Around the world, policing — as an institution — is being challenged. But calls to defund the police will fall short if they do not address the history of policing.
Facial recognition algorithms will always make mistakes. But how can we make them less discriminatory?
A police tactical team in Ferguson, Mo., responds to 2014 protests against a white officer’s killing of Michael Brown, a young Black man.
AP Photo/Jeff Roberson
Race, class and national identity mean that views within the American Muslim community vary when it comes to such hot-button issues as policing, protests and discrimination.
Police in Tulsa, Okla., march toward a crowd of demonstrators on June 20, 2020.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
Scholars who study policing explain what they have found that could help reduce police prejudice and violence.
Protesters cross the Brooklyn Bridge on June 19, 2020 – Juneteenth – in the United States’ third straight week of protest.
Pablo Monsalve / VIEWpress via Getty Images
Unrest in the US looks familiar to Latin Americans, who are accustomed to resisting undemocratic governments – and to their protest movements being met with violent suppression.
This sketch depicts the Waterloo Creek massacre (also known as the Slaughterhouse Creek massacre), part of the conflict between mounted police and Indigenous Australians in 1838.
Godfrey Charles Mundy/National Library of Australia
Police played a unique role in many settler colonies executing assimilationist policies designed to dismantle First Nations families.
Protesters in front of Boston Police Headquarters during a United Against Racist Police Terror Rally on June 7, 2020.
Matthew J. Lee/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
Across the United States, police are shielded from both public and departmental accountability by multiple layers of contractual and legislative protections.
Malaysia Hammond, 19, places flowers at a memorial mural for George Floyd at the corner of Chicago Avenue and 38th Street on May 31, 2020, in Minneapolis.
(John Minchillo/AP Photo)
Our experts look at why people of colour are being hit harder by COVID-19, New Zealand’s success in eliminating the virus, and the latest on drug trials.
Anti-racism demonstrators take a knee near Toronto Police Headquarters during a march, June 6, 2020.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn
There is no good police versus bad police. Police are police. They are the states’ organ of repression. There are a myriad of better scenarios than the current one.
For police officers, building trust is a key part of their job.
UpperCut via Getty Images
That George Floyd died at the hands of four police officers is uncontested, but interpretations of his death and its aftermath differ greatly. The result is two starkly opposed narratives.
The death of George Floyd when a police officer kneeled on his neck sparked days of protests in cities across the U.S.
Lauren A. Little/MediaNews Group/Reading Eagle via Getty
It’s nearly impossible to avoid close contact when protesting, and easy to forget the risks. An infectious disease expert answers key questions about how to avoid spreading the coronavirus to family.
Many law enforcement agencies fail to adequately investigate misconduct allegations and rarely sustain citizen complaints. Disciplinary sanctions are few and reserved for the most egregious cases.
Protesters outside of a burning Minneapolis police precinct.
AP Photo/John Minchillo
Opinions about demonstrations are formed in large part by what people read or see in the media. This gives journalists a lot of power when it comes to driving the narrative.
An Ultra-Orthodox Jewish man is arrested by Israeli security forces for resisting efforts to shut down a synagogue in the Me’a She’arim neighborhood in Jerusalem, April 17, 2020.
AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP via Getty Images
Joyce Dalsheim, University of North Carolina – Charlotte
Persecution is central to Jewish collective memory. So when armed police entered ultra-Orthodox areas of Jerusalem to close synagogues due to COVID-19, some residents reacted with fear and suspicion.
A woman waits for a streetcar in Toronto on April 16, 2020. The many Black people working in essential jobs do not have the luxury of staying home during the pandemic.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette