Why police reforms rarely succeed: Lessons from Latin America
Research shows how politics can easily halt reforms that require time to take effect.
Research shows how politics can easily halt reforms that require time to take effect.
For 50 years, we have worked to make U.S. police more diverse and less intrusive. Why haven’t we made more progress?
After a fire killed 66 inmates at a Venezuelan jail in March, news stories portrayed the country’s prisons as lawless. The real backstory of this deadly riot is more complex — and maybe a bit scarier.
The use of lethal force by police officers in Ferguson and Staten Island has raised many concerns about the dynamic between police and citizens and underlined the fact that all time favorite fictional…
Giving police military gear doesn’t reduce crime or keep officers safer – but it does hurt citizens’ trust of the police, and for good reason.
When police arrest a suspect who is then convicted of the crime, it is a rare exception rather than the rule in the US.
A macho culture prevails in police departments in America. The recent killing of Philando Castile serves as one example of the way racial bias and police officer machismo work together.
A sociologist spent time as a volunteer firefighter – and learned more about how institutional culture can shape a person’s behavior.
For many Americans, law and order has long been as much a private matter as something for the government to handle.
Kenosha is the latest US city to see federal agents patrolling its protests. History suggests that supplanting the local police with a militarized national force rarely works out well.