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Date: April 30, 2024 Tue
Time: 12:37 am
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Results for police brutality
39 results foundAuthor: Meyer, Maureen Title: Mexico's Police: Many Reforms, Little Progress Summary: This report provides an overview of police reform efforts over the past two decades and examines why, in spite of multiple initiatives, Mexican police forces continue to be abusive and corrupt. In the context of the ongoing security crisis in parts of Mexico, the study argues that a failure to increase efforts to hold Mexico's police accountable for their actions will only perpetuate a vicious pattern of police abuse and a climate of mistrust between the police and the population. The study assesses the sweeping changes made to the criminal justice system in recent years and evaluates federal initiatives to support state and municipal police reform, vet all police forces through the confidence control (control de confianza) and evaluation system, and strengthen oversight mechanisms, such as Internal Affairs Units. Although Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto has promised a new security strategy in order to reduce violence and recover citizen trust in police forces, the report shows that his administration has largely maintained the initiatives and police model that were put into place during the Calderon administration. The report contends that while much has been done to reform Mexico's police, establishing strong internal and external controls has not been a priority for the Mexican government. This has meant that agents implicated in wrongdoing - from acts of corruption to grave human rights violations - have little incentive to change their actions, because the odds are slim that they will ever be investigated and sanctioned. Details: Washington, DC: Washington Office on Latin America, 2014. 36p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 9, 2014 at: http://www.wola.org/sites/default/files/Mexicos%20Police.pdf Year: 2014 Country: Mexico URL: http://www.wola.org/sites/default/files/Mexicos%20Police.pdf Shelf Number: 132310 Keywords: Police BrutalityPolice CorruptionPolice ReformPolicing (Mexico) |
Author: Fachner, George Title: Collaborative Reform Model: Six-Month Assessment Report of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Summary: In January 2012, under growing community concern and scrutiny of its use of deadly force practices, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) agreed to take part in an initiative by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office), known as the "Collaborative Reform Model." As part of this initiative, LVMPD agreed to an in-depth assessment of its use of deadly force policies and practices. In support, the COPS Office and CNA would assist the LVMPD in adopting national standards and best practices as they relate to officer involved shootings, while insuring that LVMPD's implementation was comprehensive and integrated. CNA conducted the assessment, focusing on four issue areas: 1) policy and procedures; 2) training and tactics; 3) investigation and documentation; and 4) external review. CNA completed the assessment in November 2012, which resulted in a total of 75 reforms and recommendations. These included both new recommendations from the team and reforms that LVMPD initiated prior to and during the assessment process. CNA published and distributed the final report, Collaborative Reform Model: A Review of Officer-Involved Shootings in the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (referred to as the "2012 report" in the remainder of this document), throughout LVMPD and the community. However, the publication of the 2012 report did not complete the process. The COPS Office, CNA, and LVMPD continue in their collaboration in order to ensure that LVMPD implements the recommended reforms as committed to by the sheriff. It has been 18 months since the beginning of the reform process, and seven months since the reforms have been recommended. Beginning in January 2013, the COPS Office and CNA have been assessing LVMPD's progress in implementing the remaining 41 recommendations. There are a total of 80 agency reforms: 89% (71) are complete or in progress; 11% (9) are incomplete or have not been assessed because the assessors were unable to make a judgment due to insufficient information available at the time of this report. This status report is the first of two that CNA will publish on LVMPD's progress. The purpose of this status report is to inform all stakeholders (i.e., LVMPD, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the Las Vegas community) of LVMPD's progress to date. Details: Washington, DC: CNA Analysis & Solutions; U.S. Department of Justice, Community Oriented Policing Services, 2013. 72p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed June 16, 2014 at: http://www.cna.org/sites/default/files/research/LVMPD_6Months.pdf Year: 2013 Country: United States URL: http://www.cna.org/sites/default/files/research/LVMPD_6Months.pdf Shelf Number: 132469 Keywords: Police BrutalityPolice MisconductPolice ReformPolice Use of Force (U.S.) |
Author: Human Rights Watch Title: Public Insecurity: Deaths in Custody and Police Brutality in Vietnam Summary: Police brutality, including deaths in police custody, is a regular source of public concern in Vietnam. The problem is so pervasive that even the heavily controlled state media frequently publishes reports about police abuse. Yet extensive government censorship has prevented more in-depth analysis about the problem and its causes, which include a culture of impunity for police officers and their superiors. Public Insecurity explores a large number of illustrative cases of officially acknowledged killings, alleged suicides, unexplained custodial deaths, torture, and beatings in police custody. Many victims are people merely accused of petty crimes, domestic disputes, and traffic violations. Factors contributing to Vietnam's epidemic of police brutality include the politicization of Vietnam's security services, inadequate professional training, particularly of the Commune Police, the absence of a strong legal system or independent judiciary, and insufficient freedom for the local and national media to act as an effective check against official misdeeds. One positive development is the rise of increasingly independent bloggers and citizen journalists who report on police abuses, making it impossible for the authorities to hide this problem from the public and, on occasion, leading to prosecution of police officers. Public Insecurity offers a series of common-sense recommendations to address the prevalence of police abuse in Vietnam. These include: - the establishment of an independent police complaints commission, - high-level support for prompt and impartial investigations and prosecutions of police abuse and misconduct, - adoption of a zero tolerance policy within the police for abuse, - enhancement of the role of legal counsel for suspects and detainees, - better training for police at all levels, particularly for commune police, - installation of cameras in interrogation and detention facilities, and - freedom of expression for journalists and on the Internet. Details: New York: HRW, 2014. 104p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 17, 2014 at: http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/vietnam0914_ForUpload_0.pdf Year: 2014 Country: Vietnam URL: http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/vietnam0914_ForUpload_0.pdf Shelf Number: 133368 Keywords: Deaths in Custody (Vietnam)Human Rights AbusesPolice BrutalityPolice MisconductPrisoners |
Author: Human Rights Watch Title: Flawed Accountability: Shortcomings of Tunisia's Trials for Killings during the Uprising Summary: During Tunisia's "jasmine uprising" from December 2010 to January 2011 that led to the toppling of President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali after more than 23 years in power, Tunisian security forces killed 132 protesters and injured hundreds. Subsequently, more than 50 former government officials, police officers and members of other security forces were charged in connection with the killings and put on trial. The trials, conducted before military courts, represented a historical opportunity to achieve accountability. Based on an analysis of the written verdict and other court documents, and interviews with lawyers, victims and prosecutors, Flawed Accountability; Shortcomings of Tunisia's Trials for killings during the Uprising, assesses the trials and identifies key shortcomings that hampered the accountability process, and undermined its capacity to deliver justice for the victims. These included: the use of military courts; weak evidence gathering; flawed legal reasoning; lenient sentences; inadequate criminal law on command responsibility; and the failure to secure the extradition of Ben Ali from Saudi Arabia. The report calls on the Tunisian authorities to ensure full accountability for past human rights abuses by officials and members of the security forces and outlines measures to address obstacles to achieving national transitional justice. Details: New York: HRW, 2015. 54p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed January 15, 2015 at: http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/tunisia0115_ForUpload.pdf Year: 2015 Country: Tunisia URL: http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/tunisia0115_ForUpload.pdf Shelf Number: 134408 Keywords: Human Rights AbusesPolice AccountabilityPolice BrutalityPolice Use of Force (Tunisia) |
Author: Human Rights Watch Title: Summary: "No answers, no apology" was how a mother described the response of the police in Malaysia to her inquiries about her son who was shot to death by police officers. Her experience is echoed by many other families whose relatives have been killed or injured by the Malaysian police. Based on in-depth interviews in the capital, Kuala Lumpur, and in Selangor, Johor, Kelantan, and Perak, this report documents failures by Malaysian authorities to adequately investigate allegations of deaths and mistreatment of persons in police custody, unjustified shootings, and excessive use of force in dispersing peaceful public demonstrations. There is typically no meaningful accountability for the police officers and officials implicated in such abuses. The police do not effectively investigate allegations of misconduct and the government has shown no inclination to ensure they do so. This impunity is facilitated by the lack of a robust, independent oversight body focused specifically on police accountability, and the police force's poor record of cooperation with existing oversight bodies, including the national human rights commission, SUHAKAM. Police secrecy about internal policies, such as standing orders on the use of force and firearms, further frustrates external investigations. Police need to be accountable to the public and should demonstrate that their policies and practices conform to international human rights standards. External pressure and oversight are important in improving accountability, and police leadership and effective supervision are critical to preventing abuse and misconduct. Human Rights Watch recommends that the Malaysian government create an independent, external commission tasked solely to receive and investigate complaints about police misconduct and abuse. Police authorities should establish an ombudsman's office empowered to receive and follow up on complaints of police abuse and take disciplinary action against officers. Those authorities should also share internal police standing orders with external oversight bodies and reform those orders to bring them into compliance with international human rights standards. Details: New York: HRW, 2014. 128p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed January 22, 2015 at: http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/malaysia0414_ForUpload.pdf Year: 2014 Country: Malaysia URL: http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/malaysia0414_ForUpload.pdf Shelf Number: 134443 Keywords: Human Rights Abuses (Malaysia)Police AccountabilityPolice BrutalityPolice InvestigationsPolice LegitimacyPolice MisconductPolice Use of Force |
Author: Fachner, George Title: Collaborative Reform Model: Final Assessment Report of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Summary: In January 2012, under growing community concern and scrutiny of its use of deadly force practices, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) agreed to take part in an initiative sponsored by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS Office), known as the "Collaborative Reform Model." As part of this initiative, LVMPD agreed to an in-depth assessment of its use of deadly force policies and practices. In support, the COPS Office and CNA would assist the LVMPD in adopting national standards and best practices as they relate to officer-involved shootings (OIS), while ensuring that LVMPD's implementation was comprehensive and integrated. CNA conducted the assessment, focusing on four issue areas: (1) policy and procedures, (2) training and tactics, (3) investigation and documentation, and (4) external review. CNA completed the assessment in November 2012, which documented a total of 75 reforms and recommendations. These included both new recommendations from the assessment team and reforms that LVMPD initiated before and during the assessment process. CNA published the final report, Collaborative Reform Model: A Review of Officer-Involved Shootings in the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (referred to as the "2012 report" throughout the remainder of this report) in November 2012. The publication of the 2012 report did not complete the process. Sustainable policy and organizational change requires careful planning, implementation, and monitoring. The COPS Office, CNA, and LVMPD have continued in their collaboration throughout 2013. The COPS Office asked CNA to document reforms previously completed by LVMPD and to actively monitor those that resulted from the 2012 report. In September, CNA and the COPS Office published Collaborative Reform Model: Six-Month Status Report of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. The six-month report showed that LVMPD had made significant progress. A total of 56 reforms had been completed by the department and another 15 were in progress. This report is the final assessment of LVMPD with respect to the Collaborative Reform Model. It has been two years since the beginning of the reform process, and one year since the reforms were recommended. The purpose of this report is to inform all stakeholders and interested parties of the progress made toward reforming LVMPD's policies and practices with respect to OISs. Details: Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, 92p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 9, 2015 at: http://www.lvmpd.com/Portals/0/OIO/LVMPD_Collab_Reform_Final_Report_v6-final.pdf Year: 2014 Country: United States URL: http://www.lvmpd.com/Portals/0/OIO/LVMPD_Collab_Reform_Final_Report_v6-final.pdf Shelf Number: 134774 Keywords: Deadly ForcePolice Brutality Police Misconduct Police Reform Police Use of Force (U.S.) |
Author: Fachner, George Title: Collaborative Reform Initiative - An Assessment of Deadly Force in the Philadelphia Police Department Summary: In 2013, in response to an increase in officer-involved shootings, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey requested technical assistance from the COPS Office. Launched in November 2013, the Collaborative Reform Initiative in Philadelphia focuses on the use of deadly force over a seven-year period. The COPS Office's training and technical assistance provider for the assessment, CNA, reviewed hundreds of departmental policies, manuals and training plans; conducted 164 interviews with community members and department civilian and sworn personnel; facilitated focus groups with city and department stakeholders; and directly observed operations, including the use of force review board hearings of 20 officer involved shooting incidents. Through its 48 findings, the assessment identifies serious deficiencies in the department's use of force policies and training, including a failure to maintain a certified field training program; deficient, inconsistent supervision and operational control of officer involved shooting investigations and crime scenes; and oversight and accountability practices in need of improvement, the most notable being the need for the department to fully cooperate with the Police Advisory Commission. To address these issues, the report prescribes 91 recommendations to help the department improve with respect to the use of force and implement industry best practices. The COPS Office will work with the Philadelphia Police Department over the next 18 months to help them implement these recommendations and will provide two progress reports during this time. Details: Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, 2015. 188p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 25, 2015 at: http://ric-zai-inc.com/Publications/cops-w0753-pub.pdf Year: 2015 Country: United States URL: http://ric-zai-inc.com/Publications/cops-w0753-pub.pdf Shelf Number: 135005 Keywords: Deadly ForcePolice BehaviorPolice BrutalityPolice DiscretionPolice MisconductPolice Use of Force (Philadelphia) |
Author: Human Rights Watch Title: Tiger Chairs and Cell Bosses: Police Torture of Criminal Suspents in China Summary: After cases of police brutality against criminal suspects emerged in 2009 and 2010, China's government announced new measures to curb torture and wrongful convictions. These included restrictions on the conduct of interrogations and prohibitions on using detainee "cell bosses" to oversee other detainees. The Ministry of Public Security claims that the use of coerced confessions has dropped significantly as a result of the reforms. Tiger Chairs and Cell Bosses- based primarily on an analysis of hundreds of newly published court decisions and interviews with recent detainees, family members, lawyers, and former officials-finds that the measures adopted between 2009 and 2013 have not gone nearly far enough to fully address abusive interrogations. Some police officers deliberately thwart the new protections by taking detainees from official detention facilities or by using torture methods that leave no visible injuries. Procurators and judges may ignore clear evidence of mistreatment, rendering China's new "exclusionary rule" - which prohibits the use of evidence directly obtained through torture - of little benefit. Police torture of suspects in pre-trial detention remains a serious concern. Former detainees described physical and psychological torture, including being forced to spend days shackled to a "tiger chair," hung by the wrists, and deprived of sleep for prolonged periods. While measures adopted since 2009 appear to have reduced certain abuses, they are being grafted onto a criminal justice system that still offers police numerous opportunities to abuse suspects and affords the police enormous power to resist any judicial supervision. Absent more fundamental reforms in the Chinese criminal justice system that empower defense lawyers, the judiciary, and independent monitors, the elimination of routine torture and ill-treatment is unlikely. Details: New York: HRW, 2015. 143p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 13, 2015 at: http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/china0515_ForUpload.pdf Year: 2015 Country: China URL: http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/china0515_ForUpload.pdf Shelf Number: 135632 Keywords: Human Rights AbusesPolice BrutalityPolice MisconductPolice Use of ForcePrisoner AbusePrisonersTorture |
Author: Amnesty International Title: You Killed My Son: Homicides by Military Police in the City of Rio de Janeiro Summary: Extrajudicial executions at the hands of police officials are frequent in Brazil. In the context of the so-called "war on drugs", military police forces have unnecessarily and excessively used lethal force, resulting in the deaths of thousands of people over the past decade. The authorities often use the legal term of "resistance followed by death" as a smokescreen to cover up killings committed by the police officers. This report is based on a series of cases of police killings that occurred during 2014 and 2015 in the city of Rio de Janeiro, particularly in the favela of Acari. Details: London; Amnesty International, 2015. 47p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 14, 2015 at: http://www.amnestyusa.org/sites/default/files/youkilled_final_bx.pdf Year: 2015 Country: Brazil URL: http://www.amnestyusa.org/sites/default/files/youkilled_final_bx.pdf Shelf Number: 136430 Keywords: Deadly ForceHomicidesPolice BrutalityPolice Use ForceWar on Drugs |
Author: Human Rights Watch Title: "As Though We Are Not Human Beings": Police Brutality against Migrants and Asylum Seekers in Macedonia Summary: Men, women, and children - many from Syria, Somalia, and Afghanistan - have experienced police violence and inhumane, degrading treatment and arbitrary detention in Macedonia, a key transit country along the Western Balkans migration route into the European Union. Many migrants and asylum seekers have already made an arduous journey, boarding overcrowded vessels to cross the Aegean Sea or making the land border crossings from Turkey to Greece planning to travel onwards to northern EU countries. They typically reached Macedonia after walking for several days, often without enough food, water, or proper clothing. Many apprehended by the police in Macedonia were beaten with police batons, punched, kicked, and verbally insulted. They were either summarily returned to Greece amid more abuse or taken straight to detention where they were held in appalling conditions. As Though We Are Not Human Beings, based on interviews with migrants and asylum seekers, experts, and government officials, documents physical and verbal abuse at the hands of Macedonian officials at the border with Greece and ill-treatment by police guards in the Gazi Baba detention center, including physical and verbal abuse as well as gender-based violence. In addition to ill-treatment in Gazi Baba, the report finds that migrants and asylum seekers have been arbitrarily detained in Macedonia in inhumane and degrading conditions, including overcrowding; insufficient access to food and drinking water; and unhygienic and unsanitary conditions. The report calls on Macedonian authorities to stop police abuse, promptly investigate allegations of ill-treatment, and cease arbitrarily detaining migrants and asylum seekers in degrading conditions. It also calls on the European Union to press Macedonia to improve its treatment of migrants and asylum seekers and to assist with Macedonian authorities to respect the human rights of migrants and asylum seekers present in the country. Details: New York: HRW, 2015. 67p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 25, 2015 at: https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/macedonia0915_4up.pdf Year: 2015 Country: Macedonia URL: https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/macedonia0915_4up.pdf Shelf Number: 136881 Keywords: Asylum SeekersImmigrant DetentionImmigrantsPolice BrutalityPolice MisconductPolice Use of Force |
Author: New York (City). Department of Investigation Title: Police Use of Force in New York City: Findings and Recommendations on NYPD's Policies and Practices Summary: Use of force is a defining issue in modern policing. Police officers, by the very nature of their duties, are entrusted, empowered, and at times obligated by local governments to use force against citizens when appropriate. In exchange for this grant of power, communities and their police departments require that the use of force be governed by a set of standards. These standards stem from the premise that the force used must be reasonable, an idea rooted in the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. Reasonable use of force and constitutional policing require equal treatment of all individuals, proper application of force, and accountability for the conduct of police officers. Following the death of Eric Garner in Staten Island in 2014 and others across the nation, there has been a public call for greater accountability when police officers use force that appears neither reasonable nor proportional. Police departments and police accountability agencies across the country have taken up the issue of use of force in an effort to improve policing and ensure that all officers are worthy of the tremendous power and trust afforded them by their communities. In January 2015, the New York City Department of Investigation's Office of the Inspector General for the New York City Police Department (OIG-NYPD) released its first report, Observations on Accountability and Transparency in Ten NYPD Chokehold Cases (Chokehold Report). In that report, OIG-NYPD found that the New York City Police Department (NYPD) disciplinary system was complex, multi-tiered, and often delivered inconsistent results in cases involving chokeholds. OIG-NYPD promised to further investigate NYPD's use of force by reviewing a larger sample of force investigations. This Report, which is a larger and more sophisticated inquiry into use of force, fulfills that promise. Many of the issues addressed in the Chokehold Report surface again in this larger data set. This Report examines five aspects of use of force within NYPD: (1) trends; (2) reporting; (3) de-escalation; (4) training; and (5) discipline. The Report begins by highlighting data and trends from excessive or unnecessary force cases substantiated by the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB). CCRB substantiated 207 allegations of force in 179 cases between 2010 and 2014, a notably modest number, given the size of NYPD, and a positive indication of the NYPD's restraint. OIG-NYPD's review involved only non-deadly force cases investigated by CCRB, as no lethal force was used in the 179 substantiated cases. As discussed below, this investigation demonstrates several issues of real concern. Because accountability begins with access to reliable data, this Report describes how NYPD does and does not track use-of-force data, and how the usefulness of that information can be improved by adopting a more precise use-of-force policy coupled with standardized force reporting. This Report next presents the findings of an independent analysis of force cases where some officers not only missed the opportunity to de-escalate the incident, but took measures which affirmatively escalated the encounter. Given these findings, the Report examines policies of other law enforcement agencies regarding de-escalation tactics and reviews what NYPD is currently doing to address excessive force and de-escalation through training. The Report then suggests ways in which training and policy can be improved with respect to de-escalation tactics and other related skills. Lastly, this Report analyzes and evaluates NYPD's disciplinary system, including a close review of cases where OIG-NYPD, through independent review, determined that the use of force was not reasonable by any standard and not justified by any exigent circumstances or the need to protect an officer's or the public's safety. Historically, NYPD has frequently failed to discipline officers who use force without justification. This Report thus offers recommendations to improve the disciplinary process so that officers who use excessive force are properly held accountable. Details: New York: NYC Department of Investigation, 2015. 89p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed January 28, 2016 at: http://www.nyc.gov/html/oignypd/assets/downloads/pdf/oig_nypd_use_of_force_report_-_oct_1_2015.pdf Year: 2015 Country: United States URL: http://www.nyc.gov/html/oignypd/assets/downloads/pdf/oig_nypd_use_of_force_report_-_oct_1_2015.pdf Shelf Number: 137708 Keywords: Complaints Against PolicePolice AccountabilityPolice BrutalityPolice DiscretionPolice LegitimacyPolice MisconductPolice Policies and ProceduresPolice TrainingPolice Use of Force |
Author: New York City Department of Investigation Title: Observations on Accountability and Transparency in Ten NYPD Chokehold Cases Summary: Section 203-11 of the Patrol Guide, which governs "Use of Force," explicitly and unequivocally prohibits members of the New York City Police Department ("NYPD") from using "chokeholds" in their interactions with the public: Members of the New York City Police Department will NOT use chokeholds. A chokehold shall include, but is not limited to, any pressure to the throat or windpipe, which may prevent or hinder breathing or reduce intake of air. Patrol Guide 203-11 (emphasis in original). The death of a Staten Island man, Eric Garner, on July 17, 2014, after he was brought to the ground by an officer's arm around his neck in the course of an arrest, cast a spotlight on the use of chokeholds by NYPD officers and the enforcement of the chokehold prohibition under Section 203-11. Mr. Garner's death generated widespread public outcry, elevated chokeholds as a major concern within the rubric of the use of force, and prompted a flurry of videos purportedly showing NYPD officers using chokeholds in a variety of encounters with members of the public. The decision by a grand jury, on December 3, 2014, not to issue an indictment in the Garner case only increases the need for independent administrative review of these issues. In response to Mr. Garner's death, the Office of the Inspector General for the NYPD ("OIG-NYPD") conducted a focused review of the ten most recent cases where the Civilian Complaint Review Board ("CCRB") determined that NYPD officers used "chokeholds." What OIG-NYPD found raises questions not only about the way in which NYPD has enforced the chokehold ban in recent years, but also, far more importantly, about the disciplinary process in general and interactions between NYPD and CCRB. While no definitive conclusions regarding the use of chokeholds can or should be drawn from the finite universe of cases reviewed here, OIG-NYPD's study sheds light on areas where further careful analysis and study are warranted: how discipline is determined and imposed in use-of-force cases, gaps in inter- and intra-agency communication during the investigation of use-of-force cases, and officer training regarding communication skills, de-escalation strategies, and the use of force. This focused review, in effect, presents a road map of key policing issues with regard to the use of force that OIG-NYPD intends to explore and probe more deeply in the coming months. Details: New York NYC Department of Investigation, Office of the Inspector General for the NYPD, 2015. 45p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed January 26, 2016 at: http://www.nyc.gov/html/oignypd/assets/downloads/pdf/chokehold_report_1-2015.pdf Year: 2015 Country: United States URL: http://www.nyc.gov/html/oignypd/assets/downloads/pdf/chokehold_report_1-2015.pdf Shelf Number: 137709 Keywords: Complaints Against Police Police Accountability Police Brutality Police Discretion Police Legitimacy Police Misconduct Police Policies and Procedures Police TrainingPolice Use of Force |
Author: Freelon, Deen Title: Beyond the Hashtags: #Ferguson, #Blacklivesmatter, and the online struggle for offline justice Summary: IN 2014, A DEDICATED ACTIVIST MOVEMENT "Black Lives Matter (BLM)" ignited an urgent national conversation about police killings of unarmed Black citizens. Online tools have been anecdotally credited as critical in this effort, but researchers are only beginning to evaluate this claim. This research report examines the movement's uses of online media in 2014 and 2015. To do so, we analyze three types of data: 40.8 million tweets, over 100,000 web links, and 40 interviews of BLM activists and allies. Most of the report is devoted to detailing our findings, which include: - Although the #Blacklivesmatter hashtag was created in July 2013, it was rarely used through the summer of 2014 and did not come to signify a movement until the months after the Ferguson protests. -Social media posts by activists were essential in initially spreading Michael Brown's story nationally. - Protesters and their supporters were generally able to circulate their own narratives without relying on mainstream news outlets. - There are six major communities that consistently discussed police brutality on Twitter in 2014 and 2015: Black Lives Matter, Anonymous/Bipartisan Report, Black Entertainers, Conservatives, Mainstream News, and Young Black Twitter. - The vast majority of the communities we observed supported justice for the victims and decisively denounced police brutality. - Black youth discussed police brutality frequently, but in ways that differed substantially from how activists discussed it. - Evidence that activists succeeded in educating casual observers came in two main forms: expressions of awe and disbelief at the violent police reactions to the Ferguson protests, and conservative admissions of police brutality in the Eric Garner and Walter Scott cases. - The primary goals of social media use among our interviewees were education, amplification of marginalized voices, and structural police reform. In our concluding section, we reflect on the practical importance and implications of our findings. We hope this report contributes to the specific conversation about how Black Lives Matter and related movements have used online tools as well as to broader conversations about the general capacity of such tools to facilitate social and political change. Details: Washington, DC: Center for Media and Social Impact, American University, 2016. 92p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 5, 2016 at: http://www.cmsimpact.org/sites/default/files/beyond_the_hashtags_2016.pdf Year: 2016 Country: United States URL: http://www.cmsimpact.org/sites/default/files/beyond_the_hashtags_2016.pdf Shelf Number: 138109 Keywords: Deadly ForceMedia CampaignsPolice AccountabilityPolice BrutalityPolice MisconductPolice ReformPolice Use of ForceSocial Media |
Author: Human Rights Watch Title: Unchecked Power: Police and Military Raids in Low-Income and Immigrant Communities in Venezuela Summary: Since July 2015, Venezuelan security forces have conducted more than 135 operations, including sweeps through low-income communities, as part of the "Operation to Liberate and Protect the People" (OLP), with the alleged purpose of combatting criminal gangs that contribute to the extremely high levels of violence in Venezuela. Participating security forces have included the Bolivarian National Guard, the Bolivarian National Police, the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service, the Scientific, Penal and Criminal Investigative Police, and state police forces. Unchecked Power: Police and Military Raids in Low-Income and Immigrant Communities in Venezuela describes considerable evidence that security forces conducting OLP raids have committed serious abuses. In interviews with the Venezuelan Human Rights Education-Action Program (PROVEA) and Human Rights Watch, victims, witnesses, and other interlocutors described violations including extrajudicial killings and other violent abuses, arbitrary detentions, forced evictions, the destruction of hundreds of homes, and the arbitrary deportation of Colombian nationals including refugees and asylum seekers, often accused without evidence of having links to "paramilitaries." A common denominator shared by these cases, and by government abuses we have documented in other contexts during the past decade, is the extent to which the victims-or their families-have been unable to challenge alleged abuses of state power, feeling they have nowhere to turn for protection of their fundamental rights. The government of Venezuela should ensure that all OLP operations are carried out in accordance with its international human rights obligations, including the requirement to refrain from using unlawful force during public security operations. Ultimately, a strong, independent judiciary is essential to ensure accountability and redress for the kinds of abuses alleged in this report-and to prevent such abuses in the future. PROVEA and Human Rights Watch call on President Nicolas Maduro, the National Assembly, and the Supreme Court to take urgent steps to restore the judiciary's role as an independent guarantor of fundamental rights, and on the international community to press Venezuela's government to stop undermining the impartiality and independence of the judicial branch. Details: New York: HRW, 2016. 45p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 7, 2016 at: https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/venezuela0416web.pdf Year: 2016 Country: Venezuela URL: https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/venezuela0416web.pdf Shelf Number: 138591 Keywords: GangsHuman Rights AbusesParamilitary GroupsPolice BrutalityPolice Use of ForceViolence |
Author: American Civil Liberties Union Title: Island of Impunity: Puerto Rico's Outlaw Police Force Summary: A report released by the ACLU in June 2012 concludes that the Puerto Rico Police Department is plagued by a culture of unrestrained abuse and impunity. The PRPD - which, with over 17,000 officers, is the second-largest police department in the U.S - is charged with policing the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. In July 2013, the U.S. Justice Department entered into a legally binding consent decree with the Puerto Rican government that requires sweeping reforms to end the widespread police brutality on the island. Learn more about the historic agreement here. After a comprehensive six-month investigation of policing practices in Puerto Rico, building on eight years of work by the ACLU of Puerto Rico documenting cases of police brutality, the ACLU concluded that the PRPD commits serious and rampant abuses in violation Puerto Ricans' constitutional and human rights, including: - Use of excessive and lethal force against civilians, especially in poor and Black neighborhoods and Dominican communities, often resulting in serious injury and death. Read More. - Violent suppression of peaceful protestors using batons, rubber bullets, and a toxic form of tear gas that was phased out by mainland U.S. police departments in the 1960's. Read More. - Failure to protect victims of domestic violence and to investigate reported crimes of domestic violence, rape, and other gender-based crimes. The ACLU's research shows that these abuses do not represent isolated incidents or aberrant behavior by a few rogue officers, but that such police brutality is pervasive and systemic, island-wide and ongoing. In fact, our research has found that the PRPD's disciplinary, investigatory, and reporting systems prevent accountability. Read more. The report offers numerous detailed recommendations, including: - The Justice Department should enter into a court-enforceable and court-monitored agreement with the PRPD. - The PRPD should develop and implement policies on the use of force, improved training, the investigation of civilian complaints of police abuse, and the discipline of officers. - Puerto Rico's legislature should create an independent and effective oversight body to monitor the PRPD. The ACLU's report comes nine months after the release of a scathing U.S. Justice Department report on the PRPD, which found a pattern and practice of constitutional violations by the department, including widespread use of excessive force. The Justice Department investigation, the findings of which were long-delayed, focused on 2004 to 2008. The ACLU's report focuses on incidents from 2007 through May 2012. Details: New York: ACLU, 2012. 182p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed June 13, 2016 at: https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/islandofimpunity_20120619.pdf Year: 2012 Country: United States URL: https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/islandofimpunity_20120619.pdf Shelf Number: 139433 Keywords: Police BrutalityPolice MisconductPolice Use of Force |
Author: U.S. Department of Justice. Civil Rights Division Title: Investigation of the Baltimore City Police Department Summary: This report present the outcome of the Department of Justice's investigation of the Baltimore City Police Department (BP D). After engaging in a thorough investigation, initiated at the request of the City of Baltimore and BPD, the Department of Justice concludes that there is reasonable cause to believe that BPD engages in a pattern or practice of conduct that violates the Constitution or federal law. BPD engages in a pattern or practice of: (1) making unconstitutional stops, searches, and arrests; (2) using enforcement strategies that produce severe and unjustified disparities in the rates of stops, searches and arrests of African Americans; (3) using excessive force; and (4) retaliating against people engaging in constitutionally -protected expression. This pattern or practice is driven by systemic deficiencies in BPD's policies, training, supervision, and ac countability structures that fail to equip officers with the tools they need to police effectively and within the bounds of the federal law. We recognize the challenges faced by police officers in Baltimore and other communities around the country. Every day, police officers risk their lives to uphold the law and keep our communities safe. Investigatory stops, arrests, and force - including, at times, deadly force - are all necessary tools used by BPD officers to do their jobs and protect the safety of thems elves and others. Providing policing services in many parts of Baltimore is particularly challenging, where officers regularly confront complex social problems rooted in poverty, racial segregation and deficient educational, employment and housing opportunities. Still, most BPD officers work hard to provide vital services to the community. The pattern or practice occurs as a result of systemic deficiencies at BPD. The agency fails to provide officers with sufficient policy guidance and training; fails to collect and analyze data regarding officers' activities; and fails to hold officers accountable for misconduct. BPD also fails to equip officers with the necessary equipment and resources they need to police safely, constitutionally, and effectively. Each of these systemic deficiencies contributes to the constitutional and statutory violations we observed. Details: Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, 2016. 164p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 25, 2016 at: http://civilrights.baltimorecity.gov/sites/default/files/20160810_DOJ%20BPD%20Report-FINAL.pdf Year: 2016 Country: United States URL: http://civilrights.baltimorecity.gov/sites/default/files/20160810_DOJ%20BPD%20Report-FINAL.pdf Shelf Number: 140031 Keywords: Deadly ForcePolice AccountabilityPolice BrutalityPolice DiscretionPolice MisconductPolice Use of Force |
Author: Human Rights Watch Title: "This Crooked System": Police Abuse and Reform in Pakistan Summary: Pakistan's police are among the most widely feared, disparaged, and least trusted government institutions in the country. The poor, and other vulnerable or marginalized groups, invariably face the greatest obstacles to obtaining justice in a system that is rigged against them. "This Crooked System": Police Abuse and Reform in Pakistan documents custodial torture, extrajudicial executions, and other serious human rights violations by the Pakistani police. The report also details the difficulties that victims of crime and police abuse face in obtaining justice, including police demands for bribes, biased investigations, and refusals to register complaints. Colonial-era police laws facilitate routine interference by local politicians and wealthy landowners in police operations. The report also examines human resource, financial, and other constraints that police say impact their ability to function properly, and looks at examples of good police practices that may serve as models for the future. Human Rights Watch urges the Pakistani government to investigate and appropriately discipline or prosecute police officials responsible for human rights violations and undertake necessary legal and policy reforms to transform the police into an accountable, efficient, and rights-respecting institution. Details: New York: HRW, 2016. 113p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed October 13, 2016 at: https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/pakistan0916_web.pdf Year: 2016 Country: Pakistan URL: https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/pakistan0916_web.pdf Shelf Number: 145444 Keywords: Human Rights AbusesPolice BrutalityPolice MisconductPolice Use of Force |
Author: Rosenthal, Lawrence Title: Good and Bad Ways to Address Police Violence Summary: Concerns about the use of excessive force by police, especially when directed at persons of color, have long been prevalent. A wide variety of proposals have been advanced to address the problem, including more robust regimes of criminal or civil liability, and reforms that facilitate the supervision and discipline of officers. The striking thing about the reform menu is that it is virtually all stick and no carrot. This approach is less likely to produce optimal performance than over-deterrence – sometimes called depolicing. It is also likely to reinforce the code of silence – frequently documented in the literature on policing – in which police do not acknowledge wrongdoing in order to insulate themselves and their peers from discipline. Equally important, there has been no effort to assess proposed reforms in light of what we know about the sociology of policing and the ecology of highcrime communities. This literature suggests that high-crime communities are unlikely to achieve anything like stability without a robust police presence. Reforms that fail to grasp the need for aggressive policing at criminogenic hot spots are doomed to failure. Utilizing the scholarly literature on policing, urban sociology, criminology, and, occasionally, the author’s experiences as a senior municipal official, this article identifies the weaknesses of leading proposals for addressing police violence, and considers as well some novel proposals that have not yet received attention in the scholarly literature, but that show greater promise for dismantling the code of silence and rendering policing more transparent and accountable. Details: Orange, CA : Chapman University, The Dale E. Fowler School of Law, 2016. 67p. Source: Internet Resource: Chapman University, Fowler Law Research Paper No. 16-17 : Accessed November 16, 2016 at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2864072 Year: 2016 Country: United States URL: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2864072 Shelf Number: 141169 Keywords: Police BrutalityPolice Misconduct Police Shootings Police Use of Force Police Violence |
Author: Human Rights Watch Title: "Bound by Brotherhood": India's Failure to End Killings in Police Custody Summary: Indian police often torture criminal suspects to punish them, to gather information, or to coerce confessions. Despite changes in laws and guidelines and the promise of police reforms since 1997, official data shows at least 591 people died in police custody between 2010 and 2015. While police blame most of the deaths on suicide, illness, or natural causes, in many such cases family members allege that the deaths were the result of torture; allegations sometimes supported by independent investigations. Bound by Brotherhood examines the reasons for the continuing impunity for custodial deaths in India, and recommends steps that authorities should take to end it. It details the scope of the problem drawing on in-depth Human Rights Watch investigations into 17 custodial deaths that occurred between 2009 and 2015. In most of these cases, family members, with the assistance of lawyers and activists, were able to seek new inquiries, thus providing access to witness testimonies, autopsy reports, or police statements. In each of the 17 cases, the police did not follow proper arrest procedures—including documenting the arrest, notifying family members, or producing the suspect before a magistrate within 24 hours—which made the suspect more vulnerable to abuse and may have contributed to a belief by police that any mistreatment could be covered up. In most of the cases, investigating authorities, mainly the police, failed to take steps that could have helped ensure accountability for the deaths. Human Rights Watch calls on the Indian government to strictly enforce existing law and guidelines on arrest and detention and ensure that police officers implicated in torture and other ill-treatment, regardless of rank, are disciplined or prosecuted as appropriate. Details: New York: HRW, 2016. 128p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed January 27, 2017 at: https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/india1216_web_0.pdf Year: 2016 Country: India URL: https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/india1216_web_0.pdf Shelf Number: 144918 Keywords: Deadly ForceDeaths in CustodyHomicidesPolice BrutalityPolice CustodyPolice Use of ForceTorture |
Author: Kreuzer, Peter Title: If they resist, kill them all: Police vigilantism in the Philippines Summary: In May of 2016, Rodrigo Duterte was elected President of the Philippines and inaugurated into office on June 30. During the election campaign he was already focusing on ridding the country of drug-related crime and indicated his willingness to tolerate, if not support, the killing of suspects by the police. After entering office, he officially launched a comprehensive campaign against drug-related crime that has since cost the lives of several thousand suspects. While anonymous vigilantes are responsible for a significant share, if not the majority of these extralegal killings, in four months the police killed more than 1,000 suspects in so-called "legitimate encounters" that were justified as actions carried out in self-defense. This report then looks at a vastly under-researched phenomenon: extrajudicial police vigilantism involving killings by on-duty police officers that are masked as "legitimate encounters" with criminals. It argues that, while the Philippines have a strong tradition of death-squad killings, this has been complemented for a long time by a practice of "social cleansing" that did not make it necessary for agents of the state to deny complicity: official police vigilantism. On the contrary, such vigilante killings could be utilized as evidence of a strong state. However, in the past such police vigilantism was a local phenomenon. This changed under the new president, who nationalized the local practice and thereby changed its dynamics. This report provides an overview of the pattern of killings of suspects by members of the Philippine National Police while on duty currently taking place. The main section of the report analyzes past patterns of “legitimate encounters” in a number of selected regions and provinces of the Philippines. The integration of these two datasets allows for a comparison not only among regions and provinces but also over time. Consideration of this quantitative data is complemented by sketches of the dynamics driving current reactions to the new policy in a number of provinces and cities. Going beyond the Philippines, this study also provides a comparative dataset on similar forms of deadly police violence for a small set of countries, regions and cities that permits a comparison of past and present Philippines practice. The detailed analysis shows that: • in most, but not all of the various case studies, there has been a long tradition of police-vigilantism, • regions, provinces and cities that have exhibited higher levels of police vigilantism in the past tend to react more strongly to the presidential campaign that legitimized extralegal killings under the pretext of a "legitimate encounter," • those cases with the highest levels of police vigilantism both now and in the past tend to be the most "developed" ones, fulfilling a metropolitan function at either a national or regional level, • there is no link between threats to the police and their willingness to kill suspects in "legitimate encounters," • prior to the present wave of extrajudicial killings, the magnitude of violent "legitimate encounters" was moderate, although they were carried out by clearly vigilante police forces targeting suspects, • while the patterns of "legitimate encounters" have not changed in the current campaign, the number of extra-legal killings has risen dramatically since the election of President Duterte, • Philippines police officers did not have to learn a new practice; they did not have to unlearn firmly established convictions about due process. They transformed an established but sparingly used practice into a key instrument for reducing crime and for strengthening institutions, • local leaders' reactions to the presidential campaign depend to a significant extent on the local leaders' past perceptions of utilizing the police as a force for "social cleansing" and the leaders’ current power base in the face of rising pressure to conform to the central leadership’s expectations. Going beyond empirical analysis of the data on past and present police vigilantism in the Philippines, I maintain that the present administration uses police vigilantism on the national level to simulate a strong state and thereby achieve widespread public acclaim and acquiescence. By establishing the Philippine National Police as his power base, the new president has within a few months successfully hollowed out democratic checks and balances and installed himself as the foremost “boss” at the national level. While forceful personalities are a regular feature of Philippines politics, their power is normally limited by other bosses who contend for power and wealth. Like Ferdinand Marcos before him, Rodrigo Duterte is well on his way to neutralizing this division of powers – the only one that works well in the Philippines during "normal" times. Currently, it seems that the Philippines are on a direct path toward a regime that may be likened to an electoral dictatorship, where a president, through the shrewd manipulation of public discourse and the resulting outstanding public support, and with the help of the national police, is succeeding in subjugating the various political families that make up the Philippines political elite. Details: Frankfurt am Main: Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF) 2016. 43p. Source: Internet Resource: PRIF Report No. 142 : Accessed February 1, 2017 at: https://www.hsfk.de/fileadmin/HSFK/hsfk_publikationen/prif142.pdf Year: 2016 Country: Philippines URL: https://www.hsfk.de/fileadmin/HSFK/hsfk_publikationen/prif142.pdf Shelf Number: 145096 Keywords: Deadly ForceDrug OffendersExtrajudicial KillingsPolice BrutalityPolice Use of ForcePolice ViolenceVigilantism |
Author: Bromwich Group LLC Title: The Durability of Police Reform: The Metropolitan Police Department and Use of Force: 2008-2015 Summary: This report evaluates whether the District of Columbia's Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) remains in compliance with the June 2001 Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between MPD, the District of Columbia, and the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). The 2001 MOA required MPD to adopt a broad set of reforms relating to the use of force by police officers, and to incorporate those reforms into policies, procedures, and training. The goal was to create a culture of accountability and constitutional policing within MPD. Although MPD is currently under no legal obligation to maintain these reforms, they establish meaningful benchmarks for assessing MPD's current management of the use of force. We were asked to undertake this review by the Office of the District of Columbia Auditor (ODCA). This report reflects fieldwork conducted from May through late September 2015 and includes certain use of force data through the end of 2015. We have seen much that is positive in our review of MPD. MPD's command staff remains committed to limiting and managing use of force - and to fair and constitutional policing. MPD has reduced its use of the most serious types of force, including firearms, even during periods of increased crime in the District of Columbia. Importantly, we have seen no evidence that the excessive use of force has reemerged as a problem within MPD. But we have also identified some significant shortcomings that need to be addressed, including changes in the requirements for reporting and investigating use of force that impair MPD's ability to manage use of force, and declines in the quality of use of force investigations. In addition, we found systemic problems, involving both MPD and the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia (USAO), that result in excessive delays in resolving officer-involved fatal shootings. All of this is described in detail in this report. Our review, although limited to MPD, comes at a time of intense national focus on the relationship between local law enforcement agencies and the communities they serve. Within the last two years alone, the use of force policies and practices of police departments across the country - in Ferguson, Baltimore, New York City, Cleveland, Albuquerque, Newark, and, most recently, Chicago - have been the focus of community unrest, DOJ civil rights investigations, and intense media scrutiny. In addition, in December 2014, President Obama created the Task Force on 21st Century Policing with a mandate to examine use of force issues. MPD was one of the first local law enforcement agencies to successfully navigate a reform process initially triggered by profound concerns about its use of force and its management of use of force. Beginning in 1999, MPD experienced a comprehensive, two-year DOJ civil rights investigation focusing on use of force, a binding agreement by MPD and the District of Columbia to implement substantial reforms, and a multi-year period of outside independent monitoring. As far as we know, this review marks the first retrospective examination of its kind - an analysis of the durability of such use of force reforms many years after independent monitoring ended - of any of the law enforcement agencies investigated by DOJ during the period 1994-2004, the first decade during which DOJ had statutory authority to investigate such matters. Because of limitations of time and resources, we did not review all aspects of MPD's continued adherence to the MOA. Instead, we selected issues that we considered among the most significant reforms embodied in the MOA and implemented within MPD. We focused on the adequacy of MPD's use of force policies; MPD's use of force investigations; the operations of MPD's Use of Force Review Board (UFRB); MPD's systems for dealing with at-risk officers; and the operations of MPD's Office of Risk Management, the Department's internal oversight entity. In addition, we reviewed three officer-involved fatal shooting cases, and examined issues related to the alleged "use and potential abuse" of charges for alleged assaults on police officers. The Review Team received excellent cooperation from MPD throughout this project, from our project liaison up to and including Chief Cathy L. Lanier. From the outset, Chief Lanier and her command staff showed strong interest in the results of our work and demonstrated a willingness to promptly address some of the deficiencies we identified. In early December, we circulated a draft of this report to MPD, inviting its comments and its responses to the report's 38 recommendations. We met with Chief Lanier and her staff for approximately four hours on December 16, and received a 42-page written response from MPD on December 22. We believe this process, and MPD's deep engagement with it, have resulted in a better report. Of our 38 recommendations, MPD has said it agrees with and will implement 15, agrees in part with 13, and disagrees with 10 - although of the 10 with which it disagrees, four relate to a new MPD program, and MPD therefore views the recommendations as premature. Details: Washington, DC: Office of the District of Columbia Auditor, 2016. 343p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 6, 2017 at: http://www.dcauditor.org/sites/default/files/Full%20Report_2.pdf Year: 2016 Country: United States URL: http://www.dcauditor.org/sites/default/files/Full%20Report_2.pdf Shelf Number: 146028 Keywords: Civil Rights ViolationsDeadly ForcePolicePolice AccountabilityPolice BrutalityPolice ReformPolice Use of Force |
Author: African American Policy Forum Title: Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women Summary: In 2015 alone, at least six Black women have been killed by or after encounters with police. For instance, just before Freddie Gray's case grabbed national attention, police killed unarmed Mya Hall "a Black transgender woman" on the outskirts of Baltimore. Alleged to be driving a stolen car, Hall took a wrong turn onto NSA property and was shot to death by officers after the car crashed into the security gate and a police cruiser. No action has been taken to date with respect to the officers responsible for her death. In April, police fatally shot Alexia Christian while she was being handcuffed in the back of a police cruiser. And in March in Ventura, California, police officers shot and killed Meagan Hockaday - a young mother of three - within 20 seconds of entering her home in response to a domestic disturbance. Say Her Name responds to increasing calls for attention to police violence against Black women by offering a resource to help ensure that Black women's stories are integrated into demands for justice, policy responses to police violence, and media representations of victims and survivors of police brutality. The brief concludes with recommendations for engaging communities in conversation and advocacy around Black women's experiences of police violence, considering race and gender in policy initiatives to combat state violence, and adopting policies to end sexual abuse and harassment by police officers. Details: New York: African American Policy Forum, 2015. 48p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 8, 2017 at: http://static1.squarespace.com/static/53f20d90e4b0b80451158d8c/t/55a810d7e4b058f342f55873/1437077719984/AAPF_SMN_Brief_full_singles.compressed.pdf Year: 2015 Country: United States URL: http://static1.squarespace.com/static/53f20d90e4b0b80451158d8c/t/55a810d7e4b058f342f55873/1437077719984/AAPF_SMN_Brief_full_singles.compressed.pdf Shelf Number: 146005 Keywords: African AmericansDeadly ForceMinoritiesPolice BrutalityPolice MisconductPolice Use of ForceViolence Against Women |
Author: Amnesty International Title: "If You Are Poor, You Are Killed": Extrajudicial executions in the Philippines' "War on Drugs" Summary: Since President Duterte took office in June 2016, there has been a campaign of violence against alleged drug offenders. More than 7,000 people have been killed, roughly one-third during formal police operations and the rest by unknown shooters. Based on 110 interviews and the documentation of 33 cases, this report shows that many drug-related killings are extrajudicial executions that directly implicate the police. The report also describes how the "war on drugs" has targeted the poor disproportionately. It reveals how at least some unknown shooters are assassins paid by police officers Details: London: AI, 2017. 68p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 15, 2017 at: https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa35/5517/2017/en/ Year: 2017 Country: Philippines URL: https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa35/5517/2017/en/ Shelf Number: 145790 Keywords: Drug OffendersExtrajudicial ExecutionsHuman Rights AbusesPolice BrutalityWar on Drugs |
Author: Phillips, Douglas Title: An Investigation of Police Brutality in News Media: Media Narratives and Narrative Icons as Argumentation and Communal Identity Summary: This dissertation explores the ways in which narratives about decisive events coalesce in news media discourse, and how they function rhetorically. Specifically, this study examines how journalists frame stories about police brutality, how those frames construct versions of public narratives, and how those narrative versions can be used in discourse about issues of civic concern such as support for new community policing policies or opposition to Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law. I show how journalists' choice of semantic frames (e.g., racism, police-community relations, or criminal justice) helps to shape readers' understanding of the events and contributes to the formation of a narrative icon, a word, name, or short phrase that, absent narrative detail, indexes particular versions of a broader cultural narrative. This research is motivated by questions about the reciprocity between prior knowledge, audience expectations, and public discourse, and how those combine to shape or reinforce cultural values and communal identities. To explore these questions, I draw on scholarship in narrative theory, frame semantics, inter-textual analysis, and argument. I analyze over 1,700 newspaper articles published in the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Sentinel, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and New Pittsburgh Courier between 1991 and 2013 concerning incidents of police brutality, including Rodney King and Jonny Gammage, a Black man who died following a traffic stop in Pittsburgh, PA. My findings suggest three primary functions of narratives in news media discourse: as background information, as examples used to establish or illustrate a rule, or as points of comparison. For each of these functions, I consider how journalists' micro-linguistic choices frame the events in line with the values, concerns, and fears of readers. In that way, journalists suggest the most important story elements and thus perpetuate specific ways of thinking about incidents of police brutality. Moreover, as consistent references to specific story elements, these frames contribute to the formation of a narrative icon, which becomes rhetorically available for use in public arguments. In other words, journalists can interpolate the narrative versions indexed by the icon into unrelated stories using discursive constructions such as "the Rodney King incident." When this happens, readers are expected to fill in the missing narrative details by drawing on their background knowledge. The findings of this project have important implications for the study of media discourse, but their broader value lies in what they can tell us about how background knowledge takes shape and is used as a resource in public argument. In particular, critical appraisal of narrative icons suggests that readers are expected to access a trove of cultural knowledge to fully understand news stories and the sociocultural implications of the events described. In doing so, journalists and readers jointly construct and reinforce communal identities and establish credibility. Details: Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon University, 2016. 273p. Source: Internet Resource: Dissertation: Accessed June 17, 2017 at: http://repository.cmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1761&context=dissertations Year: 2018 Country: United States URL: http://repository.cmu.edu/dissertations/722/ Shelf Number: 146222 Keywords: JournalismMediaPolice BrutalityPolice Use of ForcePolice-Community Relations |
Author: Sokwanele Title: "I Can Arrest You": The Zimbabwe Republic Police and Your Rights Summary: The swearing in of Zimbabwe's coalition government on February 11, 2009 took place five months after the signing of the power-sharing agreement and almost a year after the flawed and violence-ridden 2008 elections. In his inauguration speech, the new Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, said that the "culture of entitlement and impunity ... must end." Two years later, in their report of March 2011, titled: "Perpetual Fear - Impunity and Cycles of Violence in Zimbabwe", Human Rights Watch (HRW) wrote that human rights abuses and restoration of the Rule of Law, politically motivated violence and the lack of accountability for abuses remained a serious problem. HRW warned that members of the security forces, ZANU-PF and groups allied to ZANU-PF continued to commit human rights violations, including arbitrary arrests and abductions, beatings, torture and killings of members and supporters of the former opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), and those critical of the ZANU-PF and its officials. Today in Zimbabwe, more than three years into the shaky and widely discredited power-sharing arrangement, arrests are escalating, corruption is rampant, human rights violations are rising once more and the Rule of Law has not been restored. All indicators are there to alert Zimbabweans, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the international community that an increasingly desperate and unpopular ZANU-PF is gearing up for the next election. This report focuses on the risk of arrest at the hands of the partisan Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) under the command of Commissioner-General Augustine Chihuri, who has publicly acknowledged his allegiance to ZANU-PF. Chihuri has served as police head since 1993 and his contract has been renewed by President Mugabe 13 times since 1997. Chihuri is a member of Joint Operations Command (JOC), the junta which continues to control Zimbabwe. In a country where the Rule of Law is no longer operational and the security forces operate with impunity, every citizen is vulnerable. A chance remark in a taxi, at a pub or even at a funeral could lead to arrest and possible incarceration in one of the country's disgracefully maintained jails. Those who stand up for their rights and join demonstrations or canvass for political parties other than ZANU-PF face possible arrest, severe beatings and torture in custody. Bribery and corruption have become rampant. In a survey published by Transparency International in 2011, Zimbabwe ranked 154 out of 182 countries in terms of its level of corruption. The ZRP topped the list as the most corrupt institution and stood out as the biggest recipient of bribes among service providers. The proliferation of roadblocks across Zimbabwe's appallingly maintained road network has lead to growing frustration among road users due to the inevitable delays and the demands for bribes from increasingly brazen police officers. Although one of the most important roles of a roadblock should be to reduce the number of vehicle accidents, their contribution is seen as questionable - and rather as a money-making racket both for the police force per se and also for individual self-enrichment. The controversy surrounding the roadblocks extends beyond bribery and corruption to their more sinister roles during elections: their use as a mechanism for blocking food aid to opposition strongholds, for stopping people injured in election violence from seeking medical help and to prevent opposition officials and activists from canvassing or holding rallies. After explaining the legitimate roles of roadblocks, the report gives advice to citizens on their legal rights and provides recommendations on how to deal with police harassment and implicit or overt requests for bribes. In a section describing corruption within the ZRP as "endemic", the report provides examples in a range that includes plundering stolen properties, collusion with bag snatchers, extorting bribes from taxi drivers, demanding bribes at roadblocks, protection rackets, perverting the ends of justice, setting up diamond syndicates and murdering illegal or unlicenced miners for financial gain. Judges have also criticised police investigations of cases where vital information given to the police by State witnesses has been omitted from formal witness statements produced in court in favour of the defence. Furthermore, ZANU-PF members who have murdered MDC supporters have been freed on bail and remain at liberty. The evidence of good policing is the absence of crime. It must be subject to the Rule of Law, rather than the wishes of a powerful leader or party. It can intervene in the life of citizens only under limited and carefully controlled circumstances - and it is publicly accountable. The report explains the differences between civil policing and political policing. It also defines secret policing, where an authoritarian regime uses the police as an agent of political oppression. Citizens within a police state experience restrictions on their mobility, and on their freedom to express or communicate political or other views - which are subject to police monitoring or enforcement. The police force of Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP), was created by Chapter IX of the (Independence) Constitution of 1979, signed at the Lancaster House Conference. It is governed by the Constitution of Zimbabwe - which has been amended 19 times over the past 33 years - and by the Police Act. The current head of the ZRP, Commissioner-General Augustine Chihuri, has served as police head since 1993 and has had his contract renewed by President Mugabe 13 times since 1997. The ZRP is bound by many international human rights standards. It is also a member of SARPCCO, a regional professional association which is committed to disseminating best practices and raising the standard of policing, including the respect for human rights. Not only is the ZRP guilty of perpetrating gross human rights, with many of the victims being opposition activists and supporters, but it is also guilty of abusing its own members. Zimbabweans and the international community were shocked in June 2009 when a secretly filmed two-minute video on You-Tube showed ZRP recruits being beaten while undergoing 'training' in Harare. Each recruit was forced to lie down and was then beaten by 'trainers' with batons, some more viciously than others, a process reportedly referred to as 'pay day'. The concept of "The Rule of Law", and the differences between "The Rule of Law" and "Rule by Law" are explained, with reference to the Constitution - and to people's rights according to the Constitution. The conclusion warns the ZRP that it faces millions of US dollars worth of law suits from political activists and human rights defenders who are claiming compensation for torture, wrongful arrest or abduction. Furthermore, a South African High Court ruled on May 8, 2012 that the South African authorities must investigate Zimbabwean officials who are accused of involvement in torture and crimes against humanity in Zimbabwe. Details: Zimbabwe: Sokwanele, 2012. 42p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 4, 2017 at: http://acjr.org.za/resource-centre/Sokwanele-report-i-can-arrest-you.pdf Year: 2012 Country: Zimbabwe URL: http://acjr.org.za/resource-centre/Sokwanele-report-i-can-arrest-you.pdf Shelf Number: 146699 Keywords: Human Rights AbusesPolice BehaviorPolice BrutalityPolice CorruptionPolicing |
Author: Human Rights Watch Title: "Like Living in Hell": Police Abuses Against Child and Adult Migrants in Calais Summary: French authorities in Calais have turned a blind eye to widespread reports of police abuse against asylum seekers and other migrants. Police in Calais, particularly riot police, routinely use pepper spray on child and adult migrants in circumstances in which they pose no threat - including while sleeping - on their food, water, clothes, and possessions. Such acts violate the prohibition on inhuman and degrading treatment, as well as international standards on police conduct, which call for police to use force only when it is unavoidable, and then only with restraint, proportionate to circumstances, and for a legitimate law enforcement purpose. Authorities deny charges of police abuse, but Human Rights Watch reached its findings based on consistent and detailed accounts of police abuse by nearly every one of the more than 60 asylum seekers and migrant interviewed in and around Calais in June and July 2017. "Like Living in Hell" also finds that local authorities have responded to the return of migrants to Calais in increasing numbers in 2017 by impeding their access to food, water, and other basic necessities, despite a court ruling that efforts to bar humanitarian distributions by aid groups amounts to inhuman and degrading treatment. Human Rights Watch calls on French authorities to direct police to follow international standards on the use of force, and refrain from conduct that interferes with the delivery of humanitarian assistance. Authorities should also remove obstacles that impede access to refugee protection and ensure that unaccompanied migrant children have full access to appropriate child protection services. Details: New York: HRW, 2017. 42p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 7, 2017 at: https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/france0717_web_3.pdf Year: 2017 Country: France URL: https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/france0717_web_3.pdf Shelf Number: 146752 Keywords: Child Migrants Child Protection Human Rights Abuses Immigration Police BrutalityPolice Misconduct Police Use of Force |
Author: Human Rights Watch Title: "We Do Unreasonable Things Here": Torture and National Security in al-Sisi's Egypt Summary: Torture has long been endemic in Egypt's law enforcement system. Since 2013, when Egypt's military removed the country's former president, Mohamed Morsy, the Interior Ministry's regular police and National Security Agency have used torture on a systematic and widespread basis against perceived dissidents to force them to confess or divulge information or to punish them. "We Do Unreasonable Things Here": Torture and National Security in al-Sisi's Egypt, is based on interviews with former detainees tortured between 2014 and 2016. The report shows how police and National Security officers use nearly identical methods of torture in different parts of the country. In an environment defined by emergency rule, law enforcement officers in Egypt appear to enjoy a free hand to torture and mistreat detainees as they wish. Their actions are almost never questioned by the judges and prosecutors who should be checking such behavior. The report reiterates the conclusion reached by many previous reports by Human Rights Watch and other organizations, going back several decades, that the legal framework criminalizing torture in Egypt remains inadequate and falls far short of Egypt's basic obligations under international law, allowing abusive officers to escape justice. The report recommends that Egypt urgently establish a special prosecutor or inspector general's office to investigate and prosecute those responsible for torture. Absent credible national efforts to confront the torture epidemic, United Nations member states should investigate and, if appropriate, charge Egyptian officers and officials responsible for torture under the principle of universal jurisdiction. Details: New York: HRW, 2017. 80p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 15, 2017 at: https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/egypt0917_web.pdf Year: 2017 Country: Egypt URL: https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/egypt0917_web.pdf Shelf Number: 147329 Keywords: Human Rights AbuseNational SecurityPolice BrutalityTorture |
Author: Johnson, Odis, Jr. Title: Race, Gender, and the Contexts of Unarmed Fatal Interactions with Police Summary: In the post-Ferguson era, public opinion remains divided about the ways that race and gender intersect in relation to law enforcement's use of lethal force. Addressing this tension within research, we explored race-gender differences in the likelihood of being killed while unarmed. More specifically, we identified 1762 fatal interactions with police that occurred over a 20 month time period, and merged them with the nationally representative Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics survey, Uniform Crime Reports data, and census characteristics. Using hierarchical linear models, we find the odds that black Americans will be killed by police when unarmed are nearly 7 to 1-more than double the odds found in research to date-and due primarily to the unarmed status of black women. Details: St. Louis, MO: Washington University in St. Louis, 2018. 21p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 20, 2018 at: https://cpb-us-west-2-juc1ugur1qwqqqo4.stackpathdns.com/sites.wustl.edu/dist/b/1205/files/2018/02/Race-Gender-and-Unarmed-1y6zo9a.pdf Year: 2018 Country: United States URL: https://cpb-us-west-2-juc1ugur1qwqqqo4.stackpathdns.com/sites.wustl.edu/dist/b/1205/files/2018/02/Race-Gender-and-Unarmed-1y6zo9a.pdf Shelf Number: 149534 Keywords: Deadly ForcePolice BrutalityPolice Use of ForceRacial Disprities |
Author: Eguienta, Ophelie Title: Twenty-First Century Police Brutality against African Americans: The Case of Ferguson, Missouri, and the "Black Lives Matter" Movement Summary: African American history is riddled with violence, as early as Africans' very arrival on the continent as slaves. Their fight for freedom became a fight for equality after the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, as the southern states passed segregation laws and racial discrimination, although not institutionalized, remained pervasive in the North. Resulted a century of social, economic, and political inequalities for black people in the entire country, punctuated by lynching, and white supremacist attacks carried in impunity. As the Civil Rights Movement rose in the 1950s, marches and demonstrations for racial equality were met by a virulent opposition, leading to the murders of many civil rights activists and the assassinations of leaders Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. Yet, the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act were passed and effectively made segregation and any other form of racial discrimination illegal. Since then, a variety of policies has been implemented to decrease the opportunity gap between black and white Americans, and, with the election of Barack Obama in 2008, a substantial part of the population has come to believe that racism mostly is an issue of the past, and that equality for African Americans has finally been reached. However for some scholars, this colorblindness has led to another form of blindness about racism, which only has deepened racial inequalities as policies instituted to decrease them have been reduced or abandoned. Yet as the death of an unarmed black young man by a police officer spurred massive protests in the small Missouri city of Ferguson in 2014, the debate on racism in America started again through the notion of a systemic racist police brutality. Police brutality is a societal issue that has been the subject of many studies, by academics but also former officers, who have tried to understand its origins, its extent, its perpetuation, its repercussions on society, and how society reacts to it. Research on racially biased police brutality has also been prolific, especially during the second-half of the twentieth century, as some instances sparked demonstrations and even riots. However, secondary sources are still scarce on the events that followed Michael Brown's death - and thus on the Black Lives Matter movement - since they only happened a few years ago, and at the time, nothing indicated that the protest movement would be lasting and would reach such a scale. I chose to research this issue because even though I have never considered myself to be ignorant of racism and police brutality anywhere in the world, I was deeply shocked by the events that occurred in Ferguson, Mo, in 2014. I remember reading different online newspapers regularly, Le Monde and Le Nouvel Obs for the French ones, the BBC and The Guardian for the British ones, and The New York Times and The Washington Post for the American ones. Indeed, I heard about what had happened through social media at first, and was hoping to have had a distorted version of the facts, as it often happens; and then I was anxious to get different perspectives (namely from other countries), in order not to have too biased sources and try and balance the flow of information available. I closely followed the events for months, and watched the Black Lives Matter movement rise, with astonishment, wonder and fascination. I witnessed demonstrations and protests being organized, support coming from the entire country and the entire world, but also saw the opposition to this tsunami of indignation increase, with various movements such as All Lives Matter, White Lives Matter and Blue Lives Matter. Thus, in order to fully understand the importance and the scale of racist police brutality and the protests that ensued, I decided to make them my research project this year. This thesis explores the factors that led Michael Brown's death to spark a string of nation-wide protests: the context of tensions between police officers and black people, the disproportionate rate at which black people are killed by officers, and the lack of repercussions when these deaths are questionable. It also focuses on the stakes and the impact of the Ferguson protests on society, studying the Black Lives Matter movement - its origins, the novelty in its goal and actions, etc. - as well as the other movements that emerged first on social media to oppose it. This research will help analyze how divided the American population is and how such divisions can be accounted for. In order to assess the relationship between African Americans and the police, it was essential to rely on the multiplicity of secondary sources on African American history, and on police brutality in the United States; the vast number of studies available allowed for a balanced overview. However secondary sources are lacking on the events at the core of the research, namely the anti-police brutality protests that started in 2014. Indeed, because these events are recent, it is complex for scholars to analyze the scope of the BLM movement and the shift in media representation of such events, while they are still occurring. On the other hand, primary sources are abundant: every black and mainstream news outlet covered the protests at length, as did individual people via social media - sharing accounts, pictures and videos of the events as well as their reactions to them, and various organizations issued reports on the situation (and a number of organizations were even created as a result). These sources were confronted and taken with a necessary step back to determine any possible bias. Following the increased news coverage of police killings of black people, many opinion polls have been conducted, which helps establish how divided the American population is on the question of police behavior, but also on the role of the government in this matter. To conduct this research, I relied on secondary sources when establishing the historical context of today's African Americans' place in society, and a mix of primary and secondary sources when studying the racial inequalities that persist, the debate over a postracial society, and the relationship between police officers and black people - i.e. the lack of black people in the police force and its consequences, racial bias, distrust, etc. On the other hand, primary sources were almost exclusively used when dealing with what happened at Ferguson in 2014, and with the BLM movement. Indeed, news articles from various outlets and a few social networks allowed to analyze the social and political repercussions of the protests. The relation between mainstream news and the opinion of most of the population - as they influence each other - was analyzed, especially since the influence that the protests had on the news is relatively unusual. Moreover, a detailed research of the significance of social media in the BLM movement was conducted: given the importance social media have in everyday life nowadays, it seemed relevant to analyze the presence of BLM on Twitter - which is at the origin of the movement - and Facebook - the most used social medium among Americans. Some of the few available secondary sources on the topic have been of great help for this part. The research on Twitter --a social media platform that played an important role in the protests - provided significant pieces of information on this social medium which requires payment to give access to some of its user data. As there were no statistics or data available on the matter, and since Facebook's search engine did not allow for a filtered search, I created a database categorizing the thousands of Facebook groups and pages which concerned Black/All/White/Blue Lives Matter, according to a few criteria (number of people, frequency of posts, etc.). This database enabled a comparative study of these movements on Facebook, and allowed me to articulate theories about their importance. However, this research has limitations, as some more detailed indications could have helped paint a more precise picture: very little information is obtainable about closed groups and there are hidden groups only visible to members; some pieces of information are extremely difficult to retrieve (especially for a single person with a limited amount of time), such as the date of creation of the group/page, the number of active members out of the total amount, and the periods when people joined a group or liked a page. Thus, in order to address the issue of police brutality against African Americans in the twenty-first century, this work will start with a brief presentation of the place occupied by the black community in society through a selection of key events in history and their impact on today's society; the second part will be an overview of police brutality, zooming in on brutality against black people; third, the circumstances of Michael Brown' death and the aftermath will be under scrutiny, from the protests, their representation in the news, and their consequences, to the change of this representation in the media; finally, the BLM ALM WLM and BlueLM movements will be analyzed, alongside the role that social media played in these movements. Details: Toulouse: University of Toulouse II Jean Jaures, 2017. 165p. Source: Internet Resource: Dissertation: Accessed March 27, 2018 at: http://dante.univ-tlse2.fr/4122/1/Eguienta_Oph%C3%A9lieM22017.pdf Year: 2017 Country: United States URL: http://dante.univ-tlse2.fr/4122/1/Eguienta_Oph%C3%A9lieM22017.pdf Shelf Number: 149587 Keywords: African AmericansBlack Lives MatterDeadly ForcePolice BrutalityPolice MisconductPolice Use of ForcePolice-Minority RelationsRacial DiscriminationSocial Media |
Author: Perry, David Title: The Ruderman White Paper On Media Coverage of Law Enforcement Use of Force and Disability: A Media Study (2013-2015) and Overview Summary: Disabled individuals make up a third to half of all people killed by law enforcement officers. Disabled individuals make up the majority of those killed in use-of-force cases that attract widespread attention. This is true both for cases deemed illegal or against policy and for those in which officers are ultimately fully exonerated. The media is ignoring the disability component of these stories, or, worse, is telling them in ways that intensify stigma and ableism. When we leave disability out of the conversation or only consider it as an individual medical problem, we miss the ways in which disability intersects with other factors that often lead to police violence. Conversely, when we include disability at the intersection of parallel social issues, we come to understand the issues better, and new solutions emerge. Contents Disability intersects with other factors such as race, class, gender, and sexuality, to magnify degrees of marginalization and increase the risk of violence. When the media ignores or mishandles a major factor, as we contend they generally do with disability, it becomes harder to effect change. This white paper focuses on the three years of media coverage of police violence and disability since the death of a young man with Down syndrome, named Ethan Saylor, in January 2013. After reviewing media coverage of eight selected cases of police violence against individuals with disabilities, the paper reveals the following patterns in the overall data: - Disability goes unmentioned or is listed as an attribute without context. - An impairment is used to evoke pity or sympathy for the victim. - A medical condition or "mental illness" is used to blame victims for their deaths. - In rare instances, we have identified thoughtful examinations of disability from within its social context that reveal the intersecting forces that lead to dangerous use-of-force incidents. Such stories point the way to better models for policing in the future. We conclude by proposing best practices for reporting on disability and police violence. Details: Boston: Ruderman Family Foundation, 2016. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 19, 2018 at: http://rudermanfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/MediaStudy-PoliceDisability_final-final.pdf Year: 2016 Country: United States URL: http://rudermanfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/MediaStudy-PoliceDisability_final-final.pdf Shelf Number: 149860 Keywords: Disabled PersonsMass MediaMediaPolice BrutalityPolice Use of Force |
Author: Bryan, Tacicia Title: Black Lives Matter Toronto: A Qualitative Study of Twitter's Localized Social Discourse on Systemic Racism Summary: This Major Research Paper examines the Twitter discourse of Black Lives Matter Toronto (BLMTO), a chapter of the Black Lives Matter Movement which addresses issues of racism and police brutality. BLMTO protested in front of police headquarters between April 1st and April 15th, 2016 and used Twitter to document their protest during this time. This paper provides a content and sentiment analysis of 346 tweets collected during this time frame. The analysis of the Twitter content is based on concepts drawn from the scholarly literature on the public sphere, identity and social identity, and framing theory. My findings indicate the following: 1. Black Lives Matter Toronto uses media framing techniques, as well as logical and moral appeals, to build credibility as a strong subaltern counterpublic, an information resource for community building and an influencer online, through sharing relevant statistics, news stories and persuasive rhetoric. 2. BLMTO incorporates calls to action to create publicity and facilitate community mobilization. 3. Key themes in the tweets include the exercise of power in society, the need to build community and create a common sense of right and wrong, and maintaining solidarity Details: Toronto: Ryerson University, 2016. 69p. Source: Internet Resource: Thesis: Accessed April 26, 2018 at: http://digital.library.ryerson.ca/islandora/object/RULA%3A5401 Year: 2016 Country: Canada URL: http://digital.library.ryerson.ca/islandora/object/RULA%3A5401 Shelf Number: 149916 Keywords: Police BrutalityPolice Use of ForceRacial BiasRacial DisparitiesSocial MediaTwitter |
Author: Flanders, Chad Title: Police Use of Deadly Force: State Statutes 30 Years after Garner Summary: The recent rash of police shootings has raised troubling questions about when, if ever, police are justified in using deadly force against a suspect. Some police shootings may simply represent wanton violence. But others may present close cases. How do we decide when a police officer can not only use force, but shoot at a suspect - even shoot to kill? When is a police killing a justifiable homicide, and when is it just a homicide? One place to start in drawing the line between justified and unjustified uses of deadly force is the Supreme Court's 1985 opinion in Tennessee v. Garner. Reading the majority opinion in Garner is a bracing experience. Justice White's extended discussion of the common law standard of police use of force makes clear on many levels that he did not merely want to replace the common law rule: he wanted to bury it. That police could use any amount of force, including deadly force, to "seize" a fleeing felon - the common law rule which at issue in Garner - was not only constitutionally infirm, it made little sense as a policy matter. As powerful as the Garner decision was, it also was an importantly limited one. Garner was a case involving a suit under Section 1983, the federal civil rights statute. In deciding such a suit, the Court has to announce what the constitutional rule is - and so in Garner's lawsuit, the Court had to say what amount of force counted as "reasonable" under the Fourth Amendment. But deciding the constitutional standard for Garner's civil rights suit didn't disturb what the standard had to be for state criminal law prosecutions. States still have the authority to dictate under what circumstances police could justifiably use deadly force, and so avoid punishment under state law. Many states did change their laws after Garner, so compelling was Garner's reasoning. This essay updates the count of states who still hang on to the common law rule in their statutes, thirty years after Garner and by the same token, records the number of states who have changed their laws. The structure of our essay is as follows: after a recapitulation of Garner - including a discussion of the ambiguity of what is ultimately its holding (Part I) - we turn to our updated count of states that still retain the common law rule (Part II). Part III explains why, contrary to the belief of many, the decision in Garner did not require states to abandon the common law rule. Part IV looks at the most recent legislative efforts to reform the use of police force statute in Missouri. Details: St. Louis, MO: Saint Louis University - School of Law, 2016. 56p. Source: Internet Resource: Saint Louis U. Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2016-1: Accessed April 27, 2018 at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2725926 Year: 2016 Country: United States URL: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2725926 Shelf Number: 149930 Keywords: Deadly ForcePolice BrutalityPolice Use of ForceTennessee v. Garner |
Author: New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board Title: A Mutated Rule: Lack of Enforcement in the Face of Persistent Chokehold Incidents in New York City Summary: For more than 20 years, the NYPD Patrol Guide has prohibited the use of chokeholds, relying on a Police Department rule that unequivocally forbids any pressure to the neck, throat or windpipe that may inhibit breathing. This rule was plainly intended to prohibit all chokeholds. As defined, chokeholds, though not illegal, are unambiguously prohibited by Department policy. This report reveals that officers have continued to perform chokeholds and, based on the complaints the CCRB received from the public, the use of chokeholds appears to be increasing despite the Patrol Guide prohibition. It also reveals that this crystal clear prohibition has been degraded over the course of the last decade. Put simply, during the last decade, the NYPD disciplinary decisions in NYPD administrative trials of chokehold allegations failed to enforce the clear mandate of the Patrol Guide chokehold rule. In response to these decisions which failed to hold offending officers accountable, the CCRB and NYPD Department Advocate's Office failed to charge officers with chokehold violations pursuant to the mandate of the Patrol Guide chokehold rule. In essence, in their respective charging decisions, the CCRB and the Department Advocate redefined a "chokehold" to require force to the neck during which an officer actually and substantially interfered with a complainant's breathing rather than "pressure" to the neck which "may" interfere with breathing. In this respect the chokehold rule "mutated" to adapt to the NYPD disciplinary process, rather than the disciplinary process following the NYPD rule. This pragmatic redefinition of the rule in response to the NYPD's systematic refusal to impose discipline in all but the most severe chokehold cases, evolved into an unwritten, much less protective definition: actual and sustained interference with breathing was substituted for the Patrol Guide's clear and unequivocal prohibition of any pressure to the neck which "may" inhibit breathing. In essence, inadequate disciplinary practices transplanted the heart of the chokehold rule during a period in which, as the number of chokehold complaints suggests, chokehold incidents were increasing. The NYPD's blanket prohibition of chokeholds should be restored and uniformly enforced. Details: New York: The Civilian Complaint Review Board, 2014. 155p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 24, 2018 at: Lack of Enforcement in the Face of Persistent Chokehold Incidents in New York City Year: 2014 Country: United States URL: Lack of Enforcement in the Face of Persistent Chokehold Incidents in New York City Shelf Number: 150359 Keywords: ChokeholdsCitizen ComplaintsPolice AccountabilityPolice BrutalityPolice DiscliplinePolice Use of Force |
Author: Goodwin, Alexandra Title: Police Brutality Bonds: How Wall Street Profits from Police Violence Summary: As the costs of police misconduct rise, cities and counties across the United States are going into debt to pay for it. Often this debt is in the form of bond borrowing. When cities or counties issue bonds to pay these costs, banks and other firms collect fees for the services they provide, and investors collect interest. The use of bonds to pay for settlements and judgments greatly increases the burden of policing costs on taxpayers, while producing a profit for banks and investors. Using bonds to pay for settlements or judgments can nearly double the costs of the original settlement. All of this is paid for by taxpayers. We call the bonds used to cover police related settlement and judgment costs "police brutality bonds", because they quite literally allow banks and wealthy investors to profit from police violence. This is a transfer of wealth from communities-especially over-policed communities of color-to Wall Street and wealthy investors. The companies profiting from police brutality bonds include well known institutions like Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of America, as well as smaller regional banks and other firms. In our research into the use of police brutality bonds, we found that cities and counties across the United States issue bonds to pay for police brutality settlements and judgments. The cities range from giant metropolises such as Los Angeles to smaller cities like Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Our report includes details on police brutality bonds in twelve cities and counties, including five in-depth case studies: Chicago, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Cleveland, and Lake County, Indiana. Details: s.l.: Action Center on Race & The Economy, 2018. 40p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 10, 2018 at: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58d8a1bb3a041137d463d64f/t/5b330815562fa7d3babc1fd4/1530071089421/Police+Brutality+Bonds+-+Jun+2018.pdf Year: 2018 Country: United States URL: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58d8a1bb3a041137d463d64f/t/5b330815562fa7d3babc1fd4/1530071089421/Police+Brutality+Bonds+-+Jun+2018.pdf Shelf Number: 150805 Keywords: Police BrutalityPolice Brutality BondsPolice MisconductPolice Use of Force |
Author: Southern Poverty Law Center Title: Racial Profiling in Louisiana: Unconstitutional and Counterproductive Summary: Racial profiling - the unconstitutional practice of law enforcement targeting individuals due to the color of their skin - remains an egregious and common form of discrimination and continues to taint the legitimacy of policing in the United States. It is both pervasive and hard to prove. Stopping an individual merely for "driving while black" violates the U.S. and Louisiana constitutions, but few cases have been brought in state or federal courts in Louisiana to challenge racially discriminatory policing. Racial profiling is also problematic from a public safety perspective because it undercuts effective police work by damaging trust in law enforcement. Racial profiling is likely a major driver of Louisiana's high incarceration rate. Although Oklahoma has now surpassed Louisiana as the world's No. 1 incarcerator, Louisiana remains a close second. By expanding the pool of people who come under police surveillance, racial profiling leads police to refer a disproportionate number of people of color for criminal prosecution, often for low-level crimes such as drug possession. Police officers' disproportionate focus on people of color means that they are disproportionately ticketed, arrested, prosecuted, and ultimately imprisoned. In 2016, for instance, black adults comprised only 30.6% of Louisiana's adult population but 53.7% of adults who were arrested and 67.5% of adults in prison. Overall, black adults are 4.3 times as likely as white adults to be serving a felony prison sentence in Louisiana. The SPLC has found large racial disparities in arrest rates across the state that would be difficult to explain by different rates of crime commission alone. For example, in 2016, black people were 2.9 times as likely as white people to be arrested for marijuana possession in Louisiana, despite evidence that black people and white people use marijuana at similar rates. The disparities are much greater in some areas: A black person was six times as likely as a white person to be arrested by the Baton Rouge Police Department (BRPD) for marijuana possession in 2016. Gretna, previously labeled the "arrest capital of the United States" for its sky-high arrest rate, continues to target black people disproportionately for arrests: In 2016, black people comprised two-thirds of people arrested in Gretna but only one-third of the city's population.15 And 67% of the arrests of black people in Gretna were for the nonviolent offenses of drug possession (not sale), drunkenness, disorderly conduct, and other offenses that the FBI does not track due to their relatively minor nature. The death of Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old black man, at the hands of two white BRPD officers on July 5, 2016 highlighted decades-long tensions in Louisiana's capital over police treatment of Louisianans of color, especially African Americans. From the department's crackdown on civil rights marchers in the 1960s, to its illegal searches and arrests in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (which raised alarm bells among out-of-state police officers dispatched to the city to assist with public safety), to its militarized response to the protests over Alton Sterling's death,20 the BRPD has consistently over-policed the city's black community and violated the First Amendment rights of people who speak out against police brutality. If the BRPD ever hopes to resolve these longstanding tensions and earn the trust and respect of the city's black residents, who comprise a majority of its population, combatting racial profiling will be an essential first step. Notwithstanding the well-known harms of racial profiling in Baton Rouge and across the state, both for over-policed communities and for public safety more generally, a surprising number of Louisiana police departments do not have policies to address it. The SPLC's investigation revealed that more than a third of the state's law enforcement agencies lack any policy on racial profiling. And the policies that do exist usually fail to explain clearly to officers what racial profiling is and what conduct is prohibited. While the much-needed sentencing reforms Louisiana began implementing in 2017 are projected to reduce the state's prison population by 10% over the next 10 years, resulting in savings of $262 million, none of the reforms focus on the disproportionate policing of Louisianans of color. Eliminating racial profiling must be a priority if Louisiana wants to shed its status as one of the world's most prolific incarcerators. To address these harms, Louisiana law enforcement agencies must adopt and enforce effective policies against racial profiling and take other steps to ensure constitutional policing. For their parts, the Legislature and the Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Criminal Justice should institute a host of reforms to curb this unconstitutional and counterproductive practice. Details: Montgomery, AL: SPLC, 2018. 52p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 20, 2018 at: https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/leg_special_report_racial_final.pdf Year: 2018 Country: United States URL: https://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/leg_special_report_racial_final.pdf Shelf Number: 151597 Keywords: Driving While BlackPolice BrutalityRacial BiasRacial DiscriminationRacial DisparitiesRacial Profiling in Law Enforcement |
Author: U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Title: Police Use of Force: An Examination of Modern Policing Practices Summary: The relationship between law enforcement and many communities in the U.S. is fraught and challenging, particularly for those who experience violent crimes coupled with intensive police presence and surveillance. A number of recent developments suggest a renewed commitment to resolving this issue. For the first time in decades, the country has witnessed ubiquitous and sustained protests by young people, communities of color, and other impacted populations in cities all across the country. Further, in hope of fostering better community-police relationships, many law enforcement and city officials around the country have started implementing reform strategies to allay communities' concerns about actual or perceived unfair and unequal policing. Reform advocates often acknowledge the positive steps that some jurisdictions are undertaking, but reported cases of excessive force remain a national concern. Furthermore, the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the fundamental rights of both law enforcement and the communities they serve, whose rights are protected under the Fourth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. While allegations that some police force is excessive, unjustified, and discriminatory continue and proliferate, current data regarding police use of force is insufficient to determine if instances are occurring more frequently. The public continues to hear competing narratives by law enforcement and community members, and the hard reality is that available national and local data is flawed and inadequate. A central contributing factor is the absence of mandatory federal reporting and standardized reporting guidelines. Former FBI Director James Comey stated that: Not long after riots broke out in Ferguson [in 2014], I asked my staff to tell me how many people shot by police were African-American in this country. I wanted to see trends. I wanted to see information. They couldn't give it to me, and it wasn't their fault. Demographic data regarding officer-involved shootings is not consistently reported to us . . . [b]ecause reporting is voluntary, our data is incomplete and therefore, in the aggregate, unreliable. Until recently, data on officer-involved shootings were extremely rare; moreover, the data that are available is most frequently compiled by grassroots organizations, nonprofits, or media sources.5 Data are not only lacking regarding fatal police shootings, but data regarding all use of force are scant and incomplete: Data on lower level uses of force, which happen more frequently than officer-involved shootings, are virtually non-existent. This is due, in part, to the fact that most police precincts don't explicitly collect data on use of force, and in part, to the fact that even when the data is hidden in plain view within police narrative accounts of interactions with civilians, it is exceedingly difficult to extract. Without accurate data on police use of force, allegations by community members and actions by law enforcement not only sow distrust among communities and the police, making policing more dangerous, but also jeopardize public safety. Research consistently shows that positive relationships between community members and law enforcement are essential for safer communities. Citizens are more likely to aid in crime reduction and partner with police if they believe that law enforcement are engaging in equitable treatment and are impartial towards all. Communities are calling for greater transparency and accountability on the part of the police. Similarly, law enforcement officials are calling for better data on current practices, and instituting policies aimed at reducing bias and improving community relationships. All citizens in every community in this country live subject to police enforcement practices, and therefore benefit from effective, constitutionally sound police practices. Against this backdrop, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (Commission) investigated rates of police use of force; questioned whether rates and instantiations of that use of force violate the civil rights of persons of color, persons with disabilities, LGBT communities, and low-income persons; and evaluated promising or proven policies and practices worth replicating to minimize unnecessary use of force and the perception and reality of discrimination in police use of force. The Commission held a briefing on April 20, 2015, on police practices and the use of deadly force in the U.S. The panels consisted of community leaders and police reform advocates, law enforcement and court officials, scholars, and legal experts. These experts convened to discuss the longstanding and emergent causes of the recent police-involved fatal shootings of people of color and other disadvantaged populations. Since 2015, several of the Commission's state advisory committees have also investigated police practices, and testimony and findings from their briefings are incorporated throughout the report. No single solution stands out as an immediate fix to the complex problem of police unauthorized use of force. After examining the literature and data available regarding police use of force in Chapters 1-3, the Commission highlights the following findings and recommendations, discussed in full in Chapter 4: Highlighted Findings: Police officers have the difficult and admirable job of providing crucial services to the communities they protect and serve. Their job sometimes puts them in harm's way and may require the use of force. Accordingly, police officers must operate with the highest standards of professionalism and accountability. Every community resident should be able to live, work, and travel confident in an expectation that interactions with police officers will be fair, operate consistent with constitutional norms, and be guided by public safety free from bias or discrimination. Unfortunately, today, too many communities are not confident in that expectation and do not trust fair police-community interactions. Communities have demanded reforms to foster better community-police relations and to prevent unjustified and excessive police uses of force. Accurate and comprehensive data regarding police uses of force is generally not available to police departments or the American public. No comprehensive national database exists that captures rates of police use of force. The best available evidence reflects high rates of use of force nationally, and increased likelihood of police use of force against people of color, people with disabilities, LGBT people, people with mental health concerns, people with low incomes, and those at the intersections of these groups. Lack of training and lack of funding for training leave officers and the public at risk. Critical training areas include tactical training, de-escalation techniques, understanding cultural differences and anti-bias mechanisms, as well as strategies for encounters with individuals with physical and mental disabilities. Repeated and highly publicized incidents of police use of force against persons of color and people with disabilities, combined with a lack of accurate data, lack of transparency about policies and practices in place governing use of force, and lack of accountability for noncompliance foster a perception that police use of force in communities of color and the disability community is unchecked, unlawful, and unsafe. Details: Washington, DC: The Commission, 2018. 230p. Source: Internet Resource: Briefing Report: Accessed January 23, 2019 at: https://www.usccr.gov/pubs/2018/11-15-Police-Force.pdf Year: 2018 Country: United States URL: https://www.usccr.gov/pubs/2018/11-15-Police-Force.pdf Shelf Number: 154381 Keywords: Deadly ForcePolice AccountabilityPolice BrutalityPolice Decision MakingPolice MisconductPolice Use of ForcePolice-Citizen InteractionsPolice-Community Relationships |
Author: Wetchler, Everett Title: Fact Sheet: Officer-Involved Shootings and Custodial Deaths in Texas Summary: Since 2005, there have been 8,730 deaths of civilians in the custody of Texas law enforcement. In the past decade, officer-involved shootings in Texas have been on the rise. Data obtained from the Texas Office of the Attorney General shows that since Sept. 1, 2015, there have been 466 civilians shot by Texas law enforcement, and 78 officers have been shot. Officers involved in shootings skew younger and male than the general population of Texas law enforcement officers. Overall, most deaths that occur in Texas law enforcement custody are due to natural causes, but that nearly half of all deaths of inmates housed alone in a jail cell are suicides. Details: Austin, Texas: Texas Justice Initiative, 2018. 9p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 17, 2019 at: http://texasjusticeinitiative.org/publications/ Year: 2018 Country: United States URL: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1d2UBGXA_5YSv6TdcTZLrGe2X3zUBU3QR/view Shelf Number: 154986 Keywords: Deaths in CustodyJailOfficer Involved FatalitiesOfficer Involved ShootingsPolice Accountability Police BrutalityPolice ShootingsPolice Use of Deadly ForcePolice Use of Force Police-Citizen Encounters Suicide |
Author: Krieger, Nancy Title: Police Killings and police Deaths Are Public Health Data and Can Be Counted Summary: Summary Points - During the past year, the United States has experienced major controversies-and civil unrest-regarding the endemic problem of police violence and police deaths. - Although deaths of police officers are well documented, no reliable official US data exist on the number of persons killed by the police, in part because of long-standing and well-documented resistance of police departments to making these data public. - These deaths, however, are countable, as evidenced by "he Counted," a website launched on June 1, 2015, by the newspaper The Guardian, published in the United Kingdom, which quickly revealed that by June 9, 2015, over 500 people in the US had been killed by the police since January 1, 2015, twice what would be expected based on estimates from the US Federal Bureau of Intelligence (FBI). - Law-enforcement-related deaths, of both persons killed by law enforcement agents and also law enforcement agents killed in the line of duty, are a public health concern, not solely a criminal justice concern, since these events involve mortality and affect the well-being of the families and communities of the deceased; therefore, law-enforcement- related deaths are public health data, not solely criminal justice data. - We propose that law-enforcement-related deaths be treated as a notifiable condition, which would allow public health departments to report these data in real-time, at the local as well as national level, thereby providing data needed to understand and prevent the problem. Details: PLoS Medicine, 2015. 7p, Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 11, 2019 at: https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1001915&type=printable Year: 2015 Country: United States URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1001915&type=printable Shelf Number: 155359 Keywords: Deadly ForcePolice BrutalityPolice ShootingsPolice Use of ForcePublic Health Data |
Author: Feldman, Justin M. Title: Quantifying underreporting of law-enforcement-related death in United States Vital Statistics and News Media-Based Data Sources: A Capture-Recapture Analysis Summary: Prior research suggests that United States governmental sources documenting the number of law-enforcement-related deaths (i.e., fatalities due to injuries inflicted by law enforcement officers) undercount these incidents. The National Vital Statistics System (NVSS), administered by the federal government and based on state death certificate data, identifies such deaths by assigning them diagnostic codes corresponding to "egal intervention" in accordance with the International Classification of Diseases-10th Revision (ICD-10). Newer, nongovernmental databases track law-enforcement-related deaths by compiling news media reports and provide an opportunity to assess the magnitude and determinants of suspected NVSS underreporting. Our a priori hypotheses were that underreporting by the NVSS would exceed that by the news media sources, and that underreporting rates would be higher for decedents of color versus white, decedents in lower versus higher income counties, decedents killed by non-firearm (e.g., Taser) versus firearm mechanisms, and deaths recorded by a medical examiner versus coroner. Details: PLOS Medicine, 2017. 20p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 12, 2019 at: https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1002399&type=printable Year: 2017 Country: United States URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1002399&type=printable Shelf Number: 155374 Keywords: Deadly Force Media and Crime Police BrutalityPolice Shootings Police Use of Force |