Racism in policing
Anti-racism topic: all things police
This guide is organized by media type and in addition includes guided learning topics which feature multiple different resources.
This Resource Guide will provide you with different materials which will help you understand how police systematically perpetuate racism and violence against non-white people in our current society on an institutional level (not just a few bad apples). Focuses include the historical context of racism and policing, how that history informs and impacts policing today, and ultimately where we go from here (promising solutions and the re-imagining of justice and public safety).
Undoubtedly the road behind us is bleak, but the road ahead still does NOT have to be. We have the power to change our local, regional, and national policies around policing to ensure a more just and equitable future to come. The first step in this process is our collective education.
Thank You for coming along on this journey.
Guided Learning and Discussion Questions
Guided learning topics
Click the image for a curated resource guide on the chosen topic
which includes discussion questions for further reflection on the issues.
Data on policing
Scroll for discussion questions to consider while reading and interacting with these resources
Featured Media/ Resources
Click thumbnail to access
A great introductory article from CNN! Easy to understand, aesthetically pleasing data on deaths both by law enforcement directly, and in law enforcement custody.
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Mapping Police Violence - A downloadable database that aggregates deaths by law enforcement. Their dataset can be searched by department, demographics, armed status, etc. Includes useful associated content like their interactive 2017 Police Violence Report and (found at the bottom of their homepage) a list of academic studies about police violence.
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Center for Policing Equity - A research and data driven collective dedicated to advancing the scientific understanding of issues of equity within policing. Explore their entire site for invaluable resources. Recommended reading: 2016 Report titled The Science of Justice, Race, Arrests, and Police Use of Force.
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Police Use of Force Project - A comprehensive review of use of force policies in America's largest city police departments that finds that there were significantly fewer killings by police departments with strong policies limiting use of force. Find their full report here.
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Police Scorecard - A "report card" that grades police departments and sheriff's departments in the 100 largest cities in California. The project aggregates important information on race in relation to police violence, police accountability, and approaches to policing.
Discussion questions:
1. Are these rates of civilian deaths acceptable? Are they necessary to keep the public or even the officers themselves safe?
2. Does the data dispel any common arguments that you encounter about racial bias in policing? If so, which ones?
3. Were there any statistics that you found particularly striking or convincing? Do you think this statistic is common knowledge?
4. Can you use these statistics in your peer to peer conversations? Do you think they would be convincing? Why or why not?
5. After looking at your local jurisdictions use of force policy, scorecard, and number of deaths by law enforcement were you surprised by the data or the grade your department received?
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Further questions to think about as you learn more:
Police Accountability/ Oversight:
Are use of force incidents reported to the public by your local department? If so, how?
What is the process in place for determining if use of force was “acceptable” or “warranted”?
Who, if anyone, is responsible for holding police accountable in your community? Are these oversight mechanisms effective?
Policy-making:
Have your local officials talked about making data-driven/evidence-based policy changes to your local Police Department?
What factors are preventing data from being used in policy decisions on local, regional and national scales? What do we need beyond data to make good policy decisions?
Comparison to other countries:
Why are police officers in the United States killing people at such a higher rate than in other similarly developed countries?
What factors contribute to high officer involved shootings (departmental culture/ training, militarization, American gun culture, etc.)?
How is policing different in other developed nations where there are lower rates of civilian deaths? Is officer safety or public safety compromised in those nations?
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History of Policing
Scroll for discussion questions to consider while reading and interacting with these resources
Timeline of American Policing - Overview of important eras of policing throughout history to orient you as you explore the below resources
Featured Media/ Resources
Click thumbnail to access
NPR's Throughline - American Police If you are just starting your education on this topic, start here! This podcast is a very informative and accessible overview of the history of police in America. The hosts and Khalil Gibran Muhammad, a renowned historian, discuss how policing got started, what happened during and immediately after the Civil War and how that legacy informs modern policing.
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The racist roots of American policing: From slave patrols to traffic stops - Written by an assistant professor, this article is a great resource which links directly to academic literature (for those wanting to dig deeper into these subtopics).
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How Racist Policing Took Over American Cities - Historian Khalil Gibran Muhammad gives another great interview to Vox's Anna North on how the history of protests and protest movements are directly linked to policing and racism.
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Peace Officer Documentary - Retired Davis county sheriff, William J. Lawrence, discusses police militarization and over-use of S.W.A.T. teams after the S.W.A.T. team HE created in the late 1970's killed his son-in-law in 2008.
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A History of Police Uniforms and Why They Matter - An exploration of how uniforms have influenced interactions between cops and citizens since the start of American policing. Spoiler alert: If you dress like a soldier, you just might start acting like one.
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We Insist: A Century Of Black Music Against State Violence - "The 50 songs discussed in this list often describe specific acts of police violence but they are not limited to that subject. Together they construct a kind of timeline of an ongoing movement within American music, stretching back more than a century. All contribute to the history of Black people showing what America's official histories would hide in plain sight: the destructiveness of white supremacy and the uprisings against it that are not only organized and political, but personal."
Discussion questions:
1. What implications do the origins of policing have on modern police structure, culture, and tactics today?
2. What were the different law enforcement tactics adopted in the North and the South following the Civil War?
3. How did racism manifest in policing in Northern vs Southern states? How did regional attitudes about race shape police behavior? Are these origins reflected in today's police forces?
4. Given these facts about the racist history of the police, can a modern police department truly be anti-racist? What would that take? If no, what are your thoughts moving forward with public safety?
5. In your opinion, should police have military equipment? Has the militarization of our modern police made our cities safer?
6. Does the physical appearance of a police officer matter? Does this impact the officer's attitude or behavior? What psychological impact could police appearance have on the civilians they are interacting with?
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Remember: Patience is a virtue
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documentaries
Click thumbnail to watch
Featured Content
Highly Recommend:
Peace Officer
Retired Davis county sheriff, William J. Lawrence, discusses police militarization and over-use of S.W.A.T. teams after the S.W.A.T. team HE created in the late 1970's killed his son-in-law in 2008.
Fiction/ Based on a True Story
Podcasts
Click thumbnail to listen
Throughline - American Police
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Code Switch - An Immune System
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Reply All - The Crime Machines (Parts I & II)
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Hidden Brain - The Air We Breathe: Implicit Bias And Police Shootings
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Code Switch - What To Make Of Philando Castile's Death, One Year Later
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Code Switch - The Dangers of Life as an American Nobody
16 Shots - all episodes
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The Daily - The Systems that Protect the Police
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The Journal - The City That Disbanded Its Police
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Hidden Brain - How A Theory Of Crime And Policing Was Born, And Went Terribly Wrong
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Code Switch - 46 Stops: On 'The Driving Life And Death Of Philando Castile'
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Code Switch - Claude Neal: A Strange And Bitter Crop
News Articles
Click link to read
How we got here
Where we are
Where we go from here
How we got here
- How racist policing took over American cities, explained by a historian
- How A Theory Of Crime And Policing Was Born, And Went Terribly Wrong
Where we are
- Confessions of a former bastard cop
- Study finds police fatally shoot unarmed black men at disproportionate rates
- To protect and slur: Inside hate groups on Facebook, police officers trade racist memes, conspiracy theories and Islamophobia
- Inside 100 million police traffic stops: New evidence of racial bias
- The Problem with “Broken Windows” Policing
Where we go from here
Books
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I have an ebook copy of 'The End of Policing' downloaded from Verso when it was free last month.
DM me on Facebook and I can send that your way!
Academic Journal Articles
Click thumbnail or link to read
- Racialized differences in perceptions of and emotional responses to police killings of unarmed African Americans
- The public's dilemma: race and political evaluations of police killings
- Targeting young men of color for search and arrest during traffic stops: evidence from North Carolina, 2002–2013
- Intersectional stereotyping in policing: an analysis of traffic stop outcomes
- Can Policing Disorder Reduce Crime? A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis
Websites
Click thumbnail to go to site
Stanford Open Policing Project - A collection of over 200 million traffic and pedestrian stops by law enforcement agencies all over the United States created by a team of Stanford researchers and journalists. They have numerous data sets available for download (and tutorials on how to use that data).
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Mapping Police Violence - A downloadable database that aggregates deaths by law enforcement. Their dataset can be searched by department, demographics, armed status, etc. Includes useful associated content like their interactive 2017 Police Violence Report and (found at the bottom of their homepage) a list of academic studies about police violence.
.
Center for Policing Equity - A research and data driven collective dedicated to advancing the scientific understanding of issues of equity within policing. Explore their entire site for invaluable resources. Recommended reading: 2016 Report titled The Science of Justice, Race, Arrests, and Police Use of Force.
.
Police Use of Force Project - A comprehensive review of use of force policies in America's largest city police departments that finds that there were significantly fewer killings by police departments with strong policies limiting use of force. Find their full report here.
.
Police Scorecard - A "report card" that grades police departments and sheriff's departments in the 100 largest cities in California. The project aggregates important information on race in relation to police violence, police accountability, and approaches to policing.
Music
Click icons to listen to playlist
Miscellaneous/ Other
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