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Date: November 22, 2024 Fri
Time: 11:39 am
Time: 11:39 am
Results for police-minority relations
6 results foundAuthor: Smith, Bec Title: ‘Boys, You Wanna Give Me Some Action?’ Interventions into Policing of Racialised Communities in Melbourne Summary: This report examines African young people’s experiences of policing practices across three regions of Melbourne: the City of Greater Dandenong, Flemington and Braybrook. The report particularly examines African young people’s experience of ‘community policing’ activities in these areas. Policing has been consistently identified as one of the biggest issues confronting African young people across Australia. Despite this fact, this report highlights a vast gap between what African young people have to say about these issues and public discourse about these issues. This report brings to the fore the stories and analyses of African young people whose lives are heavily affected by policing. Policing renders visible broader social tensions to do with race and poverty. As such, an examination of policing can help us understand the nature of complex, broader issues. Details: Melbourne, AUS: Fitzroy Legal Service, Inc., 2012.40p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 10, 2013 at: http://www.fitzroy-legal.org.au/cb_pages/files/LegalAid_RacialAdol_FA2.pdf Year: 2012 Country: Australia URL: http://www.fitzroy-legal.org.au/cb_pages/files/LegalAid_RacialAdol_FA2.pdf Shelf Number: 129611 Keywords: Community PolicingPolice-Community Relations (Melbourne, Australia)Police-Minority Relations |
Author: Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research Title: Law Enforcement and Violence: The Divide Between Black and White Americans Summary: The difficult relationship between the police and blacks in the United States is evident from the results of a recent Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey. The poll highlights a number of racial divisions in Americans' attitudes toward law enforcement and the criminal justice system. However, the survey finds agreement across racial groups on many of the causes of police violence. It also reveals a broad consensus among the public that a number of policy changes could reduce tensions between minorities and police and limit violence against civilians. The nationwide poll was collected July 17 to 19 using the AmeriSpeak Omnibus, the probability-based panel of NORC at the University of Chicago. Online and telephone interviews using landlines and cell phones were conducted with 1,223 adults, including 311 blacks who were sampled at a higher rate than their proportion of the population for reasons of analysis. Three Things You Should Know From The AP-NORC Center's Poll on Law Enforcement and Violence Black Americans are nearly four times as likely as whites to describe violence against civilians by police officers as an extremely or very serious problem. More than 80 percent of blacks say police are too quick to use deadly force and they are more likely to use it against a black person. Two-thirds of whites label police use of deadly force as necessary and nearly 6 in 10 say race is not a factor in decisions to use force. There is support among both blacks and whites for many changes in policies and procedures that could be effective in reducing tensions between law enforcement and minorities and limiting police violence against civilians. For example, 71 percent say body cameras on police would be an effective deterrent to police aggression and 52 percent think community policing programs would help reduce the friction in minority communities. Details: Chicago: The Associated Press and NORC, 17p. Source: Internet Resource: Issue Brief: Accessed August 29, 2016 at: http://www.apnorc.org/PDFs/Police%20Violence/Issue%20Brief_PoliceFinal.pdf Year: 2015 Country: United States URL: http://www.apnorc.org/PDFs/Police%20Violence/Issue%20Brief_PoliceFinal.pdf Shelf Number: 140064 Keywords: Police Use of ForcePolice-Minority RelationsPublic AttitudesPublic Opinion |
Author: Morin, Rich Title: Behind the Badge: Amid protests and calls for reform, how police view their jobs, key issues and recent fatal encounters between blacks and police Summary: Police work has always been hard. Today police say it is even harder. In a new Pew Research Center national survey conducted by the National Police Research Platform, majorities of police officers say that recent high-profile fatal encounters between black citizens and police officers have made their jobs riskier, aggravated tensions between police and blacks, and left many officers reluctant to fully carry out some of their duties. The wide-ranging survey, one of the largest ever conducted with a nationally representative sample of police, draws on the attitudes and experiences of nearly 8,000 policemen and women from departments with at least 100 officers. It comes at a crisis point in America's relationship with the men and women who enforce its laws, precipitated by a series of deaths of black Americans during encounters with the police that have energized a vigorous national debate over police conduct and methods. Within America's police and sheriff's departments, the survey finds that the ramifications of these deadly encounters have been less visible than the public protests, but no less profound. Three-quarters say the incidents have increased tensions between police and blacks in their communities. About as many (72%) say officers in their department are now less willing to stop and question suspicious persons. Overall, more than eight-in-ten (86%) say police work is harder today as a result of these high-profile incidents. At the same time that black Americans are dying in encounters with police, the number of fatal attacks on officers has grown in recent years. About nine-in-ten officers (93%) say their colleagues worry more about their personal safety - a level of concern recorded even before a total of eight officers died in separate ambush-style attacks in Dallas and Baton Rouge last July. The survey also finds that officers remain deeply skeptical of the protests that have followed deadly encounters between police and black citizens. Two-thirds of officers (68%) say the demonstrations are motivated to a great extent by anti-police bias; only 10% in a separate question say protesters are similarly motivated by a genuine desire to hold police accountable for their actions. Some two-thirds characterize the fatal encounters that prompted the demonstrations as isolated incidents and not signs of broader problems between police and the black community - a view that stands in sharp contrast with the assessment of the general public. In a separate Pew Research Center survey of U.S. adults, 60% say these incidents are symptoms of a deeper problem. A look inside the nation's police departments reveals that most officers are satisfied with their department as a place to work and remain strongly committed to making their agency successful. Still, about half (53%) question whether their department's disciplinary procedures are fair, and seven-in-ten (72%) say that poorly performing officers are not held accountable. Details: Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 2017. 97p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 26, 2018 at: https://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2017/01/06171402/Police-Report_FINAL_web.pdf Year: 2017 Country: United States URL: https://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2017/01/06171402/Police-Report_FINAL_web.pdf Shelf Number: 149577 Keywords: Deadly ForcePolice AccountabilityPolice ReformPolice Use of ForcePolice-Citizen InteractionsPolice-Minority Relations |
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: Amnesty International Netherlands Title: Police and Minority Groups Summary: In 2016, PHRP finalized the third paper of the short paper series on Police and Minority Groups. Police have a duty to protect people against crime, and this includes protection against crime motivated by discrimination. They are furthermore obliged not to commit any acts of discrimination themselves in carrying out their law enforcement duties. However, in many instances law enforcement officials fail in both regards: they can sometimes have the role of the perpetrator, actively discriminating for example by means of ethnic profiling, harassment, or through the excessive use of force against certain groups, or they fail to effectively protect people from crimes motivated by discrimination ("hate crimes") or to investigate such crimes. Any such conduct has damaging consequences. In a specific situation, it leads to a violation of the human rights of the person(s) concerned. On a wider scale, it leads to the loss of confidence in police by minority groups, fostering a climate of mutual mistrust or even hostility that can be self-reinforcing. There are, however, solutions and ways to address these issues, and good practices can be found in numerous countries and contexts to improve the relationship between police and minority groups. The PHRP team looked at a variety of European countries, to outline and analyse some of the most common issues as well as to introduce possible solutions and examples of good practice on how to counter the problem. To that end, the paper addresses some general considerations about the relationship between police and minority groups as well as specific issues that are common concerns in the interaction between police and minority groups, namely hate crimes, ethnic profiling and preventing and addressing discriminatory police misconduct. Details: Amsterdam: Amnesty International, 2016. 58p. Source: Internet Resource: Police and Human Rights Programme - Short paper series No. 3: Accessed April 4, 2018 at: https://www.amnesty.nl/actueel/short-paper-series-no-3-police-and-minority-groups Year: 2016 Country: Netherlands URL: https://www.amnesty.nl/actueel/short-paper-series-no-3-police-and-minority-groups Shelf Number: 149684 Keywords: Minority GroupsPolice MisconductPolice-Citizen InteractionsPolice-Community RelationsPolice-Minority Relations |
Author: Police Executive Research Forum Title: Operational Strategies to Build Police-Community Trust and Reduce Crime in Minority Communities: The Minneapolis Cedar-Riverside Exploratory Policing Study Summary: The Police Executive Research Forum (PERF), the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), and the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) designed, implemented, and evaluated a three-anda-half-year project that took place in the Cedar-Riverside area of Minneapolis that explored a new approach to policing in minority communities. The project's approach is built on the foundational concepts of procedural justice and legitimacy. The Cedar-Riverside neighborhood provided a unique laboratory for testing the approach in a challenging, real-world setting. Cedar-Riverside has the largest population of East African (primarily Somali) immigrants in the United States, largely resulting from the influx of refugees entering the U.S. in the 1990s. Many residents still speak their native language and follow traditional culture and customs from their homeland. Furthermore, residents' perceptions of government and particularly the police have been tainted by the corruption and abuse these refugees witnessed or experienced in their native Somalia and other countries. Fear and misunderstanding between East African residents and the criminal justice system in Minneapolis (especially the police) have been and continue to be major challenges. The objective of this project was to test the idea that crime prevention and enforcement efforts of police departments are strengthened when the police actively strive to improve their relationship with the community by using every interaction as an opportunity to demonstrate civil, unbiased, fair, and respectful policing. Given the diversity and unique challenges of Cedar-Riverside, it is believed that if the concepts of procedural justice and legitimacy can be successfully implemented there, they can be applied in a broad range of other communities throughout the United States. Initially conceived as a police-community project only, it became apparent early on that to fully implement and test the principles of procedural justice and legitimacy, other elements of the Minneapolis justice system would need to be included as well. MPD's partners in this effort included not only the Cedar-Riverside community, but also the Minneapolis City Attorney's Office, Hennepin County Attorney's Office, and Hennepin County Department of Community Corrections and Rehabilitation (probation). In addition, BJA and PERF brought in two nationally-recognized consultants to advise on the project: Dr. George Kelling, co-author of the "Broken Windows" model and renowned police researcher, and Dr. Tom Tyler, Professor of Law and Psychology at Yale Law School and a leading advocate for applying the principles of procedural justice to policing. This collaborative team designed, implemented, and evaluated evidence-based crime reduction tactics in the Cedar-Riverside area, resulting in a system-wide prototype that we believe can be replicated in other areas Details: Washington, DC; PERF, 2017. 96p. Source: Internet Resource: Critical Issues in Policing Series: Accessed April 12, 2018 at: http://www.policeforum.org/assets/MinneapolisCedarRiverside.pdf Year: 2017 Country: United States URL: http://www.policeforum.org/assets/MinneapolisCedarRiverside.pdf Shelf Number: 149790 Keywords: Evidence-Based PolicingImmigrant CommunitiesPolice LegitimacyPolice-Citizen InteractionsPolice-Community RelationsPolice-Minority Relations |