created young-in-service police teams, often led by inexperienced supervisors, who were often those responding to 999 calls. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/boris-johnsons-pledge-for-20-000-new-police-officers-is-misleading-and-problematic-expert-128636">Boris Johnson’s pledge for 20,000 'new' police officers is misleading and problematic – expert</a>
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<p>Patterns of offending were changing too, so more specialist policing personnel were <a href="https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.publishing.service.gov.uk%2Fgovernment%2Fuploads%2Fsystem%2Fuploads%2Fattachment_data%2Ffile%2F1172887%2Fopen-data-table-police-workforce-functions-260723.ods&wdOrigin=BROWSELINK">allocated</a> to address cybercrime and complex investigations, such as grooming and trafficking. </p>
<p>Police chiefs had to balance priorities and put staff where they were more immediately needed. Neighbourhood patrol functions suffered, and over time, streets started to be <a href="https://dera.ioe.ac.uk/id/eprint/32954/">lost to gangs</a> who filled that vacuum. </p>
<p>There are now renewed calls, notably from the Labour party, to reinvest in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/feb/15/labour-to-promise-more-neighbourhood-police-officers-like-catherine-cawood">neighbourhood policing</a>, which would start to rebuild the relationships lost over the last bleak decade. This would be welcome, but it would need to include investment in other supporting services too, like <a href="https://www.sportengland.org/news/power-of-sport-to-help-tackle-crime">youth programmes</a>.</p>
<p>Any new local police teams will face two key challenges. First, they will be building largely from scratch due to the deskilling of those lost years. And they will need to regain trust lost from communities that have grown up without local policing, who have now learned to live without it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216697/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Coxhead receives funding from the Home Office. He is affiliated with the Labour Party as a regular member. </span></em></p>Community police officers are important for maintaining trust in police.John Coxhead, Professor of Policing, Crime prevention, Learning & Innovation, University of East LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2174352023-11-10T16:12:53Z2023-11-10T16:12:53ZSuella Braverman’s comments comparing Gaza protests with Northern Ireland are a grave misunderstanding of the facts<p>The aim of Suella Braverman’s controversial <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/pro-palestine-protest-london-met-police-cbqnxbtv3">Times article</a> commenting on the ongoing protests over Gaza seems obvious. As with many of her recent and provocative statements, the assumption is that she is trying to undermine and ultimately replace Rishi Sunak as Tory leader by appealing to the party’s right. However, the methods used – and particularly the comparisons she made between marches in Northern Ireland and demonstrations in London – are more confusing. </p>
<p>This confusion is understandable, as Braverman herself seems confused in what she wrote. She linked marches over the Gaza conflict to “the kind we are more used to seeing in Northern Ireland”. She drew further comparisons when suggesting that some of those organising the London protests “have links to terrorist groups, including Hamas”.</p>
<p>From the article alone, it was not at all clear which Northern Ireland marches Braverman was referring to. In some ways it read as though she was trying to make a connection between Irish republicanism and support for Hamas. But marching in Northern Ireland is more associated with the unionist community. Even the head of the Orange Order – responsible for the overwhelming majority of marches in the region – was concerned enough to suggest that Braverman <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-67366165">should clarify</a> exactly which groups she was referring to. </p>
<p>Braverman later insisted she was indeed <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/nov/09/braverman-clarifies-northern-ireland-comments-amid-angry-criticism">referring to dissident republicanism</a>. And republicans do also participate in marches, but historically the most significant of these have been civil rights demonstrations to highlight the discrimination faced by the Catholic community. These marches were largely banned by the then Unionist government – something which Braverman appears to want in the case of the London protests, though she has denied this. Unionists justified their bans by making the same insinuations that Braverman makes in her Times article – that such marches can be a front for violent subversives. However, the violence triggered by civil rights marches in Northern Ireland was mainly enacted by the state – most famously and tragically of all on Bloody Sunday in January 1972, when the British army shot dead protesters, resulting in 14 deaths.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/bloody-sunday-50-years-later-what-it-means-when-we-commemorate-trauma-174559">Bloody Sunday 50 years later: what it means when we commemorate trauma</a>
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<p>The march on Bloody Sunday was a protest against the use of internment without trial in Northern Ireland. Like the freedoms of expression and assembly – both of which are exercised in the Gaza protests – freedom from unlawful imprisonment is a fundamental democratic right. Indeed it is a fundamentally British right, given its place in the Magna Carta. Worryingly, Braverman, the home secretary, and thus a key figure in upholding British law, would seem to be struggling with such concepts. </p>
<p>Drawing an analogy with Northern Ireland in her efforts to defend her position was a poor decision. It showed the superficiality of her understanding of the region’s past conflict – a tendency common to many of the Tory leaders that Brexit has thrust upon us. Recall former prime minister Boris Johnson asserting that the Irish border was <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/republic-of-ireland/boris-johnson-mocked-for-saying-irish-border-like-camden-and-westminster/36648696.html">little different</a> to those dividing London boroughs, his deputy Dominic Raab admitting he had <a href="https://inews.co.uk/news/brexit/good-friday-agreement-dominic-raab-brexit-secretary-northern-ireland-peace-253106">not read the Belfast/Good Friday agreement</a>, or Braverman’s predecessor Priti Patel suggesting that the threat of food shortages in Ireland as a result of a no-deal Brexit should be used to <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/uk/brexit-tory-mp-backtracks-over-food-scarcity-in-ireland-1.3725093">pressure Dublin</a> in the ongoing negotiations. Awareness of the British government’s role in the catastrophic Great Irish Famine of the 1800s seemed non-existent. </p>
<h2>Purposeful confusion?</h2>
<p>It is hard to discern ignorance from intent, however. Braverman’s apparent linking of Gaza protesters with republican violence, and the perceived threat to Cenotaph commemorations this weekend, might have been an effort to conjure memories of the IRA bombing of a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-35197450">remembrance day event in Enniskillen in 1987</a>. Older readers of her Times article with a military background might make this connection. But it is horribly crude if Braverman meant to imply a common mentality between the Enniskillen bombers and protesters demanding a ceasefire in Gaza. </p>
<p>The reason that Braverman’s Times article is open to multiple interpretations, and creates much confusion, is that it deploys a common tactic of “culture warriors”. The lack of clarity is purposeful. It is enough to insinuate the malign intent of Gaza protesters or other such targets, and let social media do the rest. Even Metropolitan Police commissioner Mark Rowley <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/nov/05/dowden-concerns-about-pro-palestine-marches-armistice-day">noted this lack of care</a> in responding to Braverman’s description of the Gaza protests as “hate marches”. He told the News Agents podcast: “She’s picked two words out the English language and strung them together”.</p>
<p>And a lack of understanding of these sensitive subjects is also no barrier to their use and abuse by culture warriors. As long as a given intervention raises their political profile, it has served its purpose. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/suella-braverman-why-the-home-secretary-cant-force-the-police-to-cancel-a-pro-palestine-march-217399">Suella Braverman: why the home secretary can't force the police to cancel a pro-Palestine march</a>
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<p>A proper consideration of the Northern Ireland case creates more challenging lessons for figures like Braverman. Firstly, the successful reform of policing in the region ended its pro-unionist bias. And even recent <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-66679018">challenges</a> to policing in Northern Ireland have reminded us of the need to protect law enforcement from political interference. Braverman would do well to note this. </p>
<p>More broadly, and if we are to compare Northern Ireland with the Middle East, there is need to acknowledge that its peace process involved engagement with violent republicanism, successfully steering it towards democracy and political compromise. In Israel-Palestine, similarly, ways must be found to encourage violent actors towards purely peaceful methods. As with the militant republicanism, efforts to simply crush Hamas will likely prove counterproductive. Bloody Sunday was often said to be the single biggest recruiting sergeant for the IRA, and Israel’s current actions in Gaza will likely create a new generation of Hamas fighters. </p>
<p>The long and difficult process of building a peaceful and just Northern Ireland began with ceasefires. That is what most protesters over Gaza are demanding. True democrats owe them every support in their peaceful endeavours.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217435/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter John McLoughlin has received funding in the past from the AHRC, Leverhulme Trust, the Irish Research Council, and the Fulbright Commission. He is a member of Greenpeace.</span></em></p>There are plenty of valuable parallels to be drawn from the Good Friday peace process that might be applied to Braverman’s thinking on protests. But she instead chose to inflame tensions.Peter John McLoughlin, Lecturer in Politics, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2166272023-10-31T23:47:13Z2023-10-31T23:47:13Z‘Unreasonable, unjust, oppressive’: how a police program targeted Indigenous kids<p>“Unreasonable, unjust, oppressive or improperly discriminatory in its effect on children and young people.” </p>
<p>That’s how the Law Enforcement Conduction Commission (LECC) described a police program that aims to target likely offenders before they commit crimes.</p>
<p>It’s a program that allowed police to make home visits at all hours, and stop and search people in the street. </p>
<p>Yesterday, the commission released its damning <a href="https://www.lecc.nsw.gov.au/news-and-publications/news/media-release-operation-tepito-final-report">final report</a> after a five-year investigation.</p>
<p>Here’s what it found.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/too-much-money-is-spent-on-jails-and-policing-what-aboriginal-communities-told-us-about-funding-justice-reinvestment-to-keep-people-out-of-prison-200531">'Too much money is spent on jails and policing': what Aboriginal communities told us about funding justice reinvestment to keep people out of prison</a>
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<h2>Report identifies unlawful practices</h2>
<p>The program in question is the Suspect Targeted Management Plan, implemented by NSW Police.</p>
<p>It’s a pre-emptive policing program that selects and then targets children and adults who police predict may commit crimes in the future. </p>
<p>The rationale behind the policy is to deter recidivists.</p>
<p>Once placed on the plan, police “disrupt” people’s everyday lives, through questioning, stop and search, and home visits – sometimes at all hours and even multiple times a week or even a day. </p>
<p>The Law Enforcement Conduct Commission found some of this conduct to be unlawful, possibly even “serious misconduct”. </p>
<p>While the plan was introduced in 2000, the then secret “black list” only came to public attention in 2017 with my <a href="https://piac.asn.au/2017/10/25/policing-young-people-in-nsw-a-study-of-the-suspect-targeting-management-plan/">research</a> (coauthored with Camilla Pandolfini), in partnership with Public Interest Advocacy Centre and the Youth Justice Coalition. </p>
<p>The commission agreed with our recommendation that there were grounds to investigate the police for potential agency maladministration. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1718839249225891957"}"></div></p>
<p>The commission’s investigation, called “Operation Tepito”, has been ongoing since 2018. </p>
<p>Its <a href="https://www.lecc.nsw.gov.au/news-and-publications/publications/operation-tepito-interim-report-january-2020.pdf">interim 2020 report</a> was scathing of police.</p>
<p>It recommended further reform of the revised management plan through new policy guidelines and training. </p>
<p>The commission urged police to engage with young people with “positive interactions” and reduce coercive ones. </p>
<p>The final report reviewed the operation of the plan for children between November 2020 and February 2022.</p>
<p>The commission concluded that police use of the management plan was an “<a href="https://legislation.nsw.gov.au/view/html/inforce/current/act-2016-061#sec.11">agency maladministration</a>” but did not make formal findings. This is because NSW Police abandoned the plan before the report was released. </p>
<h2>First Nations children disproportionately targeted</h2>
<p>Of the recommendations the commission made in 2020, NSW Police <a href="https://www.lecc.nsw.gov.au/news-and-publications/news/media-release-operation-tepito-final-report">failed to successfully implement</a> any of them. </p>
<p>Police overwhelmingly still subjected young people to intrusive, disruptive strategies. Some of these, such as home visits and searches, were unlawful. </p>
<p>There was <a href="https://www.lecc.nsw.gov.au/news-and-publications/news/media-release-operation-tepito-final-report">little evidence</a> of “positive interactions”, nor of support referrals.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-nts-tough-on-crime-approach-wont-reduce-youth-offending-this-is-what-we-know-works-160361">The NT's tough-on-crime approach won't reduce youth offending. This is what we know works</a>
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<p>First Nations young people were disproportionately targeted. </p>
<p>In 2022, First Nations people made up 48% of all young people on the plan.</p>
<p>This was an increase on the 42% reported in the 2020 interim report. </p>
<p>Crucially, the commission found that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The NSW Police Force did not undertake any analysis to try to determine the reasons for this and did not take steps to reduce this over-representation.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>First Nations young people are <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781003115243/conflict-politics-crime-chris-cunneen">overpoliced, overcharged and overincarcerated</a>.</p>
<p>If you then use the same data to decide who is “risky” and deserving of intensified police harassment, it only reinforces the cycle of criminalisation. </p>
<p>The Commission also found other administrative issues, including:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>varied quality in intelligence assessments</p></li>
<li><p>unclear justifications for putting people on the plan</p></li>
<li><p>inflation of how some scores were calculated</p></li>
<li><p>poor record-keeping</p></li>
<li><p>inadequate consideration of complex needs or the alternatives to placing a young person on the Suspect Targeting Management Plan.</p></li>
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<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/raising-the-age-of-criminal-responsibility-is-only-a-first-step-first-nations-kids-need-cultural-solutions-186201">Raising the age of criminal responsibility is only a first step. First Nations kids need cultural solutions</a>
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<h2>A plan at odds with Closing the Gap</h2>
<p>The fact NSW Police didn’t implement any of the 2020 recommendations or reduce the over-representation shows the plan was never safe for First Nations young people in the first place.</p>
<p>Indeed, the management plan did precisely what it was designed to do: incapacitate and disrupt. </p>
<p>No amount of training or improvements to policy could remedy the extensive harms for First Nations young people put on the plan. </p>
<p>It was fundamentally a punitive surveillance approach, which made police the first responders for First Nations young people.</p>
<p>Aboriginal children need <a href="https://earlytraumagrief.anu.edu.au/files/ctg-rs21.pdf">culturally appropriate, therapeutic, trauma-informed services</a> run by Aboriginal community-controlled organisations. </p>
<p>They also need <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1362480615625763">safe distance</a> from police. </p>
<p>The Suspect Targeting Management Plan was always at odds with the NSW government’s commitment to divert First Nations people from the criminal justice system.</p>
<p>In its Closing the Gap <a href="https://www.aboriginalaffairs.nsw.gov.au/closingthegap/nsw-implementation-plan/2022-24-implementation-plan/">Implementation Plan</a>, all early interventions to support young people need to be community designed and driven. </p>
<p>There should also be health, housing and education support.</p>
<h2>A community development approach</h2>
<p>NSW Police has dropped the Suspect Targeting Management Plan for people under 18 and will soon scrap it entirely.</p>
<p>Police are now developing a replacement approach. Will they take the lead from communities? </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.unsw.edu.au/walgett-partnership/about-us">Yuwaya Ngarra-li</a> community-led partnership in Walgett is one example of how holistic diversion programs can work.</p>
<p>Another is <a href="https://www.justreinvest.org.au">Just Reinvest</a> in Bourke, Kempsey and Moree.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.uts.edu.au/research-and-teaching/our-research/jumbunna-institute-indigenous-education-and-research/our-research/indigenous-law-and-justice-hub/self-determination-and-criminal-justice">UTS Jumbunna Institute of Indigenous Education</a> has developed ideas around Aboriginal self-determination in youth justice that could shape guiding principles. </p>
<p>Police are the wrong people for providing Indigenous young people with non-coercive, therapeutic support.</p>
<p>Community alternatives to state policing are real and powerful.</p>
<p><em>Correction: This article has been amended to reflect that the Law Enforcement Conduct Commission did not make formal findings of agency maladministration because NSW Police abandoned the Suspect Targeted Management Plan for children before the report was released. The article previously did not include this context.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216627/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vicki Sentas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Law Enforcement Conduct Commission has handed down a damning report into an unlawful policing strategy. It’s the latest example of First Nations children being over-policed.Vicki Sentas, Senior Lecturer, UNSW Law, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2164422023-10-31T03:34:36Z2023-10-31T03:34:36Z‘Cheap police’: Four Corners shows the dangers of private policing in the NT and why First Nations people are more at risk<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556750/original/file-20231031-23-5sy12e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=23%2C4%2C1396%2C801&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRzqNvIZ-nU">Screenshot ABC YouTube</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names of deceased people and mentions of discrimination and violence against First Nations people.</em></p>
<p>The most recent ABC Four Corners episode, <a href="https://help.abc.net.au/hc/en-us/articles/8219499961871-Four-Corners-Guarded-Private-security-policing-the-public-">Guarded</a>, investigates the increase of private policing and security in the Northern Territory. It also shows scenes of First Nations people being deprived of their liberty, searched and assaulted by private security. </p>
<p>The prevalence of private police in the Northern Territory is on the pretence that crime has increased, although statistics from the Australian Bureau of Statistics based on public safety surveys between <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/crime-and-justice/personal-safety-australia/2021-22">2005 and 2023</a> and <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-02/nt-crime-police-data-assault-domestic-violence-property-offences/102663284">police data</a> show mixed trends.</p>
<p>Despite the large scale of this kind of policing in the NT, there is a lack of legislation controlling what powers and authority private security guards actually have. There is also a lack of legislation regulating their conduct and responsible use of force and weapons. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/heres-some-context-missing-from-the-mparntwe-alice-springs-crime-wave-reporting-199481">Here's some context missing from the Mparntwe Alice Springs 'crime wave' reporting</a>
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<p>The 4 Corners program documents instances of First Nations women, men and children being moved on, manhandled and pushed to the ground for prolonged periods by private security. In one month alone, 283 people were moved on. First Nations rough sleepers were especially targeted as part of a street sweeping agenda. One First Nations man described being thrown to the ground so badly he <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-30/private-security-policing-darwin-city-four-corners/103013202">couldn’t breathe</a>.</p>
<p>The report showed in 2013, Yanyuwa and Garrwa man Mr King died from positional asphyxia after security guards pushed him to the floor face down for seven minutes, during which he screamed “<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-31/i-cant-breathe-mr-king-four-corners/103035218">I can’t breathe</a>”. The <a href="https://justice.nt.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/258972/styles-isaac-king.pdf">coroner</a> into Mr King’s death found the security guards had insufficient training to understand the risks of their work. The guards were acquitted of manslaughter in 2014.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1719117445640913267"}"></div></p>
<h2>Private policing in Australia</h2>
<p>In 2023, the federal government and Northern Territory government announced <a href="https://10play.com.au/theproject/articles/governments-pledge-14-2-million-to-fund-safety-initiatives-in-alice-springs/tpa230505xtnqi">$14.2 million</a> in funding for additional police and private security, including ten security guards in public places in Alice Springs (Mparntwe), such as around youth centres.</p>
<p>Private police and security exercise enforcement roles, including apprehending, searching and detaining members of the public. In recent years across the country, the functions of private security have expanded from commercial and private spaces into patrolling <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-10-19/nt-government-private-security-patrols-police-shortage/101542286">public spaces</a>, schools, transport platforms and interchanges, and on-board buses.</p>
<p>In the Northern Territory, private security patrols supplement the <a href="https://www.pc.gov.au/ongoing/report-on-government-services/2023/justice/police-services">highest</a> police-to-public ratio in the country.</p>
<p>This increase of private security in public spaces has not been accompanied with legislative authority to stipulate their powers. Rather, the increase of this mode of policing has transpired through government announcements and answers to <a href="https://parliament.nt.gov.au/business/written-questions/wq/14th-assembly-written-questions">questions in parliament</a> in relation to their role. </p>
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<img alt="Two security officers walk with a dog with a muzzle." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556756/original/file-20231031-27-jmo8aw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556756/original/file-20231031-27-jmo8aw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556756/original/file-20231031-27-jmo8aw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556756/original/file-20231031-27-jmo8aw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556756/original/file-20231031-27-jmo8aw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556756/original/file-20231031-27-jmo8aw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556756/original/file-20231031-27-jmo8aw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Recently, private security in the Northern Territory carry pepper spray and patrol with dogs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://iview.abc.net.au/show/four-corners">Screenshot from ABC Iview.</a></span>
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<h2>What’s happening in the Northern Territory</h2>
<p>In Darwin (Garramilla), community lawyers <a href="https://search.informit.org/doi/pdf/10.3316/informit.739300418772392">have said</a> that racism was evident in the operations by private security guards, noting their particular surveillance of First Nations people.</p>
<p>In Alice Springs, private security have taken a front-line role in the management of First Nations young people. In 2019, the Northern Territory government introduced its <a href="https://revitalisingalice.nt.gov.au/initiatives/breaking-the-cycle-of-youth-crime">Breaking the Cycle of Youth Crime</a> program, which included funding nightly security patrols operated by Talice Security throughout the CBD. </p>
<p>Doctoral research by <a href="https://arena.org.au/breaking-the-cycle/">Lora Chapman</a> finds that in Alice Springs, private security patrols are “stand-ins for police” and make it difficult for First Nations young people to be free from surveillance. First Nations young people could not enter the weekly youth disco, for instance, without providing their names and addresses to security officers and being scanned by metal detectors. They were then locked in the disco, where Chapman described First Nations kids feeling under siege.</p>
<p>Private security guards in the Northern Territory also possess restricted weapons. In Alice Springs, private security transit officers and crowd controller licence holders can carry oleoresin capsicum spray (also known as “OC” or “pepper spray”), while <a href="https://www.ntnews.com.au/news/politics/capsicum-spray-rollout-to-nt-private-security-questioned-by-union-ntcoss/news-story/5ae12a968161935f0ce497d8a2cfb37a">lacking</a> necessary training. This weapon can <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-makes-pepper-spray-so-intense-and-is-it-a-tear-gas-a-chemical-engineer-explains-140441">cause</a> coughing fits, breathing difficulties and fatalities. </p>
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<p>
<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-cant-go-shopping-without-police-coming-north-queenslands-at-risk-youth-feel-excluded-and-heavily-surveilled-211885">'We can’t go shopping without police coming': north Queensland's at-risk youth feel excluded and heavily surveilled</a>
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<h2>What are the risks of private policing?</h2>
<p>There is no legal framework to restrain the power of private security guards, and the scope of their powers is completely obscure. The detail is often buried in contractual agreements or licences between private security contractors and the government. </p>
<p>It was shown on 4 Corners that people experiencing homelessness in Darwin submitted to the authority of security officers without being told of the scope of their powers.</p>
<p>When violence is inflicted by a Northern Territory security officer, the complaints procedure, at best, provides for the suspension of licences, rather than referrals to police. The 4 Corners program reported that many security officers shown in videos to be manhandling First Nations people were able to retain their licences.</p>
<p>In the NT, there is a <a href="https://legislation.nt.gov.au/en/Legislation/PRIVATE-SECURITY-ACT-1995">private security act</a> that seeks to regulate security services, but it only relates to the provision, review and suspension of licences, rather than the powers exercised by private security guards. When this act was first introduced to parliament, it was <a href="https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/kAklCD1v07H4EKplt5kQLv?domain=urldefense.com">envisaged</a> a legislative amendment would be required to address this. This has not yet occurred. </p>
<p>Police powers and authority are governed by <a href="https://legislation.nt.gov.au/en/Legislation/POLICE-ADMINISTRATION-ACT-1978">legislation</a>, which has been sorely tested by ongoing <a href="https://nit.com.au/15-12-2020/1633/footage-emerges-of-nt-police-officer-threatening-to-knock-the-fk-out-young-aboriginal-boy">police assaults</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/kumanjayi-walker-murder-trial-will-be-a-first-in-nt-for-an-indigenous-death-in-custody-why-has-it-taken-so-long-148922">deaths in police custody</a>. </p>
<p>Governments need to not only better regulate policing and private security guards, they should also establish independent oversight of all policing. Governments should also consider alternatives to policing, such as <a href="https://larrakia.com/outreach-services/">Aboriginal night patrols</a> that promote care and safety for community.</p>
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<img alt="Security guards are fighting with patrons outside a nightclub." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556758/original/file-20231031-21-t3sdwn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556758/original/file-20231031-21-t3sdwn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556758/original/file-20231031-21-t3sdwn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556758/original/file-20231031-21-t3sdwn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556758/original/file-20231031-21-t3sdwn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556758/original/file-20231031-21-t3sdwn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/556758/original/file-20231031-21-t3sdwn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://iview.abc.net.au/show/four-corners">Screenshot from ABC Iview</a></span>
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<h2>Profits before people</h2>
<p>The privatisation of public order management and policing creates a law enforcement system driven by profits. Profits are a deterrent to investing in staff training, employing qualified guards and providing compliance systems. Providers in the Northern Territory, for instance, can meet the <a href="https://nt.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/1010609/s20.pdf">competency standards</a> for a security officer within <a href="https://www.asset.edu.au/security-guard-course/">eight days</a>.</p>
<p>Repeatedly on 4 Corners, First Nations people and security officers referred to the officers as “cheap police”. The <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/canadian-journal-of-law-and-society-la-revue-canadienne-droit-et-societe/article/abs/policing-postmodern-canada/A6694855B8927298B3D66593CBE29B8E">commodification of public policing</a> is based on cost efficiency, rather than a legislative framework and protection for the public. </p>
<p>The possession of weapons also opens the gates to unchecked violence. As the harms of Northern Territory policing <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/may/06/more-police-in-remote-nt-areas-is-a-direct-threat-to-aboriginal-community-elders-say">mount</a>, the focus should be on retracting rather than expanding the policing net.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216442/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thalia Anthony receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>The ABC Four Corners episode ‘Guarded’ shows an increase of private policing and security in the Northern Territory. These privatised security measures need legislation to ensure community safety.Thalia Anthony, Professor of Law, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2154362023-10-26T02:43:14Z2023-10-26T02:43:14ZDrug detection dogs often get it wrong, and it’s a policing practice that needs to stop<p>Drug detection dogs are a <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0004865816642826">street-level</a> policing strategy that has now been used in Australia for more than 25 years. </p>
<p>The stated intent of this policy was to target drug supply. However, in 2006, the <a href="https://www.ombo.nsw.gov.au/Find-a-publication/publications/reports-to-parliament/police/review-of-the-police-powers-drug-detection-dogs-act-2001">NSW Ombudsman</a> showed most people detected by the dogs either had no drugs at all or were people who use drugs - not those who supply drugs. </p>
<p>Since that time, increasing evidence has challenged the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10345329.2018.1556280?journalCode=rcic20">effectiveness</a> and <a href="https://www8.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdb/au/legis/nsw/repealed_act/ppdda2001338/">legality</a> of this policing strategy. In addition, a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0955395918300756?via%3Dihub">2018 study</a> of people who use drugs found Australia had one of the highest reported incidences of drug dog encounters. This occurred most often at festivals, on public transport, and in licensed premises. </p>
<p>In fact, policing and law enforcement, including police drug dogs operations, accounts for nearly two-thirds of Australian government spending on illegal <a href="https://ndarc.med.unsw.edu.au/resource/24-government-drug-policy-expenditure-australia-200910">drugs</a>. </p>
<p>Evidence suggests drug dogs do not deter people from <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30176423/">using drugs</a>. However, much of the evidence base for these arguments focuses on festival settings. Relatively little is known about experiences in non-festival settings and among different groups of people who use drugs (that is, those who do not typically attend festivals). </p>
<p>Our recent research shows police drug dogs are both an <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36692962/">ineffective</a> and <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0955395923002700">inequitable</a> strategy, which may carry health, social, and legal risks. </p>
<p>We have recently published two studies about police drug dog encounters among two samples of people who regularly use drugs. The <a href="https://ndarc.med.unsw.edu.au/project/ecstasy-and-related-drugs-reporting-system-edrs">Ecstasy and Related Drug Reporting System (EDRS)</a> includes interviews with people who regularly use ecstasy and/or other illicit stimulants, and the <a href="https://ndarc.med.unsw.edu.au/project/illicit-drug-reporting-system-idrs">Illicit Drug Reporting System (IDRS)</a> includes interviews with people who regularly inject drugs. </p>
<h2>An ineffective strategy</h2>
<p>We used data from our surveys with people who regularly use ecstasy to describe drug dog encounters at <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36692962/">music festivals</a>. This included how individuals responded to the presence of dogs and how they prepared for anticipated encounters. </p>
<p>We found encounters with drug dogs at festivals were common. In fact, the vast majority (94%) of those who reported such encounters said they had anticipated the presence of drug dogs. However, rather than being deterred from using or carrying drugs into the festival, participants reported taking steps to try to avoid detection by dogs. </p>
<p>Consistent with <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19930020/">previous research</a>, those who expected to see police drug dogs at the festival described trying to hide their drugs well, or taking their drugs before entering the festival. Both of these approaches to avoiding detection have been shown to increase the risk of overdose and other <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30176423/">adverse events</a>, a cause for considerable concern following the <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/two-men-die-in-suspected-drug-overdoses-after-attending-music-festival-20231001-p5e8vb.html">deaths of two men</a> at a New South Wales music festival in October. </p>
<p>Our findings reinforce concerns that the growing normalisation of drug dogs may actually be reducing their <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28131615/">efficacy</a>. Based on our research, we believe drug detection dogs should no longer be used in festival settings. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/its-time-to-change-our-drug-dog-policies-to-catch-dealers-not-low-level-users-at-public-events-111710">It's time to change our drug dog policies to catch dealers, not low-level users at public events</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>An inequitable approach</h2>
<p>In a second study, we explored encounters with drug detection dogs in non-festival settings among different groups of <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0955395923002700#bbib0027">people who use drugs</a>. </p>
<p>We found both samples of people commonly reported encounters with drug dogs in locations beyond festivals. These occurred most often at public transport hubs and other public places. </p>
<p>Compared with those who regularly inject drugs, those who regularly use ecstasy were more likely to have reported an encounter with drug dogs in non-festival settings over the last 12 months (32% and 21%, respectively). By contrast, we found people who inject drugs were over three times more likely to report being stopped and searched by police, and to experience criminal justice consequences, despite being no more likely to be carrying drugs at the time of encounter. </p>
<p>We cannot provide a definitive reason for this discrepancy. However, it seems plausible that it is reflective of sociodemographic differences between the two samples. That is, our sample of people who inject drugs experience much higher levels of social disadvantage and previous engagement with the criminal justice system. </p>
<p>Existing evidence indicates that prior interactions with police increase the likelihood of a stop and/or search encounter with <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0955395918300756?via%3Dihub">police drug dogs</a>. It also shows people who inject drugs often experience police harassment, violence, and <a href="https://search.informit.org/doi/abs/10.3316/informit.805739908088999">stigmatising language</a>. Although the latter of these accounts relate to police encounters more broadly, it could be argued that drug detection dogs are being used in Australia as tools to target, harass and criminalise the most marginalised groups of people who use drugs in society. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/testing-festival-goers-pills-isnt-the-only-way-to-reduce-overdoses-heres-what-else-works-118827">Testing festival goers' pills isn't the only way to reduce overdoses. Here's what else works</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Continued use of drug detection dogs may exacerbate health and social harms to an already marginalised group. Such strategies are also in conflict with Australia’s national drug strategy objective of <a href="https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/national-drug-strategy-2017-2026.pdf">harm minimisation</a>, and with Australia’s commitments under human rights laws to provide access to health care and to protect individuals, families and communities from <a href="https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/Studies/Drug_Policy_Australia_Oct2008.pdf">drug related harm</a>.</p>
<p>Our findings, combined with the existing research, suggest police drug dogs are ineffective and inequitable. They should be removed from all community settings, including music festivals, public transportation hubs, and other public places.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215436/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Caitlin Hughes currently receives funding from the Australian Research Council, Swiss Federal Office of Public Health, SA Law Foundation, United Nations Development Programme and CentreCare SA. She is President of the International Society for the Study of Drug Policy. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Sutherland currently holds an NHMRC Investigator Fellowship (#1197241). She previously received untied educational grants from Seqirus for post-marketing surveillance of opioid medications in Australia. Funding from this organisation has now ceased and was for work unrelated to this project. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daisy Gibbs does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>New research shows that not only is the use of drug detection dogs ineffective, it may in fact increase the risk of drug-related harm.Daisy Gibbs, Evaluation Offier, Burnet InstituteCaitlin Hughes, Associate Professor in Criminology and Drug Policy, Centre for Crime Policy and Research, Flinders UniversityRachel Sutherland, Research fellow, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2143122023-10-02T20:35:28Z2023-10-02T20:35:28ZMontréal’s ‘mixed’ police squads don’t help the city’s unhoused people — they cause more harm<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/montreals-mixed-police-squads-dont-help-the-citys-unhoused-people-they-cause-more-harm" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Since 2009, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/mixed-squads-montreal-homeless-1.6972877#:%7E:text=A%20new%20report%20is%20calling,unhoused%20people%20in%20public%20space.">Montréal has seen a proliferation of what are known as “mixed squads</a>,” which generally involve a police officer working alongside a social worker or health worker to respond to situations in public spaces. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.homelesshub.ca/sites/default/files/attachments/1.3%20Hurtubise%20Rose.pdf">Some experts</a> and police say these squads <a href="https://spvm.qc.ca/fr/PDQ1/Actualites/15209">can help leave repression behind to provide support to marginalized people</a>. </p>
<p>But what happens when we pay attention to the perspectives of those who work on the front lines with unhoused people? Listening to these perspectives and bringing them into the public debate is the aim of <a href="http://rapsim.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/rapport-sur-les-escouades-mixtes-20-sept-2023.pdf">a new report</a> on mixed squads in Montréal. We contributed to the research.</p>
<p>The perspectives of front-line workers couldn’t be clearer: far from being a form of support, mixed squads have further harmed unhoused people. </p>
<p>The squads add a layer of surveillance and harassment that leads unhoused people to leave the spaces they know best and distance themselves from their support network in order to avoid police. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, they continue to be harassed by <a href="https://www.observatoiredesprofilages.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Judicialization-of-homelessness-in-Montreal.pdf">conventional police officers</a>.</p>
<h2>Needs of the homeless are ignored</h2>
<p>None of this is surprising.</p>
<p>While mixed squads differ from conventional policing in terms of their personnel, their objective remains the same: to intervene in lives of unhoused people in the interests of businesses, wealthier residents or other city residents who wish to see them displaced. </p>
<p>In short, the interests and needs of unhoused people are secondary, if not simply ignored.</p>
<p>The impact of mixed squads on community work is equally significant and negative. The report found the squads hinder the work of front-line workers, complicating their interventions and relationship-building and making it harder to maintain their independence from law enforcement. Police officers, meanwhile, are occupying an ever-bigger space in the ecosystem of the services unhoused people need.</p>
<p>The squads also have an increasing share of public funds. As a result, they both represent and accelerate a shift in Montréal’s management of homelessness away from the community groups that support unhoused people and work to resolve the problems they experience over the long term. Instead, the squads ignore long-term solutions and ultimately move people from one space to another on a continual basis.</p>
<p>Faced with these problems, the report calls for a new approach to homelessness, including abolishing mixed squads and reallocating their funding to two types of interventions.</p>
<h2>1. A new all-civilian squad</h2>
<p>The squad would be co-created by all concerned groups to respond to non-criminal 911 calls. This type of squad is <a href="https://theappeal.org/what-public-safety-without-police-looks-like/">increasingly common in North America</a>, and Fady Dagher, director of the Montréal police force, <a href="https://www.ledevoir.com/politique/montreal/772079/fady-dagher-promet-un-equilibre-entre-la-repression-et-la-prevention?">is in favour of creating one</a>.</p>
<p>We should emphasize that an existing squad, the Équipe mobile de médiation et d'intervention sociale (ÉMMIS), is not the civilian squad we are calling for. Although ÉMMIS teams don’t involve police, the initiative was created to respond to complaints about unhoused people, with funding of <a href="https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/montreals-mobile-intervention-program-to-be-expanded">$50 million over five years</a>. </p>
<p>The ÉMMIS approach turned marginalized people into objects of intervention, rather than the equivalent of housed city residents.</p>
<p>The ÉMMIS squad also patrols the city, talking to unhoused people in public spaces to establish “a relationship of trust.” This role makes it difficult for the unhoused to distinguish between those who are really working in their interests and needs and those who are working to improve the sense of security of others. </p>
<p>This leads to further disengagement from, and loss of confidence in, the institutions of society.</p>
<h2>2. More funding to community groups</h2>
<p>In addition to a new civilian team, we are calling for community organizations to be refinanced. The primary focus must be supporting people experiencing homelessness, and working towards long-term solutions to the problems they face.</p>
<p>That’s why the report calls for most of the funds currently devoted to mixed squads to be transferred to community organizations that share this mission.</p>
<p>Our report doesn’t claim to have all the answers. Its main objective is to challenge a public discourse dominated by the police and various city officials by prioritizing the perspectives of front-line workers who are well placed to understand what unhoused people really need. </p>
<p>We encourage further debate on this issue, which is why we are asking the city — as Montréal’s primary network of homeless-serving organizations, <a href="http://rapsim.org/">Réseau d'aide aux personnes seules et itinérantes</a> (RAPSIM), did back in 2007 — to hold public consultations soon to discuss the creation of an all-civilian response to non-criminal 911 calls.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214312/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karl Beaulieu receives funding from SSHRC</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ted Rutland does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Front-line workers who support unhoused people say far from being a form of support, mixed police squads add a layer of surveillance and harassment.Ted Rutland, Associate professor, Geography, Planning and Environment, Concordia UniversityKarl Beaulieu, PhD student in Social Work, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2127522023-09-19T21:13:40Z2023-09-19T21:13:40ZDiscriminatory policing is denying Black youth their childhood<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549188/original/file-20230919-17-h1y5xk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=28%2C40%2C3805%2C2115&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Youths’ stories detail concerning interactions with the police which speak to ongoing anti-Black racism in Canadian policing.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/discriminatory-policing-is-denying-black-youth-their-childhood" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>A <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/toronto-police-hit-with-class-action-lawsuit-over-carding-stops/article_472b85b0-9220-5e9a-aa4c-461ccc2cc0d0.html">class-action lawsuit</a> was brought against the Toronto Police Service in August over the force’s historic use of street checks, known as carding. The <a href="https://www.mccarthy.ca/en/carding-class-action">lawsuit</a> highlights the damaging and discriminatory impacts of carding, which has disproportionately affected Black and Indigenous youth. </p>
<p>Officially, the practice was halted years ago, though the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ont-toronto-police-carding-1.6939215">lawsuit alleges that the practice continues</a>. The allegations have not been tested in court.</p>
<p>Following the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52861726">2020 murder of George Floyd</a>, millions mobilized worldwide to demand accountability from police and bring attention to the anti-Black racism embedded in policing practices. <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.3138/9781442602502-005/html?lang=en">Racial disparities are evident in Canada</a>. Black communities are significantly over-represented in the criminal justice system, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/21533687211006461">second only to Indigenous communities</a>. </p>
<p>The Canadian judicial system is a complex, integrated network of policing, courts and correctional institutions. <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0145935X.2023.2243436?src=recsys">Our recent research</a> focuses on policing practices in Ontario, specifically when Black youth encountered police before 18-years-old. Youths’ stories highlighted concerning interactions with the police which speak to the ongoing problem of anti-Black racism in Canadian policing.</p>
<h2>Black youth and policing practices</h2>
<p>Anti-Black racism occurs early in the legal process, well before sentencing and incarceration. Anti-Black racism persists in policing, evidenced by the <a href="https://www.ohrc.on.ca/sites/default/files/A%20Disparate%20Impact%20-%20TPS%20inquiry%20%28updated%20January%202023%29.pdf">Ontario Human Rights Commission’s interim report</a> on racial profiling and discrimination against Black individuals by the Toronto Police Services. </p>
<p>When examining Black children’s experiences, extra nuances concerning age must be considered. Childhood and adulthood have been recognized as distinct developmental ages since the 1900s and have been officially enshrined in Canadian law with the introduction of the <a href="https://publications.gc.ca/collections/Collection/J2-248-2004E.pdf">Juvenile Delinquents Act in 1908</a>.</p>
<p>Youth criminal justice legislation has centred on diversion and prevention, rather than punishment, which recognizes young people’s distinct developmental needs. The <a href="https://www.laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/y-1.5/index.html">Youth Criminal Justice Act</a> recognizes the lasting impact of confinement on young people; since coming into effect in 2003, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/ontarios-new-child-welfare-policy-is-promising-but-youth-leaving-care-need-more-support-202437">number of youth in detention</a> has <a href="https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/may-2018/learning-from-our-success-in-reducing-youth-imprisonment/">steadily decreased</a>. Despite positive outcomes that signal the success of diversion practices, Black youth in Ontario continue to experience negative encounters with police. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548972/original/file-20230919-21-velats.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A logo of the toronto police service on a glass door." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548972/original/file-20230919-21-velats.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/548972/original/file-20230919-21-velats.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548972/original/file-20230919-21-velats.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548972/original/file-20230919-21-velats.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548972/original/file-20230919-21-velats.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548972/original/file-20230919-21-velats.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/548972/original/file-20230919-21-velats.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In August a class-action lawsuit was brought against the Toronto Police Service over street checks, alleging the practice disproportionately harmed racialized people.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Our study</h2>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/0145935X.2023.2243436">Our research explores the experiences of Black youth</a>, ages 16 to 26, living in the Greater Toronto Area. We discuss findings from the <a href="https://rcypartnership.org/en/">Rights for Children and Youth Partnership</a>, a research project exploring the rights of Latin American and Caribbean youth. </p>
<p>We conducted interviews with 47 Black youth who had previous contact with police between ages 12 and 17. We found that, despite their age or degree of vulnerability, Black youth felt police perceived them as agitators to be feared and as threats to the general public, rather than children in need of protection.</p>
<p>One interviewee, Matt, told us how he was first stopped by police while walking home from school with two friends while in eighth grade. According to Matt, the police claimed that the three boys matched a description. The boys were handcuffed and forced to sit on the curb. While two were eventually let go, one was arrested and taken to the station. Matt said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“We [were] underage first and foremost…they didn’t read us no rights…didn’t ask no questions, and they didn’t tell us what we were being arrested for…They came in there for one thing.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>While the use of force is concerning and <a href="https://www.ccja-acjp.ca/pub/en/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2021/08/Full-Report-PUF.pdf">supposed to be a last resort</a> in all police interactions, its use with youth is particularly concerning, given their vulnerability. Youth recalled threats of implied or explicit violence from police. </p>
<p>Another interviewee, Shawn, recounted being arrested for shoplifting. The officer said he wished he could have used more force on the then 17-year-old. Shawn said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I got kneed a couple of times … the cop was saying, "Oh I wish I was here, I would have got to use this,” and he was talking about his taser … “I wished you had tried to escape from me, I would have used this on you.”“ </p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://genderjusticeandopportunity.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/girlhood-interrupted.pdf">A study by the Center on Poverty and Equality</a> in the United States found that Black children — particularly girls — were perceived as older, needing less protection and more knowledgeable about "adult” topics. Black youth felt they were expected to know the full extent of the law and were granted little leeway if they were unaware. </p>
<p>In nearly every interview of our study, youth disclosed receiving little to no support or information from the officers with whom they interacted. Caity told us how she was arrested after a fight broke out at school. She was 12 at the time and described the lack of support from police officers: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I’m terrified at this point because I didn’t know it was going to be this serious and everything was a surprise to me … I’m crying a little bit. The lady is very cold with me, she’s in no way — not that she had to be kind — but she just didn’t, there was no warmth in her at all.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Most of the people we spoke to had their first encounters with police officers at a young age — for some as early as 12 or 13. The youth consistently felt they were perceived as criminals, regardless of the setting they were in. </p>
<p>These racially discriminatory practices indicate anti-Black bias wherein routine activities involving Black children and youth result in active policing. The participants largely expressed that they believed the police had mistreated them. </p>
<p>Minors are meant to be treated differently than adults in the legal system because of their young age. Police are denying Black youth their childhood, and governments must demand greater transparency. Ultimately, more accountability is needed from police to the young people they are meant to be protecting and serving.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212752/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Veronica Escobar Olivo receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marsha Rampersaud receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.</span></em></p>Black youth felt their age and inexperience were often disregarded by police officers who held them wholly responsible for knowing and abiding by the law.Veronica Escobar Olivo, Research Associate, School of Social Work, Toronto Metropolitan UniversityMarsha Rampersaud, Assistant Professor, Department of Social Science, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2123262023-09-04T17:13:07Z2023-09-04T17:13:07ZPoor police practices are endangering 2SLGBTQ+ survivors of intimate partner violence<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/poor-police-practices-are-endangering-2slgbtq-survivors-of-intimate-partner-violence" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Intimate partner violence is a prevalent and growing issue in Canada. According to <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/221019/dq221019c-eng.htm">Statistics Canada</a>, there were 114,132 police-reported victims of intimate partner violence in 2021, marking the seventh consecutive year of increased rates of violence.</p>
<p><a href="https://women-gender-equality.canada.ca/en/gender-based-violence/intimate-partner-violence.html">Intimate partner violence</a> refers to harmful behaviours perpetrated by a current or former partner over another. This can include physical, sexual, emotional or financial abuse and <a href="https://lukesplace.ca/coercive-control/">coercive control</a>. </p>
<p>The issue is particularly significant in the Canadian Prairies, where <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/210302/dq210302d-eng.htm">rates of police-reported intimate partner violence are consistently highest</a>. However, these rates do not reflect the pervasive nature of this issue, as approximately <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2018001/article/54893-eng.pdf">seven out of 10 incidents of intimate partner violence are never reported to police</a>.</p>
<h2>Intimate partner violence in 2SLGBTQ+ communities</h2>
<p>Considerably less is known about intimate partner violence in 2SLGBTQ+ relationships. This is because less research has focused on 2SLGBTQ+ experiences. In fact, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/a0038656">researchers have noted</a> that only three per cent of studies between 1999 and 2013 addressed intimate partner violence in 2SLGBTQ+ relationships.</p>
<p>The data that is avaialable suggests that it is a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-65263681">prevalent issue</a> in 2SLGBTQ+ communities. <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2021001/article/00005-eng.htm">Statistics Canada</a> estimates that two-thirds of sexual minority women experience intimate partner violence in their lifetime. </p>
<p>Scholars even suggest that rates of intimate partner violence in 2SLGBTQ+ communities are equal to, or higher than, heterosexual relationships. <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19319742/">Research has found</a> abusive dynamics in one-quarter to one-half of same-sex relationships. </p>
<p>Police have historically failed to protect 2SLGBTQ+ communities from harm. In fact, as the enforcers of anti-LGBTQ laws in the 20th century, police have actively participated in the oppression of 2SLGBTQ+ communities. </p>
<p>Tensions between police and 2SLGBTQ+ communities notably reached a turning point during the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/gay-rights/the-stonewall-riots#stonewall-s-legacy">Stonewall Uprising in 1969</a>. The six-day protest was triggered by a police raid at the Stonewall Inn in New York City and served as a driving force for the LGBTQ+ rights movement. </p>
<p>Many advancements and milestones have been achieved in the LGBTQ+ rights movement since the uprising, but the relationship between police and 2SLGBTQ+ communities remains strained. This is largely because poor police practices continue today, with police failing to protect 2SLGBTQ+ survivors from harm — often from intimate partners.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.umanitoba.ca/sites/resolve/files/2022-10/2SLGBTQ%2B%20IPV%20Final%20Report%20October%2014%202022.pdf">Our research</a> examined how 2SLGBTQ+ communities seek help when experiencing intimate partner violence in the Canadian Prairies. We found that participants’ perceptions and experiences of dealing with police were negative. Police responses ranged from not taking the cases seriously to engaging in discriminatory behaviours towards 2SLGBTQ+ survivors.</p>
<h2>Survivor experiences with police</h2>
<p>As part of our study, we interviewed 47 2SLGBTQ+ survivors of intimate partner violence across the Canadian Prairies about their experiences. A range of gender identities and sexual orientations were represented including Two-Spirit, transgender, non-binary, genderfluid, gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual and asexual. Survivors ranged in age from 19 to 67 years old. </p>
<p>Around 55 per cent were of White/European ancestry, 17 per cent were Indigenous, 15 per cent were of mixed ancestry, six per cent were Black and four per cent were Asian. Almost half (47 per cent) had a mental or physical disability or chronic health condition.</p>
<p>Despite historical harms, many survivors described reaching out to police for help. However, police responses towards them ranged from disinterest at best to discriminatory at worst. While a few survivors reported positive encounters with police, these were reported much less frequently.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/r4Hy5q_d11E?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A video about the 1981 Toronto Police raids that targeted gay men. In 2016, the Toronto Police Service apologized for the raids. Police have historically failed to protect 2SLGBTQ+ communities from harm.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many survivors told us they were not taken seriously when seeking police assistance. This was particularly true for lesbian survivors, who stated that police brushed off abusive incidents as a “catfight” or disagreement “between friends.”</p>
<p>This was echoed by survivors in other 2SLGBTQ+ communities, who felt the disdain they experienced from police invalidated their relationships and severity of abuse they experienced. Overall, misconceptions surrounding what abuse looks like in 2SLGBTQ+ communities were common in police responses.</p>
<p>Other survivors described blatant discrimination at the hands of police, including ridicule and dehumanizing rhetoric on account of their 2SLGBTQ+ identities. Transgender survivors in particular discussed instances of being misgendered, even after repeated attempts to express their proper name and desired pronouns. Discrimination was amplified for survivors with multiple marginalized identities, particularly those from racialized groups.</p>
<h2>Changing harmful practices</h2>
<p>Current policing practices must be addressed to improve responses to intimate partner violence in 2SLGBTQ+ communities, <a href="https://www.hrc.org/news/police-accountability-is-a-bedrock-issue-for-the-lgbtq-community">including demanding more accountability from police</a>. </p>
<p>The survivors we interviewed discussed several recommendations for tackling the issue, beginning with changing police attitudes and behaviours towards 2SLGBTQ+ communities. Specific changes include respecting 2SLGBTQ+ identities and pronouns, validating 2SLGBTQ+ relationships and taking intimate partner violence in 2SLGBTQ+ relationships seriously.</p>
<p>The need for larger systemic change within policing was also discussed. An important step towards systemic change involves committing to in-depth and long-term training to better inform interactions with 2SLGBTQ+ survivors.</p>
<p>Training should be comprehensive and address problematic preconceptions that downplay or dismiss the issue. Holding police accountable for not adequately responding to intimate partner violence within these systems was also noted as crucial to ensuring that training is put into practice.</p>
<p>Finally, increasing the diversity of justice system staff was also recommended. Survivors specifically underscored the importance of having more 2SLGBTQ+ representation in policing. Additionally, having social worker liaisons responding to calls alongside police officers was recommended to better assess and address intimate partner violence.</p>
<p>Violence of all kinds affects people of every gender identity and sexual orientation. However, 2SLGBTQ+ survivors can experience different forms of violence and face additional challenges accessing assistance and support. Police must do better to gain the trust and confidence from 2SLGBTQ+ communities. All survivors of violence, regardless of gender identity and sexual orientation, have the right to safety and protection, including from the police.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212326/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kendra Nixon receives funding from the PrairieAction Foundation and research support from community partners Rainbow Resource Centre, OUTSaskatoon and Sagesse.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ashley Haller receives funding from the PrairieAction Foundation and research support from community partners Rainbow Resource Centre, OUTSaskatoon and Sagesse. </span></em></p>Research finds that police officers engage in discriminatory behaviours towards 2SLGBTQ+ survivors of intimate partner violence.Kendra Nixon, Professor, Faculty of Social Work & Director, RESOLVE (Research and Education for Solutions to Violence and Abuse), University of ManitobaAshley Haller, Research Technician at RESOLVE (Research and Education for Solutions to Violence and Abuse), University of ManitobaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2111532023-08-11T14:14:53Z2023-08-11T14:14:53ZWhy imprisoning repeat shoplifters rarely breaks the cycle of offending – and what may work better<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/541706/original/file-20230808-25-1obzzr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C16%2C5364%2C3910&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The possibility of introducing mandatory prison sentences for prolific shoplifters has been mooted by government ministers. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/londonenglandunited-kingdomjuly-21-2019-waterloo-rail-1676652064">Neil Bussey/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The UK government is taking a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/action-plan-to-crack-down-on-anti-social-behaviour">harsher approach</a> to tackle criminal activity which is blighting local neighbourhoods. And recently, government ministers have been talking tough about repeat shoplifting, including <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/shoplifters-face-prison-under-crime-crackdown-ggdbv3j99">the possibility</a> of introducing new laws which would see prolific shoplifters imprisoned. This has all been against a backdrop of concern about a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jun/01/one-guy-uses-us-like-a-larder-the-british-shoplifting-crisis-as-seen-from-the-tills">rise in shoplifting</a> across the UK.</p>
<p>But there are some serious practical problems with any such measures and questions remain over whether such a policy could break the cycle of offending. Meanwhile, there is an innovative approach to this issue which may be a better way of dealing with crimes such as shoplifting called “<a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/integrated-offender-management-iom">integrated offender management</a>” (IOM). </p>
<p>Rolled out over the past few years, IOM is a novel criminal justice approach that is designed to break the cycle of re-offending. It is operated by 39 out of 43 police forces in England and Wales. </p>
<p>IOM involves police officers working closely with prison and probation services and criminal justice intervention teams. These are support staff who provide both clinical and therapeutic interventions for drug users involved in the criminal justice system. It is all in an effort to change or control the criminal activities of prolific offenders. </p>
<p>IOM was designed to address the underlying causes of offending. By the end of 2020, it was <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/integrated-offender-management-strategy">central</a> to the government’s neighbourhood crime strategy. In a report issued that year, former minister for crime and policing Kit Malthouse and former minister for prisons and probation, Luzy Frazer, said: </p>
<p>“We need a new approach – one with the tools to come down with full force on those responsible, but which also encourages rehabilitation and supports offenders to overcome the complex problems that we know can fuel this type of behaviour, such as substance misuse, poor mental health and issues with housing or employment.”</p>
<p>Any proposals which would see prison sentences for repeat shoplifters could risk undoing any positive progress made under IOM. </p>
<h2>The problem with prison</h2>
<p>The UK’s prison estate is running out of capacity for adult males. In November 2022, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/nov/30/uk-government-requests-urgent-police-cells-male-prisoners">the Ministry of Justice announced</a> emergency measures that would see some offenders who would ordinarily be imprisoned (typically remand prisoners) housed in police cells. <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/prison-population-figures-2023">Figures</a> released in August 2023 show a total of just 980 available prison places.</p>
<p>The government has <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/500-million-boost-to-create-thousands-of-new-prison-places">already stated</a> that more prisons need to be built. But any criminal justice initiative that requires new prisons will take a long time to deliver. This is because, on average, new prisons take <a href="https://consult.justice.gov.uk/digital-communications/proposed-new-prison-in-chorley/supporting_documents/chorleynewprisonconsultation.pdf">two to three years to build</a> and open. </p>
<p>Also, <a href="https://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/CSJ-Desperate-for-a-fix-WEB-1.pdf">70% of shoplifting</a> is estimated to be carried out by people funding an addiction to class A drugs – typically heroin and crack cocaine. These people arrive in prison as addicts and likely leave as addicts and so will continue shoplifting. Custody is not a panacea for prolific shoplifting and is unlikely to break the cycle of offending. </p>
<h2>Integrated offender management</h2>
<p>IOM work is done through a mix of rehabilitative and restrictive or enforcement-orientated interventions. Here, the police take a “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10439463.2018.1547719">carrot and stick</a>” approach to the management of offenders. Plain-clothed officers, deployed as police offender managers, gather intelligence and monitor people for signs of re-offending. </p>
<p>Simultaneously, these officers attempt to draw offenders away from crime by working alongside the other agencies, facilitating access to drug services, education, employment and transitions into stable housing arrangements. This is the “carrot” approach. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A police officer wearing a yellow high visibility jacket" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542123/original/file-20230810-18-i6hwim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542123/original/file-20230810-18-i6hwim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=715&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542123/original/file-20230810-18-i6hwim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=715&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542123/original/file-20230810-18-i6hwim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=715&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542123/original/file-20230810-18-i6hwim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542123/original/file-20230810-18-i6hwim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/542123/original/file-20230810-18-i6hwim.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Integrated offender management involves police officers working closely with other agencies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/london-uk-19th-april-2019-police-1392717764">John Gomez/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Where there is evidence that a person is failing to comply with licence conditions, or engage with IOM positively, traditional catch-and-convict policing methods are used by uniformed patrol officers. This is the “stick” approach.</p>
<p>Prolific shoplifters are the type of offenders IOM schemes should be engaging with. </p>
<p>My own <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Integrated-Offender-Management-and-the-Policing-of-Prolific-Offenders/Cram/p/book/9780367254148">research</a> has focused on how police officers contribute to IOM schemes. </p>
<p>I have also spoken with offenders who were engaged with IOM in the community. A number said that, while it was initially challenging to do so, in time they were able to form working relationships with police officers. </p>
<p>And, significantly, because of this, IOM had had a positive impact on their lives. This was particularly the case when it came to IOM helping them enter employment and tackle any drug-related issues they were experiencing. </p>
<p>Broadly, IOM seemed to have a strong motivational influence and a positive impact on those who wanted to leave their criminal lifestyle behind. </p>
<p>But IOM can only fully operate when people are able to access the relevant support services in the community. People may be able to get very limited employment and substance misuse help when in prison, but IOM offers a much deeper and enduring level of support. </p>
<p>The prospect of removing sentencing discretion for prolific shoplifters from magistrates and judges and introducing mandatory jail sentences, would risk disrupting a significant criminal justice programme. IOM may be a better and more cost effective way to deal with the pressing issue of repeated shoplifting.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211153/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>My original research, on Integrated Offender Management, was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council. Grant number: EF/H011382/1.</span></em></p>Integrated offender management is a better way of dealing with shoplifters than prison.Frederick Cram, Lecturer in Law, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2113072023-08-10T15:41:29Z2023-08-10T15:41:29ZThe personal details of Northern Ireland’s main police force have been leaked – three reasons why that’s incredibly dangerous<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/542149/original/file-20230810-25-hntwlu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=101%2C135%2C3653%2C2898&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock/Damien Storan</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Data breaches are not a good look for any institution or organisation. But depending on the nature of the data leaked and the organisation, some breaches can be more serious and have greater consequences than others.</p>
<p>This is certainly true of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), which has <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-66447388">accidentally published information</a> about all its police officers and civilian personnel in response to a <a href="https://www.psni.police.uk/latest-news/update-data-breach-investigation">freedom of information (FoI) request</a>. This included a spreadsheet containing their names, their roles and where they were based. </p>
<p>The document was available online for several hours on the FoI website What Do They Know before being taken down. The PSNI is conducting an investigation into how this happened.</p>
<p>It has been reported that the spreadsheet contained approximately 345,000 pieces of data relating to every police officer. In confirming the breach, the PSNI attributed it to “human error” and stated that they were taking the matter “extremely seriously”. </p>
<p><a href="https://news.sky.com/story/dissident-republicans-claiming-to-be-in-possession-of-leaked-psni-information-chief-constable-says-12937320">PSNI chief constable Simon Byrne</a> said in a press conference that dissident republicans claim to have some of the information and that the force is considering whether officers need to be moved from their places of work for their safety.</p>
<p>The data breach is said to encompass all serving staff including specialist firearms units, the <a href="https://www.psni.police.uk/about-us/our-departments/operational-support/tactical-support-group">tactical support group</a> (which is responsible for public order and riot control) and those assigned to the <a href="https://www.psni.police.uk/about-us/our-departments/crime">specialist operations branch</a> who command and assist in complex investigations. </p>
<p>A remarkable wealth of information about PSNI personnel has been leaked, by any stretch of the imagination. Of the many reasons why this is so serious, three stick out in particular. </p>
<h2>1. Risking violence</h2>
<p>A data breach of this nature is likely to leave any police force red-faced, yet for the PSNI the consequences extend far beyond public embarrassment. The long and contested history of problems with policing in Northern Ireland means that there are both practical dangers and specific sensitivities that even the most well-crafted apology won’t be able to assuage.</p>
<p>The most immediate problem is that the personal information of serving police officers is now potentially in the public domain. This raises the question of who might have accessed this information and what they might do with it.</p>
<p>Today’s levels of violence in the north of Ireland are incomparable to the past but the threat of violence against serving police officers remains. This threat comes mainly from armed Irish republican groups who have rejected the peace process and Good Friday agreement.</p>
<p>To them, PSNI officers represent “legitimate targets” because they uphold the constitutional status quo of post-Good Friday agreement Northern Ireland. Unlike other nationalists and more moderate republicans who have come to accept reformed policing, for these armed groups the PSNI remains a “British” police force tasked with enforcing partition on the island of Ireland.</p>
<p>The live nature of the threat to PSNI officers was brutally reiterated this year when <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/john-caldwell-northern-ireland-police-detective-released-from-hospital-after-being-shot-several-times-in-front-of-son-12862006">PSNI detective chief inspector John Caldwell</a> was <a href="https://theconversation.com/omagh-police-shooting-why-attack-comes-at-a-difficult-time-in-northern-ireland-200592">shot in County Tyrone in February</a>. Several of the people due to be tried for his attempted murder are <a href="https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/dci-john-caldwell-attempted-murder-27013359">also accused of being involved with the IRA</a>. </p>
<p>Crucially, Caldwell was targeted while he was off duty and packing up after leading a youth football training session. The people who attacked him appear to have known where to find him outside of work, clearly illustrating how personal information about PSNI officers could be used to devastating effect. </p>
<p>To make matters worse, it has been reported that the details of <a href="https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/psni-apologises-to-officers-and-civilian-staff-after-major-security-breach/a1823676448.html">40 PSNI staff based at MI5</a> are included in the breach. Personnel of this nature would surely represent prize targets to Irish republicans. </p>
<p>Any attack on these people that resulted in injury or death would be seen as a huge propaganda coup at a time when the armed campaigns of these groups are sporadic and stuttering.</p>
<h2>2. Stoking community tensions</h2>
<p>At the same time, the data breach speaks to a more difficult question around just how accepted the PSNI are in certain working-class communities. The struggle to recruit officers from working-class Catholic, nationalist, republican backgrounds is well documented. </p>
<p>Anyone from this background within the PSNI is unlikely to tell anyone beyond their closest family and friends what their job is. This is partly because of the security threat but also because of the problematic relationship their community had with the PSNI’s predecessor force, the <a href="https://pureadmin.qub.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/137233744/IPSRedraftMainText.pdf">Royal Ulster Constabulary</a>.</p>
<p>Yet the PSNI is also experiencing difficulty recruiting from working-class Protestant, unionist, loyalist areas too. Ongoing political tensions, including <a href="https://factcheckni.org/articles/did-unionism-always-oppose-the-northern-ireland-protocol/">Brexit</a>, disputes about which <a href="https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/issues/identity/flag-2012.htm">flags should fly over public buildings</a> in Northern Ireland and the policing of <a href="https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/news/psni-confirm-eight-arrests-during-27316038">Orange Order parades</a>, have put these communities at a remove from the PSNI. It is unlikely, then, that officers from within these communities would make their jobs publicly known either.</p>
<h2>3. Reviving unresolved grievances</h2>
<p>Some will also have been reminded of the past by this data breach, which has echoes of the deliberate intelligence leaks that used to come out of the <a href="https://www.policeombudsman.org/PONI/files/5c/5ce315c0-ca34-45c3-9dcc-7f4c2d2c4658.pdf">Royal Ulster Constabulary</a> during the years of conflict. The force passed the personal details <a href="https://twitter.com/RelsForJustice/status/1689183802407460864">of nationalists to state agents</a> within loyalist groups, who are accused of then murdering them. </p>
<p>This remains at the core of grievances over state collusion during the Troubles. While this latest data breach is different in nature, it nonetheless rubs at a sore spot for victims still waiting for truth and justice.</p>
<p>The leaking of personal details about every serving PSNI officer is without doubt an unmitigated disaster for the PSNI, politically and organisationally. While the force has apparently set up a “gold group” – the highest internal emergency response – significant damage has already been done.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/211307/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kevin Hearty does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The attempted murder of an off-duty officer just a few months ago is clear evidence of what can happen when the personal information of PSNI staff becomes public.Kevin Hearty, Lecturer, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2084182023-07-06T12:26:55Z2023-07-06T12:26:55ZPolice treatment in black and white – report on Minneapolis policing is the latest reminder of systemic racial disparities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535099/original/file-20230630-29-v5vyxp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3081%2C2051&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People in the Brooklyn borough of New York City protest police violence against Black women on Sept. 5, 2020.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/participant-holding-a-sign-at-the-protest-brooklynites-news-photo/1228367931?adppopup=true">Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The latest reminder that police officers around the country routinely deny Black people their constitutional rights comes from the Justice Department. This time, it’s about Minneapolis, the site of a police officer’s video-recorded murder of resident George Floyd. </p>
<p>More than three years after <a href="https://theconversation.com/george-floyds-death-reflects-the-racist-roots-of-american-policing-139805">Floyd’s brutal death</a> and the global protest movement that sprang from it, a June 2023 <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-finds-civil-rights-violations-minneapolis-police-department-and-city">Justice Department report</a> found that Minneapolis police use excessive force, including unjustified deadly force in their interactions with civilians, and discriminate against Black people. </p>
<p>The report echoes Justice Department findings, released in March 2023, about police misconduct in Louisville, Kentucky, where officers killed <a href="https://www.justice.gov/crt/case-document/file/1572951/download">Breonna Taylor</a> during <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/04/feds-charge-4-officers-with-violating-breonna-taylors-rights-00049867">an unlawful search of her home</a> in March 2020, and about <a href="https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-releases/attachments/2015/03/04/ferguson_police_department_report.pdf">police in Ferguson, Missouri</a>, in a report released in March 2015. An <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/michael-brown-killed-by-police-ferguson-mo">officer shot and killed Michael Brown</a>, who was unarmed, during a 2014 encounter. </p>
<p>The Justice Department <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-finds-civil-rights-violations-minneapolis-police-department-and-city">found that Minneapolis police</a> also discriminate against Native Americans; routinely use excessive force, including “unreasonable use of tasers”; violate the rights of citizens exercising their First Amendment right to free speech; participate in racially discriminatory stops against Black people and Native Americans; and discriminate against people with serious mental illnesses.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535104/original/file-20230630-29351-piiz0d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A uniformed, white police officer kneels on the neck of a Black man as he lies on the ground." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535104/original/file-20230630-29351-piiz0d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535104/original/file-20230630-29351-piiz0d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=330&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535104/original/file-20230630-29351-piiz0d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=330&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535104/original/file-20230630-29351-piiz0d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=330&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535104/original/file-20230630-29351-piiz0d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535104/original/file-20230630-29351-piiz0d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535104/original/file-20230630-29351-piiz0d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A screenshot of a video shows former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on George Floyd’s neck as Floyd cries out in pain, stating that he can’t breathe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEZh0C-pmaw">23 ABC News - KERO</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>As a <a href="https://newsroom.asu.edu/expert/rashad-shabazz">geographer and scholar of African American studies</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/black-police-officers-arent-colorblind-theyre-infected-by-the-same-anti-black-bias-as-american-society-and-police-in-general-198721">I’ve written</a> about <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-law-often-shields-police-officers-from-accountability-and-reinforces-policing-that-harms-black-people-homeless-people-and-the-mentally-ill-201552">racist policing</a> for <a href="https://theconversation.com/minneapolis-long-hot-summer-of-67-and-the-parallels-to-todays-protests-over-police-brutality-139814">The Conversation</a> before. So, I struggled to find a new way to examine the topic this time around. And that led me to the enduring question: Why is racial discrimination by police so common in the United States? </p>
<h2>Policing in black and white</h2>
<p>Justice Department reports, <a href="https://theconversation.com/police-officers-accused-of-brutal-violence-often-have-a-history-of-complaints-by-citizens-139709">complaints from citizens</a> and dozens of <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/21533687211047943">academic studies painfully point to</a> racial discrimination by police as a common practice. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/opinions/systemic-racism-police-evidence-criminal-justice-system/">evidence</a> is overwhelming. Countless studies have shown that Black people are <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15377938.2021.1992326">routinely stopped</a> by police and live in racially segregated communities <a href="https://now.tufts.edu/2020/06/17/how-racial-segregation-and-policing-intersect-america">that police heavily monitor</a>. These conditions have led to <a href="https://thecrimereport.org/2021/01/14/blacks-overrepresented-in-violent-crime-arrests/">Black people being overrepresented</a> in arrests for violent crime that doesn’t involve a fatality. </p>
<p>Police body camera footage shows <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1702413114">officers speak disrespectfully to Black people</a> during traffic stops; about four of every 10 <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/04/09/the-role-of-race-and-ethnicity-in-americans-personal-lives/">Black people say police have unfairly stopped them</a>; and Black people are more than <a href="https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/blacks-whites-police-deaths-disparity/">three times</a> as likely to be killed by police during interactions. These experiences explain why Black people have <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2016/09/29/the-racial-confidence-gap-in-police-performance/#wide-racial-gaps-in-views-of-police-performance">negative views of police</a>. </p>
<p>For white Americans, however, their feelings and interactions with the police are more positive. For instance, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/04/09/the-role-of-race-and-ethnicity-in-americans-personal-lives/">only a quarter</a> of white people surveyed report being in situations where they believe police were suspicious of them. Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/06/03/10-things-we-know-about-race-and-policing-in-the-u-s/ft_2020-06-03_raceandpolice_04/">78% feel police protect people</a> from crime; 75% say police use the correct amount of force and that they treat people of color and white people equally; and 70% of white Americans feel police are held accountable for their misconduct.</p>
<p>These experiences explain why white Americans are more likely to <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2020/06/03/10-things-we-know-about-race-and-policing-in-the-u-s/">give police high marks</a> – 75% – for job performance.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535105/original/file-20230630-12495-mlbkoz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A group of people pose standing behind a large " src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535105/original/file-20230630-12495-mlbkoz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535105/original/file-20230630-12495-mlbkoz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535105/original/file-20230630-12495-mlbkoz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535105/original/file-20230630-12495-mlbkoz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535105/original/file-20230630-12495-mlbkoz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535105/original/file-20230630-12495-mlbkoz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535105/original/file-20230630-12495-mlbkoz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Demonstrators pose in front of the Georgia Capitol building on March 13, 2021, during a march commemorating the one-year anniversary of the police killing of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Ky.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/demonstrators-pose-for-a-picture-in-front-of-the-georgia-news-photo/1231697654?adppopup=true">Megan Varner/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>These differences influence how race shapes people’s interactions with police. African Americans have negative views of police because of past and personal experience. Many white people have more positive views shaped by living on their side of the <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/color%20line#:%7E:text=%3A%20a%20set%20of%20societal%20or,usually%20used%20with%20the">color line</a>. </p>
<h2>Experiences shape people’s views</h2>
<p>The fact that Black and white Americans have different views on the police are not accidents. </p>
<p>This reality is built on a long history of police targeting people of color. Indeed, policing in the United States was established on the practice of controlling specific populations. In the 19th century, for example, <a href="https://www.npr.org/transcripts/869046127">policing in the South</a> was designed to monitor the movement of enslaved Black people. Some of the first police forces in the nation were developed to keep the enslaved from escaping and to recapture them if they did. They were called slave patrols, and by law, some states required white men to serve as slave patrollers. </p>
<p>Similar histories exist with <a href="https://www.history.com/news/how-stereotypes-of-the-irish-evolved-from-criminals-to-cops">the Irish</a> in the Northeast before they were <a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780415913843">considered white</a>, as well as with Mexicans and Mexican Americans in the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/06/08/871929844/cult-of-glory-reveals-the-dark-history-of-the-texas-rangers">Southwest</a>. </p>
<p>Policing and controlling the movements of specific nonwhite groups have often gone hand in hand. This powerful cocktail of racism and policing has enabled <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/05/us-police-brutality-un-experts-george-floyd">brutal forms of violence</a> against people of color.</p>
<p>In each case, police discriminated against Black people in the South, Mexicans and Mexican Americans in the Southwest and the Irish in the North, while treating white Southerners, white Southwesterners and the middle and upper classes in the North differently. The parallels to this moment are not an accident. And neither is police misconduct.</p>
<h2>Policing the way it was intended</h2>
<p>The Justice Department’s report will place the practices of the Minneapolis Police Department under public scrutiny. And it will be part of the mountain of studies, complaints and federal reports that show widespread racial discrimination.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535106/original/file-20230630-14093-9vsgeo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man draped in the US flag, with his back to the camera, sits on a motorized bicycle. A crowd of people stand yards away from him with their backs to the camera as well." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535106/original/file-20230630-14093-9vsgeo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535106/original/file-20230630-14093-9vsgeo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535106/original/file-20230630-14093-9vsgeo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535106/original/file-20230630-14093-9vsgeo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535106/original/file-20230630-14093-9vsgeo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535106/original/file-20230630-14093-9vsgeo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535106/original/file-20230630-14093-9vsgeo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A man draped in the U.S. flag sits on a motorized bicycle near the White House during June 3, 2020, protests over the death of George Floyd.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/man-draped-in-the-us-flag-sits-on-his-motorized-bicycle-news-photo/1217490160?adppopup=true%20ALT%20TEXT:%20A%20man%20draped%20in%20the%20US%20flag,">Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>That said, with the long history of how policing began and how targeting groups was part of its foundation, along with the studies that document it, what’s apparent is that police misconduct is not an aberration. Despite claims of serving and protecting the public, that is simply not what the police have always done.</p>
<p>It’s no wonder, then, that so many people believe racial discrimination is endemic to policing and is simply part of the way it works. And while this most recent Justice Department report shows that, it also makes the case that Minneapolis police are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/15/angela-davis-on-george-floyd-as-long-as-the-violence-of-racism-remains-no-one-is-safe">working the way they were intended</a>. </p>
<p>If this is the case, then Black people’s denial of basic constitutional guarantees by law enforcement, enshrined in our nation’s founding documents, is, to quote the abolitionist Fredrick Douglass, a “<a href="https://www.gilderlehrman.org/sites/default/files/inline-pdfs/douglass_july_4_speech.pdf">shameless hypocrisy</a>.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208418/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rashad Shabazz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>At a time when Americans celebrated their nation’s independence, it’s clear not every American enjoys the same constitutional rights.Rashad Shabazz, Associate Professor at the School of Social Transformation, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2088762023-06-30T14:32:23Z2023-06-30T14:32:23ZFrance riots: when police shot a teenager dead, a rumbling pressure cooker exploded<p>Riots broke out in Nanterre, a suburb of Paris, following the lethal police shooting of a 17-year-old boy <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66052104">named as Nahel M</a>. An investigation into his death is ongoing but the situation has already triggered protest and anger. Whatever the investigation concludes, the incident forms part of a complex, deep-rooted problem in France. </p>
<p>It raises the memory of the violence that spread across the city’s suburbs in 2005, lasting more than three weeks and forcing the country into a state of emergency. Many of the issues behind the unrest back then remain unresolved to this day and have potentially been aggravated by ever worsening relations between the police and the public. </p>
<p>During my extensive fieldwork in the suburban estates of <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-16103-3">Paris, Lyon and Marseille</a> I have seen and heard first-hand the grievances that are now being cried out on the streets of Nanterre. </p>
<h2>The suburbs and poverty</h2>
<p>Certain suburbs of large French cities have, for decades, suffered from what has been labelled the worst <a href="https://www.google.com.co/books/edition/_/APjN-RQuW-sC?hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjg-Kr50-n_AhUFTTABHUkpCmkQre8FegQIDhAG">“hypermarginalisation”</a> in Europe. Poor-quality housing and schooling combine with geographical isolation and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Multi-Ethnic-France-Immigration-Politics-Culture-ebook/dp/B000SEGHXM/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2GOZNEHZ7C1J7&keywords=multiethnic+france&qid=1688082329&s=books&sprefix=multiethnic+fran%2Cstripbooks-intl-ship%2C148&sr=1-1">racism</a> to make it virtually impossible for people to stand a chance at improving their circumstances. </p>
<p>Evidence has long shown that people living in poor suburbs can expect to face discrimination based on the very fact of living in those suburbs when they <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270757362_Discrimination_based_on_place_of_residence_and_access_to_employment">apply for a job</a>. Even just having a certain name on your CV can rule you out of employment thanks to <a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_protect/---protrav/---migrant/documents/publication/wcms_201429.pdf">widespread racial discrimination</a>.</p>
<p>Discontent among young people in these places has been brewing for decades as a result. The first riots of the kind currently happening in Paris took place in <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/book/10.1002/9780470712788">Lyon</a> as far back as the 1990s. </p>
<p>And yet, outside moments of crisis, there appears to be practically no discussion by French leadership about how to tackle the problems that drive so much anger in the suburbs. </p>
<p>President Emmanuel Macron presents himself as committed to <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2023/06/13/macron-s-shift-from-start-up-nation-to-reindustrialization_6031051_7.html">re-industrialising</a> France and revitalising the economy. But his vision does not include any plan for using economic growth to bring opportunity to the suburbs or, viewed the other way round, to harness the potential of the suburbs to drive economic growth. </p>
<p>In two presidential terms, he has failed to produce a coherent policy for solving some of the <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/can-emmanuel-macrons-banlieues-plan-reach-the-poor/a-43841633">key problems of the suburbs</a>.</p>
<h2>Police brutality</h2>
<p>Police brutality is a topic of great concern in France at the moment, beyond the Nanterre incident. Earlier this year, international human rights organisation the Council of Europe took the extraordinary step of directly lambasting the French police for <a href="https://www.coe.int/en/web/commissioner/-/manifestations-en-france-les-libert%C3%A9s-d-expression-et-de-r%C3%A9union-doivent-%C3%AAtre-prot%C3%A9g%C3%A9es-contre-toute-forme-de-violence">“excessive use of force”</a> during protests against Macron’s pension reforms. </p>
<p>Policing appears stuck in an all-or-nothing approach. In a recent interview I helped conduct for a documentary in the suburbs of Marseille, residents pointed to successive cuts to community based police officers, based in the estates, as key reasons for increases in tension between the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpLq5YbNmvE">population and the police</a>. Protests, meanwhile, are met with <a href="https://www.euronews.com/video/2023/06/29/watch-tear-gas-fired-at-people-protesting-over-the-police-shooting-of-a-teenager-in-france">tear gas</a> and <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/04/25/france-pension-protests-police-violence-macron-europe/">batons</a>. </p>
<p>Successive governments have used policing to control the population to <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=Police+Reforms+in+France%3A+40+Years+of+Searching+for+a+Model&oq=Police+Reforms+in+France%3A+40+Years+of+Searching+for+a+Model&aqs=chrome..69i57.264j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8">prevent political turmoil</a>, eroding the legitimacy of law enforcement along the way.</p>
<p>And yet, the police are extremely <a href="https://time.com/5852764/french-police-protest/">hostile to reform</a>, a stance that is aided and abetted by their <a href="https://jacobin.com/2022/06/french-police-unions-lefebvre-darmanin-crime-nupes-election">powerful unions</a> and Macron himself, who needs the police to <a href="https://theconversation.com/macrons-mercenaries-police-violence-and-neoliberal-reform-in-france-77979">crush opposition to his reforms</a>. </p>
<h2>Macron vs Sarkozy</h2>
<p>Former president Nicolas Sarkozy is infamous for inflaming tensions during the 2005 riots by referring to the people involved as <a href="https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5010930">“scum”</a> who needed to be pressure washed from the suburbs. Macron, too, has been repeatedly criticised for striking an arrogant, tone <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220410-macron-centrist-reformer-dogged-by-accusations-of-arrogance">during his political career</a>, making numerous gaffs including suggesting an unemployed worker only needed to <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/emmanuel-macron-9-greatest-gaffes-blunders-french-president/">“cross the street” to find work</a>. </p>
<p>However, his consiliatory response to the death of Nahel could not be further removed from Sarkozy’s stance. He has called the killing <a href="https://www.euronews.com/2023/06/29/french-police-protesters-clash-after-macron-calls-police-fatal-shooting-of-teen-inexcusabl">“inexcusable”</a> and held a crisis meeting to seek a <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12246303/Emmanuel-Macron-holds-crisis-meeting-riots-sparked-cop-execution-17-year-old.html">solution to the crisis</a>. </p>
<p>A trip to <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/macron-seen-dancing-at-elton-john-gig-as-riots-raged-across-france-12912193">see Elton John perform</a> while the riots occurred was perhaps not advisable and comments about young people being “intoxicated” by video games were somewhat misguided, but Macron has at least tried to calm tensions and not inflame them. </p>
<p>A key problem for him, however, is the diffuse, de-centralised nature of the protestors. There is no leadership to meet and negotiate with, and there are no specific demands that need to be met to defuse the tension. As in 2005, the riots are occurring spontaneously, sometimes estate by estate. </p>
<p>That makes escalation very difficult for the government to stop. And it underscores the need for a far more wide-reaching, thoughtful response to tackle the entrenched, decades-old problems of poor social prospects and police brutality in the suburbs of French cities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208876/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joseph Downing does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>I’ve interviewed disaffected people across French suburbs. Their anger has been mounting for years.Joseph Downing, Senior Lecturer in International Relations and Politics, Aston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2086542023-06-30T02:13:52Z2023-06-30T02:13:52ZInvestigation into ‘reprehensible’ failure of police ends quietly with no charges – why we must learn from the Lawyer X scandal<p>For over 15 years, the Victoria police used criminal barrister Nicola Gobbo as an informant against her own clients in what has become known as the <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/the-nicola-gobbo-lawyer-x-scandal-explained-20201124-p56hh9.html">Lawyer X scandal</a>. </p>
<p>The scandal has been accurately described as a massive <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-lawyer-x-scandal-is-a-massive-blow-to-the-criminal-justice-system-heres-why-111342">blow to the criminal justice system</a>.</p>
<p>But this week it became clear the director of public prosecutions would not bring charges against any current or former police officers in the case. </p>
<p>The special investigator building the cases against the officers, former High Court judge Geoffrey Nettle, said it appeared to be a “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jun/21/lawyer-x-special-investigator-wants-own-office-abolished-over-dpps-refusal-to-lay-charges">waste of time and resources</a>” to pursue the matter any further. His office has now been <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/lawyer-x-investigator-s-office-to-be-disbanded-20230627-p5djuz.html">disbanded</a>, with little to show for the A$120 million that was spent on years of investigations.</p>
<p>While the news may have only been briefly in the headlines, this case matters greatly. The shelving of the investigation should be a concern to us all.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1671994285716291584"}"></div></p>
<h2>‘Reprehensible’ behaviour</h2>
<p>In the early 2000s, Gobbo represented a number of notorious figures in Melbourne’s criminal underground, including Carl Williams and Tony Mokbel. At the same time, she was giving police information about her clients.</p>
<p>In 2018, the <a href="http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/2018/58.html">High Court</a> said the use of Gobbo as a police informer “debased fundamental premises of the criminal justice system” and that police conduct in using Gobbo as an informer was “reprehensible”. </p>
<p>The right to a <a href="https://www.news.com.au/national/courts-law/vic-police-admit-wrong-over-lawyer-x-saga/news-story/1668113093b91d26fdec58566586c57c">fair trial</a> is a cornerstone of the rule of law. No trial can be fair when a person’s defence lawyer is acting as an agent of the police.</p>
<p>In the wake of the High Court case, a <a href="https://www.rcmpi.vic.gov.au/final-report">royal commission</a> was established. It found the police use of Gobbo as an informer may have affected the convictions or findings of guilt of more than 1,000 people. </p>
<p>Several convictions for <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/dec/15/tony-mokbel-conviction-quashed-as-fallout-from-lawyer-x-scandal-rumbles-on">serious offences have since been quashed</a>, due at least in part to the police behaviour in using Gobbo. </p>
<p>The royal commission found police “corrupted the criminal justice system” and “tolerated bending the rules to help solve serious crime”. Senior police were implicated. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/lawyer-x-inquiry-calls-for-sweeping-change-to-victoria-police-but-is-it-enough-to-bring-real-accountability-147836">Lawyer X inquiry calls for sweeping change to Victoria Police, but is it enough to bring real accountability?</a>
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<h2>Why bringing charges against police is difficult</h2>
<p>The scandal and its aftermath point to a systemic failure of police accountability. Such failure is fertile soil for police corruption and makes a repeat of the Lawyer X scandal entirely possible. </p>
<p>The scandal was kept under wraps for nearly a decade as police fought through the courts to suppress information about their use of Gobbo. </p>
<p>According to the royal commission, hundreds of people within Victoria Police knew about Gobbo. The Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) also knew about Gobbo, but decided in <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/the-nicola-gobbo-lawyer-x-scandal-explained-20201124-p56hh9.html">2015</a> it did not have the jurisdiction to deal with it. </p>
<p>IBAC sent the matter back to police to investigate. The police showed little inclination to investigate. </p>
<p>In short, there was no investigative body capable or willing to investigate the police tactic of using a criminal lawyer as a source against her own clients. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/expanding-victorias-police-powers-without-robust-independent-oversight-is-a-dangerous-idea-146758">Expanding Victoria's police powers without robust, independent oversight is a dangerous idea</a>
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<p>The key recommendation of the royal commission was the appointment of a special investigator, Geoffrey Nettle, to do the job. However, the director of public prosecutions maintained final say over whether any charges would be pursued. </p>
<p>While the director of public prosecutions is formally an independent body, bringing charges against police can still be professionally challenging, particularly when senior police may be involved. The director of public prosecutions relies on close <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/24/should-victorias-dpp-have-laid-charges-over-lawyer-x-scandal">police cooperation</a> for its everyday operations.</p>
<p>The police are also politically powerful. In 1993, after a former Victorian director of public prosecutions charged police officers over <a href="https://www.booktopia.com.au/blue-army-jude-mcculloch/book/9780522849608.html">fatal shootings</a>, the government sought to undermine his independence, prompting his resignation. </p>
<p>Nettle believed his office had “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jun/21/lawyer-x-special-investigator-wants-own-office-abolished-over-dpps-refusal-to-lay-charges">established a powerful case of offending</a>” in the Lawyer X scandal. </p>
<p>The director of public prosecutions, Kerri Judd, declined to pursue charges, however, because of the time that had elapsed since the alleged offences and because the police involved would be able to run a defence “that any wrong or improper decisions […] were made in good faith in an effort to solve and prevent serious criminality”.</p>
<p>In addition, she said she had no confidence in Gobbo as a witness. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1307860267766743040"}"></div></p>
<h2>Calls for reform</h2>
<p>The Lawyer X case provides a stark demonstration of why we need to address systemic failures in investigating police misconduct.</p>
<p>While the IBAC provides the promise of independent oversight, it is limited by a lack of resources, jurisdiction and investigative powers. In Victoria, <a href="https://theconversation.com/police-shouldnt-be-able-to-investigate-themselves-victoria-needs-an-independent-police-accountability-body-207608">police investigate</a> at least 98% of complaints against police, and very few complaints are substantiated.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/police-shouldnt-be-able-to-investigate-themselves-victoria-needs-an-independent-police-accountability-body-207608">Police shouldn't be able to investigate themselves. Victoria needs an independent police accountability body</a>
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<p>A <a href="https://apo.org.au/node/190261">parliamentary inquiry into IBAC</a> made a raft of recommendations for change in the system of police oversight in 2018, but these have not been implemented. </p>
<p>In a positive sign, key recommendations of the royal commission into the Lawyer X scandal have been implemented. Legislation covering 25 of the recommendations related to the management of police informers has been passed. </p>
<p>However, these recent changes to the law also allow police to <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/new-informant-legislation-risks-rerun-of-lawyer-x-scandal-experts-and-opposition-say-20230208-p5cj14.html">register lawyers</a> as informants in some circumstances. This has the <a href="https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/8179352/post-lawyer-x-reforms-to-still-allow-client-snitching/">danger</a> of institutionalising what could be a corrupt practice.</p>
<p>In addition, the external oversight of this informant registration scheme is in many respects similar to the flawed police oversight that contributed to the Lawyer X scandal in the first place. </p>
<p>The High Court said in relation to the scandal, “it is greatly to be hoped that it will never be repeated”. Without real reform to the way the police are policed and held to account, there is a very real possibility that it will be.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208654/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>I have previously engaged in paid consultancy work for Victoria Police.
I have previously received Australian Research Council grants to engage in a research partnership with Victoria Police.
I have previously worked extensively in community legal centres on issues related to police accountability. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Maguire is a member of the Yoorrook Royal Commission Advisory Committee, Melbourne</span></em></p>The scandal and its aftermath point to a systemic failure of police accountability. Such failure is fertile soil for police corruption and makes a repeat of the scandal entirely possible.Jude McCulloch, Emeritus Professor Monash University, Monash UniversityMichael Maguire, Honorary Professor Practice, George Mitchell Institute for Global Peace and Security, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2064942023-05-31T23:00:02Z2023-05-31T23:00:02ZDid ‘wokeness’ cancel Police Ten 7? New research suggests racial stereotyping was the real culprit<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/529191/original/file-20230530-21-j9826h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C3%2C2266%2C1234&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When TVNZ cancelled reality TV show Police Ten 7 earlier this year, it certainly rattled some law-and-order cages. </p>
<p>The show’s former host Graham Bell, who described suspects variously as “<a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/stuff-to-watch/300868852/everybody-remembers-what-they-loved-and-hated-about-police-ten-7-except-tvnz">creeps, halfwits, low-lifes, mongrels and lunatics</a>”, <a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/wokeness-political-correctness-killed-police-10-7-graham-bell-speaks-out-5-million-quest-for-new-news-outlet-pr-director-stepping-down/Y6BTLOJ4YFFS3MCQ6RM74VUITE/">claimed</a> “wokeness killed Police Ten 7”. New Zealand First leader <a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/police-ten-7-cancelled-winston-peter-blasts-sociological-loonies-blames-decision-on-woke-cancel-culture/JNHEKJLW3FHFHEPHY3QIJH5OHU/">Winston Peters blamed</a> “cancel culture”. One <a href="https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/heather-du-plessis-allan-drive/opinion/heather-du-plessis-allan-the-whingers-have-won-police-ten-7-is-over/">radio host said</a> “the whingers have won”. </p>
<p>But Police Ten 7 – TVNZ’s longest-running reality series – was already controversial for its depiction of criminal behaviour as popular entertainment, and for an alleged over-representation of Māori and Pacific offenders or suspects. </p>
<p>In 2021, Auckland Councillor Efeso Collins was <a href="https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/25-07-2021/god-not-my-girls-auckland-councillor-receives-bomb-threat-following-tv-show-criticism">threatened</a> after <a href="https://twitter.com/efesocollins/status/1373364800797822978?lang=en">tweeting</a> that the show should be scrapped because it “<a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/438838/police-ten-7-show-feeds-racial-stereotypes-auckland-councillor">feeds on racial stereotypes</a>”. TVNZ subsequently commissioned an <a href="https://corporate.tvnz.co.nz/assets/Uploads/Police+Ten+7+Review+FINAL.pdf">independent review</a> of the show and renamed it Ten 7 Aotearoa, but eventually decided to end its run.</p>
<p>The controversy inspired us to analyse Police Ten 7 more closely and measure its treatment of Māori, Pasifika and European suspects – as well as police officers. Our <a href="https://www.journalofglobalindigeneity.com/article/77757-young-brown-men-being-brutish-how-police-ten-7-portrays-maori-and-pacifica-people-as-violent-and-criminal-in-aotearoa-new-zealand">recently published findings</a> support claims the show was not evenhanded in its depiction of these groups. </p>
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<h2>Framing the ‘bad guys’</h2>
<p>We focused on the calendar year previous to Collins’ criticism of Police Ten 7, and critically analysed 12 episodes that aired between September and December 2020. Among other data, we recorded the range of alleged offences and the airtime spent on each suspect. </p>
<p>Because people tend to recognise faces more readily when they belong to the same racial group (so-called “cross-race bias”), one of the two Māori members on the research team recorded the racial identity of suspects and officers. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/racist-cop-shows-and-biased-news-fuel-public-fears-of-crime-and-love-for-the-police-141108">Racist cop shows and biased news fuel public fears of crime and love for the police</a>
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<p>He identified “brown people” based on information provided directly in the show (“our offender tonight is of Polynesian descent”) or by making a holistic assessment of people’s looks, names, culturally significant tattoos, accents and so on. </p>
<p>We then compared our data with 2020 <a href="https://www.police.govt.nz/about-us/publications-statistics/data-and-statistics/policedatanz/proceedings-offender-demographics">police data</a> on types of crime and ethnicity (including ethnicity of officers). Our findings confirm <a href="https://www.internetjournalofcriminology.com/_files/ugd/b93dd4_46164302ccd345f0bf1ef82783a0ae28.pdf">US research</a> on reality TV police shows, which has found a tendency to portray non-white people as the “bad guys”. </p>
<p>While TVNZ’s independent review found Police Ten 7 was “reflective of the reality of patterns of crime and offending in Aotearoa”, our analysis found otherwise.</p>
<iframe src="https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/13945559/embed" title="Interactive or visual content" class="flourish-embed-iframe" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="width:100%;height:600px;" sandbox="allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-scripts allow-downloads allow-popups allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<div style="width:100%!;margin-top:4px!important;text-align:right!important;"><a class="flourish-credit" href="https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/13945559/?utm_source=embed&utm_campaign=visualisation/13945559" target="_top"><img alt="Made with Flourish" src="https://public.flourish.studio/resources/made_with_flourish.svg"> </a></div>
<h2>Suspect airtime</h2>
<p>Of all actual New Zealand police suspects in 2020, 53% were Polynesian. However, Māori and Pasifika made up 71% of suspects featured in the episodes of Police Ten 7 we sampled. </p>
<p>In comparison, Europeans made up 36% of actual police proceedings, and 29% of suspects on the show. (The remaining 11% in police statistics covers other ethnicities.)</p>
<p>We also looked at the airtime Police Ten 7 gave different suspects, compared to how often police dealt with them according to the data. Of the total airtime spent on suspects, 62% was spent on Māori or Pasifika, compared to 53% of total police proceedings in 2020. </p>
<p>In comparison, the portion of airtime spent on European suspects (38%) more closely reflected how often police proceeded against Europeans in 2020 (36%).</p>
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<h2>Types of crime</h2>
<p>Police Ten 7 also portrayed Māori and Pasifika as more violent than police statistics show. Over the 12 episodes sampled, 100% of those suspected of violent crime (homicide, sexual assault, endangering persons, property damage) were Polynesian. This compares to 40% in police statistics. </p>
<p>By contrast, police statistics show Māori and Pasifika made up 43% of traffic offence suspects, compared to only 6% on Police Ten 7.</p>
<p>Police data show Europeans made up 34% of suspects for violent crime. Yet Police Ten 7 tended to disproportionately portray Europeans as lower-level offenders or suspects. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-us-alliance-research-project-announced-195">Australia - US alliance research project announced</a>
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<p>According to police statistics, Europeans made up 26% of traffic offence suspects compared to 41% on the show. Europeans constituted 35% of public order offenders, compared to 67% on Police Ten 7. </p>
<p>We argue that over-representing Europeans in less serious offence categories suggests to TV audiences that any harm Europeans cause is somewhat unintended or easily explained.</p>
<p>Finally, we found the same disparities applied to the police officers featured in the sampled episodes. While Māori and Pasifika officers constitute nearly <a href="https://www.police.govt.nz/sites/default/files/publications/annual-report-2019-2020.pdf">20% of the NZ police force</a>, they made up only 6% of the officers on Police Ten 7. </p>
<iframe src="https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/13945558/embed" title="Interactive or visual content" class="flourish-embed-iframe" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="width:100%;height:600px;" sandbox="allow-same-origin allow-forms allow-scripts allow-downloads allow-popups allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<div style="width:100%!;margin-top:4px!important;text-align:right!important;"><a class="flourish-credit" href="https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/13945558/?utm_source=embed&utm_campaign=visualisation/13945558" target="_top"><img alt="Made with Flourish" src="https://public.flourish.studio/resources/made_with_flourish.svg"> </a></div>
<h2>Others and ourselves</h2>
<p>Most people have <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/crime-and-the-media/print">little first-hand experience</a> of crime and rely on media for information. Consequently, news and entertainment programmes help shape views of the criminal justice system and those involved in it. </p>
<p>Based on our sampled episodes, a case can be made that Police Ten 7 did reinforce racial stereotypes of Māori and Pasifika as more criminal and violent. We argue this stereotyping was exacerbated by the under-representation of violent European suspects.</p>
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<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-cop-shows-serve-to-reinforce-the-racism-at-the-heart-of-our-culture-142506">How cop shows serve to reinforce the racism at the heart of our culture</a>
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<p>We also suggest the under-represention of Māori and Pasifika police officers would not have helped <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/128981158/police-launch-first-recruitment-campaign-targeting-whine-mori">police recruitment efforts</a>, given the police themselves later acknowledged the need to remove barriers to wahine Māori in particular.</p>
<p>After all, the media shape not only how we see others, but also how we see ourselves. Any future New Zealand reality TV crime or police show would need to be mindful of these pitfalls and effects.</p>
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<p><em>The authors acknowledge the assistance of postgraduate student Wairua Busby-Pukeiti in gathering the data for this article.</em></p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206494/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A new study finds sample episodes of the recently cancelled Police Ten 7 TV show disproportionately featured Māori and Pasifika suspects or offenders. It also under-represented Polynesian officers.Antje Deckert, Associate Professor (Criminology), Auckland University of TechnologyJuan Marcellus Tauri, Adjunct Associate Professor, Indigenous Studies, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2050662023-05-10T14:49:14Z2023-05-10T14:49:14ZJurors who believe rape myths contribute to dismal conviction rates – but judge-only trials won’t solve the problem<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/524403/original/file-20230504-21-17t77o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=112%2C51%2C5639%2C3776&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>After years of <a href="https://www.gov.scot/publications/not-proven-verdict-related-reforms-consultation/">consultations</a> and <a href="https://www.gov.scot/groups/lady-dorrian-review-governance-group/">reports</a>, the Scottish government is proposing to conduct a pilot to test out running rape trials with just a judge – and no jury. </p>
<p>The conviction rate in Scotland for rape and attempted rate is woefully low. Only <a href="https://www.rapecrisisscotland.org.uk/resources-stats-key-info/#:%7E:text=Only%2051%25%20of%20rape%20and,prosecutions%20and%20just%2078%20convictions">51% of trials</a> lead to a conviction, which is simply not acceptable in a modern justice system. Reform is clearly needed to increase convictions. </p>
<p>The idea to run juryless trials is tied to concerns that this low conviction rate is in part due to <a href="https://www.scottishlegal.com/articles/politicians-plans-to-keep-tabs-on-juryless-trials-mark-serious-attack-on-independence-of-judiciary-says-former-judge">rape myths held by jurors</a>. Rape myths are <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0886260511403762?journalCode=jiva">false beliefs</a> about rapists, people who have been raped and the act of rape or sexual assault itself. It’s the belief that people who have been raped are at fault if they wore “revealing” clothing, for example. It’s an assumption that people commonly lie about being raped <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264124085_A_systematic_review_of_juries'_assessment_of_rape_victims_Do_rape_myths_impact_on_juror_decision-making">for revenge purposes</a>.</p>
<p>Research has consistently shown that rape myths <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1365712720923157">influence juror decision-making</a>. The more accepting of rape myths a juror is, the more likely they are to judge the accused with a <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264124085_A_systematic_review_of_juries'_assessment_of_rape_victims_Do_rape_myths_impact_on_juror_decision-making">not guilty verdict</a>.</p>
<p>Jurors who believe, for example, that intoxicated people are partially to blame if they are assaulted, that male sexuality is “uncontrollable” or that rape only ever happens as a violent crime committed by a stranger are <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1365712720923157">more likely to give a not guilty verdict in rape trials</a>. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-do-so-many-men-get-away-with-rape-police-officers-survivors-lawyers-and-prosecutors-on-the-scandal-that-shames-the-justice-system-192782">Why do so many men get away with rape? Police officers, survivors, lawyers and prosecutors on the scandal that shames the justice system</a>
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<p>It is not only jurors who are affected by rape myths, however. Judges are, after all, also human. They are fallible and could be potentially influenced by rape myths. Therefore, it is unlikely that judge only trials will stop the role that rape myths may play in decisions about verdicts.</p>
<p>Psychological research has shown that experts develop routine and automatic cognitive short cuts so as to make their <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=6pXEFJXxOksC&oi=fnd&pg=PA177&dq=DROR+EXPERTISE&ots=4HreLoUhSJ&sig=RCSiIm-FNXxl9qKbRjjwXrEAT9w&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=DROR%20EXPERTISE&f=false">decision-making fast, efficient (and often accurate)</a>. Through experience, experts learn what information to use and what information to ignore, which allows their decision making to become more efficient. However, this efficient cognitive system can sometimes filter out important pieces of information incorrectly (such as when a particular case has an abnormal feature or the expert does not have experience of a particular case issue). It can lead to overconfidence, which can make the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=6pXEFJXxOksC&oi=fnd&pg=PA177&dq=DROR+EXPERTISE&ots=4HreLoUhSJ&sig=RCSiIm-FNXxl9qKbRjjwXrEAT9w&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=DROR%20EXPERTISE&f=false">decision maker less likely to take advice from others</a>. Expertise can be paradoxical in this way. It can lead to an over-reliance in bias. </p>
<p>Judges and other legal experts <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=6pXEFJXxOksC&oi=fnd&pg=PA177&dq=DROR+EXPERTISE&ots=4HreLoUhSJ&sig=RCSiIm-FNXxl9qKbRjjwXrEAT9w&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=DROR%20EXPERTISE&f=false">are therefore not immune to bias</a>. <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/bdm.371">Research</a> has found that the decisions made by magistrates, for example, are more aligned with <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/bdm.371">biased decision-making models</a> than rational decision-making models. Their decisions are inconsistent across their own caseload and inconsistent when compared to the decision-making of other magistrates. If their decisions had been rational, we could expect significantly more consistency.</p>
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<img alt="A judge's gavel and sounding block." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525147/original/file-20230509-19-6guzxq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/525147/original/file-20230509-19-6guzxq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525147/original/file-20230509-19-6guzxq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525147/original/file-20230509-19-6guzxq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525147/original/file-20230509-19-6guzxq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525147/original/file-20230509-19-6guzxq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/525147/original/file-20230509-19-6guzxq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Judge-only trials are a novel concept in the UK.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>Extra-legal factors, even trivial ones such as whether judges have had lunch, have been shown to <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21482790/">bias judges’ decisions</a>. And despite their prevalence, judges have rarely been shown to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/nclr.2010.13.4.710">counter rape myths</a> in their courtrooms. Together, the evidence makes clear that there is reasonable doubt as to whether juryless trials will positively influence rape trials.</p>
<h2>Flawed pilot</h2>
<p>The pilot is also unlikely to give an accurate reflection of what would happen were juries to be removed from rape trials.</p>
<p>Government ministers will review the results of the pilot to see if the conviction rate climbs, which is, in itself a serious problem. Any potential review of judicial decisions by ministers may undermine the independence of the judiciary. Likewise, it may potentially bias (explicitly or implicitly) judges into reaching guilty verdicts during the pilot. This pressure may also lead to an inflation of convictions during the pilot, which may not continue post-pilot once supervision from the executive is removed – hardly ideal conditions for establishing fair legal procedures from the perspective of either the accused or the accuser. </p>
<p>Judges are also likely to be more aware of the low conviction rates in rape trials than jurors, again, leading to a pressure on the decision maker to convict. This pressure or bias would outlive the pilot. Retired judge, Lord Uist, <a href="https://www.scottishlegal.com/articles/politicians-plans-to-keep-tabs-on-juryless-trials-mark-serious-attack-on-independence-of-judiciary-says-former-judge">recently made similar warnings</a>.</p>
<p>The change being proposed is a drastic one, yet it is unlikely to benefit anyone. From a complainer’s perspective, it is unlikely that the conviction rates will increase dramatically (due to rape myths influencing the judiciary). If they do, this change will be caused by pressure in the system for an increase in convictions and not due to a more rational or fair evaluation of the evidence from the decision maker.</p>
<p>The accused, meanwhile, will no longer be judged by a jury of their peers, rather their fate will be made by a legal professional, employed by the state. That means only a certain view of the world will inform the decision that will drastically alter their life, rather than multiple perspective from all avenues of society.</p>
<p>The change may even decrease confidence in the jury system more generally. Why are jurors competent enough to reach verdicts in murder trials but not rape trials, members of the public may ask. Juryless trials in rape cases may be the first step to the removal of jury trials all together. </p>
<p>A jury selection process would be an alternative strategy for increasing convictions in rape trials and for attenuating the role that rape myths play. Jurors who display a tendency towards rape myths would be screened for and removed from the jury pool using scientific measures such as the <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/15248380211050575">Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance scale</a>. This would be a sounder approach than removing juries. In combination with this, rape myths can also be targeted by educating both prospective jurors and young people in schools – and even judges – about the dangers of rape myth. Hopefully education would also remove rape myths from society before individuals are selected to be jurors.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205066/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A Scottish pilot will see rape trials conducted without juries in what could set a dangerous precedent.Lee John Curley, Lecturer in Psychology, The Open UniversityJames Munro, Psychology Lecturer, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1971502023-05-02T15:00:01Z2023-05-02T15:00:01ZCrimestoppers: the charity providing an anonymous link between the public and the police for 35 years<p>Crimestoppers, the crime-fighting charity, has been an anonymous link between the UK public and the police for 35 years. From everyday concerns about drug dealing and dangerous driving to taking critical information on murders, Crimestoppers receives more than half a million reports each year. </p>
<p>But despite its ongoing success, there has been very little research into the inner workings of the charity. <a href="https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa63087">My own study</a> found the anonymity offered by Crimestoppers enables people to come forward with information about violent or organised crime. In fact, this can be more of a motivating factor than a reward.</p>
<p>Originating in the US in the mid-1970s and replicated across the globe, Crimestoppers programmes often offer cash rewards for tip offs. The UK charity <a href="https://crimestoppers-uk.org/about-the-charity/our-story">was originally established</a> as the Community Action Trust in 1988. </p>
<p>It was largely in response to the death of <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-34433752">PC Keith Blakelock</a> during the Broadwater Farm estate riots in London in 1985. At the time, police said that someone knew who was responsible for his murder, but were too afraid to come forward.</p>
<p>While in England Crimestoppers was set up to address community mistrust and loss of confidence in policing, it was advertised differently across the rest of the UK. In Northern Ireland, residents were told to phone “<a href="https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/issues/police/docs/CC_2006_Annual_Report_05-06.pdf">without fear and without involvement</a>”. And in Wales and Scotland, Crimestoppers has been framed as a friendly community service.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ta49SKAKeFE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A Crimestoppers advert from 1989.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Embracing television reconstructions has been critical to the growth of Crimestoppers <a href="https://csiworld.org/about-us">across the world</a>. <a href="https://academic.oup.com/bjc/article/39/2/269/363351">Research suggests</a> that media appeals in general can assist with solving crime in a small number of the most serious cases. </p>
<p>Contributions from appeals for information are thought to have helped bring some notorious criminals to justice. Serial killer, Peter Moore, came to the police’s attention in 1995, following an <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-53934380">anonymous tip off</a>. </p>
<p>And a Crimestoppers reward was offered for a violent robbery carried out by <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-65374137">John Cooper</a> in 1996. In 2011, he was eventually convicted of murdering four people in Pembrokeshire, Wales, as well as many other serious offences. Evidence from a string of burglaries and robberies had led police to suspect he was responsible for more serious crimes.</p>
<p>However, the extent of Crimestoppers’ support in solving such crimes is largely unknown due to the organisation’s guaranteed promise of anonymity. <a href="https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/evaluating-impact-crimestoppers">A study by the Home Office</a> 20 years ago outlined the benefits of the UK scheme, showing 17% of actionable information resulted in an arrest. </p>
<p>Nowadays, some insight is detailed in Crimestoppers’ <a href="https://crimestoppers-uk.org/news-campaigns/our-publications/impact-report">annual reports</a> which include outcomes of awareness campaigns and “most wanted” appeals.</p>
<p>During the course of <a href="https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa63087">my research</a>, I discovered the charity has a strong relationship with the police, unlike the people who contact Crimestoppers. </p>
<p>Due to being unable to speak to anonymous callers themselves, I interviewed contact centre staff to gather their views and experiences. I also spoke with police officers who deal with Crimestoppers reports, as well as community-based officers who are often faced with people unwilling to report crime. </p>
<p>Participants suggested perceptions of fear and injustice impact on whether crimes are reported, especially in some close-knit communities. For example, a neighbourhood officer told me that sometimes generations of people are unlikely to go to the police, including members of his own family: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>My grandmother, she’s the font of knowledge in the village where she lives, she wouldn’t be going to the police as a first port of call.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>An <a href="https://www.policingreview.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/srpew_final_report.pdf">independent policing review</a> last year found that public confidence in the police has declined while the fear of crime continues to be a rising concern. </p>
<p>This is particularly true for those living in deprived areas and for people from minority ethnic backgrounds. <a href="https://crimestoppers-uk.org/getmedia/dfdff682-3152-478b-8beb-728d50f85048/Impact-Report-2022.pdf">Crimestoppers’ own survey</a> also suggests those groups are the most likely to contact them. </p>
<h2>The digital age</h2>
<p>One of the biggest changes over the past 35 years has been the move to online crime reporting. According to its own figures, Crimestoppers states <a href="https://crimestoppers-uk.org/getmedia/dfdff682-3152-478b-8beb-728d50f85048/Impact-Report-2022.pdf">75% of information</a> passed to the police now comes via its website.</p>
<p>There are often confidential police helplines for specific crimes (for example, domestic violence and hate crime), but Crimestoppers remains the primary anonymous crime reporting mechanism. <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1477370820916439">One study suggests</a> Crimestoppers supports crowdsourcing of so-called “collective intelligence” through social networks, and this acts as a driver to online reporting. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="The website of Crimestoppers and its phone number 0800555111." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523022/original/file-20230426-1743-28deg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C39%2C6560%2C4331&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523022/original/file-20230426-1743-28deg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523022/original/file-20230426-1743-28deg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523022/original/file-20230426-1743-28deg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523022/original/file-20230426-1743-28deg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523022/original/file-20230426-1743-28deg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523022/original/file-20230426-1743-28deg4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Crimestoppers was set up in the late 1980s and has since adapted to the digital age.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/london-uk-november-17th-2017-homepage-758975134">chrisdorney/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2019, Crimestoppers was <a href="https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2019/10/crimestoppers-scoop-investigation/">criticised</a> for using cookies on its website, which allow for users to be tracked. But the charity maintained that it does not monitor individuals either online or offline. </p>
<h2>Rewards</h2>
<p>It also remains unclear whether Crimestoppers’ offer of cash rewards has stood the test of time. My research has <a href="https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/evaluating-impact-crimestoppers">mirrored previous studies</a> demonstrating that while police officers see a use in rewards, their availability is a motivating factor in only a minority of cases. </p>
<p>Perhaps the greatest value of rewards is in raising public interest within a busy media landscape. Crimestoppers recently offered its <a href="https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/crimestoppers-gives-update-200k-olivia-26623561">biggest reward of £200,000</a> in connection with the murder of Olivia Pratt-Korbel, the 9-year old girl who was shot in Liverpool in September 2022. </p>
<p>Ultimately though, it is the reassurance offered by Crimestoppers’ anonymity guarantee and fuss-free participation which supports people in making reports, and enables the police to receive information they may otherwise have not received.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197150/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ella Rabaiotti is a former Probation Officer and worked for Crimestoppers Trust between 2016 and 2021.</span></em></p>Crimestoppers was originally founded in 1988 and now receives more than half a million reports each year.Ella Rabaiotti, Lecturer in Criminology, Swansea UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2002032023-04-20T16:33:35Z2023-04-20T16:33:35ZStephen Lawrence: how family liaison officers became an integral part of policing in the wake of his murder<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521580/original/file-20230418-22-11rksw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4860%2C3237&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Family liaison officers are a vital part of murder investigations in the UK. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/two-police-officers-hivisibility-jacket-patrolling-333009221">CLICKMANIS/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Stephen Lawrence was murdered on April 22 1993 in an unprovoked racist knife attack in south London. He was just eighteen at the time. He had been waiting for a bus with his friend, Duwayne Brooks. A group of five to six white youths surrounded him and at least one of them stabbed him to death. Almost 20 years later in 2012, two men were convicted of Stephen’s murder. </p>
<p>The murder and its aftermath set off a series of changes in police investigations, most notably regarding family liaison. The public inquiry that followed culminated in the <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/277111/4262.pdf">Macpherson report of 1999</a>. This uncovered major failings in the police investigation and the way Stephen’s family and his friend were treated. </p>
<p>Racism and the police response to racially-motivated crime featured high in the Stephen Lawrence inquiry. There were also new recommendations about how police deal with the family of murder victims.</p>
<p>The words “family liaison” were mentioned 136 times in the Macpherson Report. And the failure of family liaison was described as “one of the saddest and most deplorable aspects of the case”. Stephen’s parents, Doreen and Neville, were treated with insensitivity, patronised and not given information about the investigation to which they were entitled. </p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, the inquiry made many recommendations regarding family liaison. These included ensuring that <a href="https://profdev.college.police.uk/professional-profile/family-liaison-officer-flo/">family liaison officers</a> (FLOs) were available at a local level, who were dedicated to the role and who were not deployed elsewhere. It also recommended that training of FLOs include racism and diversity awareness. </p>
<p>Another recommendation stated that it was the “positive duty” of the police to provide “all possible information to the family about the crime and its investigation”. For its time, this was an enormous shift in police investigative culture. Detectives had been used to deciding what the family needed to know. Now they had to accommodate the needs and choices of the family. </p>
<p>The implementation of FLO recommendations was immediate and the Metropolitan Police almost instantly moved into an era where training courses took place every week at Hendon Police College.</p>
<p>The role of the FLO is now integral to <a href="https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/understanding-homicide/book262945">murder investigations</a> and is one of the first roles to be filled when an investigation begins. Its <a href="https://www.policechiefmagazine.org/wp-content/uploads/PoliceChief_September2015_web.pdf">function</a> is twofold. </p>
<p>First, FLOs are trained investigators who gather, and help to assess the relevance of, any information that relatives can provide to an investigation. Second, the FLO is a conduit between the family and the investigation. They ensure the family understand the process and are provided with as much detail as can be shared regarding the progress of the investigation.</p>
<p>The FLO helps to prepare the family for what is inevitably a traumatic experience, supporting them through important moments such as press conferences, appeals and the trial. The role requires significant expertise and sensitivity and, undertaken properly, can help to identify killers while improving trust and confidence in the police.</p>
<p>Family liaison officers have also become <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Police_Family_Liaison.html?id=D9bItU7Z4jsC&redir_esc=y">invaluable in other incidents</a> at home and abroad. For example, FLOs were deployed following the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/oct/17/ladbroke-grove-paddington-train-crash-inquiry">Ladbroke Grove rail crash</a> in October 1999, the September 11th attacks in New York in 2001 and the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Indian-Ocean-tsunami-of-2004">2004 Boxing Day tsunami</a> in the Indian ocean.</p>
<h2>Training</h2>
<p>Nevertheless, there is more that can and should be done to continually assess whether police forces are making proper and best use of FLOs. The regular training of FLOs is important to maintain and improve this role, while carefully matching FLOs to families is also vital. This ensures that social, demographic and cultural diversity are recognised and that FLOs can engage effectively with the communities they serve. </p>
<p>It is also important to recognise that being a family liaison officer can be an intense and harrowing experience and so it is necessary for the police to look after and recognise those who volunteer to undertake this role. </p>
<p>Families and communities should have the opportunity to assess whether the police are making best use of FLOs. Conducting interviews with families at the end of an investigation would be one way to achieve this. </p>
<p>Sadly, it took the murder of Stephen Lawrence for this style of policing to be recognised as an absolute right of bereaved families. It is now incumbent on the police to ensure that family liaison remains a priority and is properly resourced.</p>
<p><em>You can also read this article <a href="https://theconversation.com/stephen-lawrence-daeth-swyddogion-cyswllt-teulu-yn-rhan-annatod-o-blismona-yn-sgil-ei-lofruddiaeth-204128">in Welsh</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200203/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Fiona Brookman would like to give special thanks to Duncan McGarry MBE, special advisor, family liaison, for providing invaluable material and advice for this article.</span></em></p>The Stephen Lawrence inquiry and subsequent Macpherson Report led to changes in how police deal with the family of murder victims.Fiona Brookman, Professor of Criminology, University of South WalesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.