Body cameras, trainings, and other so-called reform measures will not end cycles of police violence.
THIS IS THE POLICE 2 PERKS FREE
If we believe in everyone’s right to live in safety and peace, we need to dismantle institutions that were never intended to get us there - and free up resources for solutions that are actually designed to create healthy, safe, sustainable communities. But decades of evidence show us this is not the case. would be the most peaceful country in the world. If policing and imprisonment stopped violence, the U.S. Policing doesn’t keep us safe.ĭespite the billions of dollars spent every year on policing, more than 15,000 people were killed by gun violence in 2019 alone-disproportionately young people of color. What’s more, a recent study revealed that hundreds of active duty officers from across the country are members of racist and anti-government groups on Facebook. Every year on-duty police kill an estimated 1,000 people. For years police have also undergone “warrior training” that teaches them to see every encounter as potentially life-threatening, especially when those encounters involve people of color. Since 1990, the federal government has transferred $6 billion of excess military equipment to local law enforcement agencies under its 1033 Program, giving police access to mine-resistant vehicles, assault rifles, and grenade launchers. Police forces have also become more militarized. Black and Brown people are disproportionately targeted from a young age, with hundreds of thousands of children ages six to 14 arrested, often by police officers stationed in schools as “school resource officers.” Over the past 40 years, the expansion of racially targeted policing and policies such as stop-and-frisk and the “war on drugs” have helped fuel mass incarceration in the U.S., with African-Americans incarcerated at more than five times the rate of white people. slave patrols and night watches were the beginning of a racially directed system of law enforcement designed to secure capital for white settlers. The police are not a neutral body, and the institution is inherently biased. was established to maintain white supremacy. Here is why we should all support the call to defund the police: 1. That’s why we must stop investing in police and incarceration and instead intentionally invest in alternative models that are centered in community and address the root causes of harm, in addition to making greater investments in schools, health care, and other human needs that keep our communities safe.
Tell your governor: Invest in our communities, not policing! They are evidence of a racist system that disproportionately targets people of color for violence, imprisonment, and death.
The murders of George Floyd, Eric Garner, Philando Castile, Sandra Bland, Michael Brown, and countless other Black and Brown people at the hands of police are not anomalies. For most individuals and communities of color, policing has brought terror rather than safety. But our criminal legal system was built to reinforce deep structural racism in our society. Many of us-particularly white people-have been taught to equate policing with public safety and can’t imagine alternatives to a punitive law enforcement model.
In the aftermath of the police murder of George Floyd, protests erupted in Minneapolis and across the U.S., with activists and community members demanding that Black lives matter-and with many calling to defund the police.
0 kommentar(er)
