Weaponized Empathy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Naomi Murakawa
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Community Relations ◽  
Black Communities ◽  
Racial Reconciliation ◽  
Truth Telling ◽  
Community Oriented Policing ◽  
History Of ◽  
Current Reform ◽  
Police Community Relations ◽  
Post Civil Rights

This chapter traces the history of calls for “racial reconciliation” in policing and, in so doing, identifies the potential pitfalls of current reform efforts. New proposals for “racial reconciliation” fit within an old architecture of policing reform, extending from the pursuit of stable police “race relations” in the 1950s, to healthy “police-community relations” in the late 1960s, and to proactive “community-oriented policing” of the 1990s. Tracing this post–civil rights history of racial reconciliation in policing, Naomi Murakawa identifies potential dangers that lurk within well-intentioned efforts to reconcile police and black communities through truth-telling forums and procedural justice. Murakawa concludes that the language of “racial reconciliation” demands reform but resists normative commitments, effectively translating the potentially transformative work of Black Lives Matter into a set of technocratic, proceduralist fixes with an air of emotional sensitivity.

A Long, Long Way

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Greg Garrett
Keyword(s):  
People Of Color ◽  
Racial Reconciliation ◽  
Cultural Narratives ◽  
Truth Telling ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
The Past ◽  
Hollywood Films ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Race And Culture

Hollywood films are perhaps the most powerful storytellers in American history, and their depiction of race and culture has helped to shape the way people around the world respond to race and prejudice. Over the past one hundred years, films have moved from the radically prejudiced views of people of color to the depiction of people of color by writers and filmmakers from within those cultures. In the process, we begin to see how films have depicted negative versions of people outside the white mainstream, and how film might become a vehicle for racial reconciliation. Religious traditions offer powerful correctives to our cultural narratives, and this work incorporates both narrative truth-telling and religious truth-telling as we consider race and film and work toward reconciliation. By exploring the hundred-year period from The Birth of a Nation to Get Out, this work acknowledges the racist history of America and offers the possibility of hope for the future.

#BlackLivesMatter: Remembering Mark Duggan and David Oluwale in Contemporary British Plays

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-86
Author(s):  
Lynette Goddard
Keyword(s):  
Black Men ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Political Rhetoric ◽  
Community Relations ◽  
The Political ◽  
Inner Cities ◽  
History Of ◽  
Police Shooting ◽  
Police Community Relations ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractThis paper examines two British plays that respond to cases in which the police have been implicated in the deaths of black men. Gillian Slovo’s The Riots (Tricycle Theatre, 2011) uses interviews from witnesses and politicians to dissect the events leading up to and during the Tottenham riots that followed in the wake of the fatal police shooting of Mark Duggan by police on 4 August 2011 and spread to other inner cities in England over the following five nights. I examine how the first half portrays the local community’s concerns and locates the breakout of riots within a longer history of tense police-community relations in Tottenham, whereas the second half focuses on the political rhetoric surrounding the spread of rioting throughout England, which means that Mark Duggan disappears from the narrative. Oladipo Agboluaje’s adaptation of Kester Aspden’s The Hounding of David Oluwale (Eclipse Theatre, 2009) effectively uses dramatic strategies to remember the life of 38-year old Nigerian David Oluwale whose body was retrieved from the River Aire in Leeds on 4 May 1969 after allegedly last seen being chased towards the river by two police officers two weeks earlier. I explore the effectiveness of both plays as memorializations of black lives and consider how they contribute to ongoing debates about the relationship between black men and the police in Britain. #BlackLivesMatter #BlackPlaysMatter

Body Cameras and Policing

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryce Elling Peterson ◽  
Daniel S. Lawrence
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Community Relations ◽  
Privacy Concerns ◽  
The Public ◽  
The People ◽  
Citizen Complaints ◽  
Police Community Relations ◽  
The Impact

Body-worn cameras (BWCs) are small devices that police officers can affix to their person—in a head-, shoulder-, or chest-mounted position—that can audio and video record their interactions with community members. BWCs have received strong support from the public and, in recent years, widespread buy-in from police leadership and officers because of their ability to improve accountability and transparency and enhance the collection of evidence. Implementation guidelines recommend that officers activate their BWCs during each officer–citizen interaction and inform the people they encounter that they are being recorded. Early research on this technology found that officers equipped with body cameras were significantly less likely to engage in force and receive citizen complaints. However, more recent studies with larger samples have had mixed findings about the impact of body cameras on use of force, citizen complaints, and other police activities and behaviors. Numerous legal and ethical considerations are associated with BWCs, including their implications for privacy concerns and public disclosure. However, police officials, policymakers, civil rights groups, and the public must continue to weigh these privacy concerns against the potential for BWCs to enhance police accountability and transparency. Future scholarship should focus on the degree to which BWCs can improve police–community relations and yield valuable evidence for both criminal cases and internal investigations.

Racial Profiling and Policing Black Communities

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Kirven
Keyword(s):  
Job Performance ◽  
Black Males ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Racial Profiling ◽  
Community Relations ◽  
Contact Theory ◽  
Black Communities ◽  
The Public ◽  
Police Community Relations

Strained police-community relations are not new to distressed and black communities. However, recent decades of modern-day policing have become a challenging, stressful job for officers in terms of safety and social order, job performance, and being recorded (often on cell phones) and quickly judged by the public. This article looks at racial profiling, implicit bias, and how the heavy hand of order-maintenance policing is used to the detriment of black communities, especially black males. The relevance of contact theory will be discussed in terms of its relevance for reaching mutual ground between black males and police officers. This article offers practical strategies for (a) social workers (community practitioners), (b) black males and citizens of color , and ( c) police officers themselves. For officers specifically, this potential awareness can lead to healthier, neutral experiences with black males leading to positive policing of black communities.

Race and Rape Prosecution in US History

2020 ◽  
pp. 57-104
Author(s):  
Matthew Barry Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
Racial Bias ◽  
Civil Rights Era ◽  
Us History ◽  
Rape Law ◽  
History Of ◽  
Black Defendants ◽  
Post Civil Rights

This chapter examines the current disproportion of Black defendants wrongly convicted of sexual assault through a historical lens. It notes the US history of statutorily separate sexual assault penalties based on race of the defendant and victim. Throughout US history the legal definition and societal response to rape (and rape allegations) have been influenced by considerations of race. These considerations were consistently made to the detriment of Black defendants charged with rape. The chapter reviews how race, rape law, and prosecution have been manifested in different historical eras (the period of race-based enslavement, the period of Jim Crow segregation, and the current post–civil rights period) and the mechanisms of racial bias against Black defendants in the post–civil rights era.

Exploring the Duration of Police–Citizen Encounters

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mengyan Dai ◽  
Xiaochen Hu
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Procedural Justice ◽  
Community Policing ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Community Relations ◽  
Multivariate Models ◽  
Community Oriented Policing ◽  
Lower Social Class ◽  
Police Community Relations

Abstract Modern policing policy and practices emphasize the philosophy of community-oriented policing and the principles of procedural justice to improve police–community relations. Using this theoretical framework, this study examines the duration of police–citizen encounters involving domestic and non-domestic conflicts. A sample of 262 encounters from the systematic social observations in Cincinnati was analysed. The multivariate models show that officers spent less time interacting with the citizens in the lower social class and spent more time on the encounters involving assaults. Community policing specialists spent more time interacting with citizens. Considering citizens’ voice is also associated with longer duration. Policy implications of these findings are discussed.

scholarly journals Kneading, Needing, and Eating Black Bodies

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (2/3) ◽  
pp. 217-240
Author(s):  
Fabienne Snowden ◽  
Willie Tolliver ◽  
Amanda McPherson
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Civil Rights ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Civil Rights Movement ◽  
Black People ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Historical Review ◽  
Black Communities ◽  
Black Bodies ◽  
History Of

Social workers have been on the frontlines alongside marginalized communities since the profession’s emergence. This stance continues with supporting the Black Lives Matter Movement and centering the structural inequities that the COVID-19 pandemic highlights. A narrative that centers the history of social work’s concern for Black citizenship in the profession’s formation is neglected in the literature. This historical review traces the genesis of the profession’s work to expand access to the entitlements of citizenship among Black communities. Thematic analysis of secondary sources is used to investigate the formation of the profession and its work to ensure access to resources among Blacks communities. Study findings identify that the profession emerged from the bonds between the Abolitionist Movement and the Women’s Suffrage Movement, then moved away from working with Black people during the Settlement Movement and did not return to addressing the needs of these communities until the 1960s during the Civil Rights Movement. Black social workers answered the call to support Black and non-Black communities in the absence of the profession’s national organization’s presence. Social work needs, kneads, and eats Black bodies by being in complicity with systems of oppression. The history of social work and its concern and lack of concern for Black citizenship is a pedagogical innovation that addresses the historical amnesia that White domination fosters. The findings of this analysis call social workers to task to disrupt White dominant epistemologies of ignorance by incorporating this historical context into their social work pedagogy.

Building Police/Community Relations through Virtual Communities

2011 ◽  
pp. 421-427 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan A. Baim
Keyword(s):  
Service Learning ◽  
Web Sites ◽  
Police Officers ◽  
Virtual Communities ◽  
Police Department ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Community Relations ◽  
Police Departments ◽  
Community Oriented Policing ◽  
Police Community Relations

Over the past two decades, police departments around the globe have been involved in a slow, but steady transition from call-based policing to community-oriented policing. The former approach, while effective at closing cases once a crime has occurred, does little to develop crime prevention partnerships between officers on the beat and the citizens of local communities. Community-oriented policing serves to increase awareness of issues and potential problems before they occur, thus assisting police departments to provide a more proactive approach to stopping crime within their communities. One of the greatest difficulties in developing effective community-oriented policing programs is establishing solid, two-way communications links between police officers and the populations that they serve. Information flow to the police and suggestions back to the citizenry often fall victim to the same constraints—lack of time to interact effectively and lack of a ready-made mechanism to deliver the information in a timely manner. To reduce or eliminate these constraints, interactive police department Web sites and virtual communities (that involve both police officers and citizens) can provide actionable and measurable performance increases in the efficiencies and the effectiveness of community-oriented policing efforts. Although the IT hardware, software, and design expertise needed to create interactive Web sites and virtual communities are readily available, online efforts at community-oriented policing will remain more of a theoretical interest than a broad-scale application until police departments truly understand the needs and the wants of the citizens within their local communities. This article explores a service-learning approach for use in a university classroom that combines IT applications with current research practices in the use of citizen satisfaction surveys conducted for local police departments. Examples are drawn from three primary-based research studies involving police departments that are turning away from call-based policing practices and proactively moving toward community- oriented policing practices.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document