Resources

This edition updates those findings through the 2022-23 school year with analysis of 372 assaults and includes additional data points, such as the geographic region in which assaults occurred and whether the assault was carried out by a sworn police officer or security guard. This edition also provides analysis specifically for the 2022-23 school year. These updated findings highlight the extent to which policing students places them at risk of both physical assault and sexual violence perpetrated by school police and security guards.

This text is adapted from “So You Wanna Be a Cop?”, a pamphlet published by the War Resisters League.

Would you wear a uniform that evokes fear & distrust in your neighbors?
Would you risk your mental well-being, affecting you & your loved ones?
Would you be comfortable with helping send someone to prison for years because of a petty parole violation or non-violent offence?
Would you participate in actions that split apart families?
Are there other ways you can build safety, beyond policing, in your community?
YOU DESERVE THE TRUTH
Recruiters have a seductive pitch, tapping into our real needs for stable employment & strong desire for safer communities. Maybe you’ve already heard it: “Become a police officer today! It’s an honest, secure career devoted to protecting minorities & building partnerships with community. We need people like you to improve our police force and bring justice in & outside the department.”

Building on decades of counter-military recruitment activism and resource-making, WRL presents this ground-breaking counter-police recruitment resource. Similar to military recruiter lies, police recruiters and branding use strategies to recruit young people, targeting youth of color and poor youth in the promotion of law enforcement careers.

So You Wanna Be A Cop questions recruiter lies, debunking them with the truths of policing and police careers, and encourages visions of young people pursuing careers and lives that build actual community safety, not carceral, racist and classist versions of safety.

As access to data about policing has become the subject of increased advocacy and police data has become increasingly available, a growing cottage industry has arisen around collecting, analyzing, and publicizing information about policing. Unfortunately, these efforts are often disconnected from organizing aimed at effecting change by reducing and eliminating police profiling, violence and criminalization.

A convening was held with the overall objective to discuss the potential benefits and harms of police data collection and dissemination, and to surface and develop best practices in an accountable and reciprocal relationship with individuals and communities directly targeted by policing and the people and organizations representing and working directly with them. This report draws on the rich discussion of these questions to make a series of recommendations for participants, for the field, and for philanthropic partners.

The NYPD Misconduct Complaint Database, which the NYCLU obtained through Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests, is a repository of complaints made by the public on record at the CCRB. These complaints span two distinct periods: the time since the CCRB started operating as an independent city agency outside the NYPD in 1994 and the prior period when the CCRB operated within the NYPD. The database includes 279,644 unique complaint records involving 102,121 incidents and 48,757 active or former NYPD officers.

This webpage is a centralized hub for resources related to Gender-Based Violence (GBV) from organizations across British Columbia, as well as key national and international research. Use the dropdown menu to search for specific criminalization and GBV resources.

Sexual violence is an everyday practice of policing. Even in New Orleans, where in 2014 the federal government placed the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) under a
consent decree, police sexual violence persists. Despite federal and local oversight, publicly available data and public records data reveal:

• At least 236 complaints of sexual and/or intimate violence
• By 189 NOPD officers between 2014-2020

These records confirm what many quietly know: police routinely perpetrate a spectrum of sexual harm in our communities. By centering survivors – particularly Black girls, women, and queer people in the South – we can better understand the scope of the everyday violence of policing. This factsheet highlights the urgent need for divesting resources away from policing and investing in social programs that meet survivors’ needs, affirm bodily autonomy, and actually keep us safe.