De-Escalation Training Receptivity and First-Line Police Supervision: Findings from the Louisville Metro Police Study

Despite calls for police reform that include changes to use of force training and field supervision, evidence regarding their impact is sorely lacking. This study examines survey data collected from first-line supervisors in the Louisville (KY) Metro Police Department after department-wide de-escalation training. Presented as part of a larger randomized controlled trial study, descriptive results from this survey demonstrate that, despite high levels of reported confidence in supervisory ability, supervisors infrequently engage in the activities that support and reinforce subordinates’ use of de-escalation skills. Results from multivariate ordinary least squares (OLS) linear regression models further show that only supervisors’ receptivity to de-escalation training is a significant predictor of engaging in activities that support the training tenets for subordinates. Combined with previous findings, the emerging research and policy implications suggest that training receptivity is critical, and further, that field supervision continues to be an under-utilized mechanism to reduce police use of force.

FROM POLICE REFORM TO POLICE ABOLITION? HOW MINNEAPOLIS ACTIVISTS FOUGHT TO MAKE BLACK LIVES MATTER

The murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) officers in 2020 was a watershed moment, triggering protests across the country and unprecedented promises by city leaders to “end” the MPD. We use interviews and archival materials to understand the roots of this decision, tracing the emergent split between activists fighting for police reform and police abolition in the wake of the initial Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests in Minneapolis. We compare the frames used by these two sets of movement actors, arguing that abolitionists deployed more radical frames to disrupt hegemonic understandings of policing, while other activists fought to resonate with the existing discursive structure. After years of police reform, Floyd’s death and the rebellion that followed gave abolitionist discourses more resonance. In the discussion, we consider the future of public safety in Minneapolis and its implications for understanding frame resonance in Black movements.

RACIAL CHANGE AND BLACK MOVEMENT EMERGENCE: A CASE FROM THE BLACK LIVES MOVEMENT

This article contributes to sociological understandings of race and social movements by reassessing the phenomenon of social movement emergence for Black social movements. Broadly, it addresses the possibility of organizational support for Black social movements. More narrowly, it seeks to understand the emergence of Black movements and racial change as outcomes of organizational transformation, specifically using the case of how the mixed-race prison reform organization Action for Police Reform (APR) joined the Black Lives movement. By providing a case of racial transformation and the spanning of tactical boundaries, I present two central arguments. First, it is necessary to look within organizational forms and at organizational dynamics to see how activists modify their organizations to support Black movements. Second, tailored more directly to the case of APR, sustained support for Black movements depends on organizational transformation, such as when activists repurpose an organization’s form and resources to maintain racially delimited tactics.