Resources

To crystallize the concept of defunding the police, CNN posed three scenarios to experts and activists in the movement and asked how they’d be handled in an America without police. The participants are Patrisse Cullors, co-founder of Black Lives Matter; Philip McHarris, a doctoral candidate in sociology and African American Studies at Yale University and lead research and policy associate at the Community Resource Hub for Safety and Accountability; and Alex Vitale, a professor of Sociology and Coordinator of the Policing and Social Justice Project at Brooklyn College and author of “The End of Policing”

Durham Beyond Policing Coalition developed this proposal because the draft budget for the City of Durham for 2019-20 contained a request from the DPD for 72 additional full time (FTE) officers over three years, with the first year’s cost given as $1,729,573 for an initial 25 new officers. After considerable study, we have found the rationale for DPD’s budget request is incomplete and outdated, and we object to the premise that more officers will make the people of Durham safer. This proposal offers what we feel is a more holistic approach to some of the same issues and opportunities.

A resource and guide that offers alternatives to policing.

Most states neglect ordering police to learn de-escalation tactics to avoid shootings. In 34 states, training decisions are left to local agencies. Most, though, conduct no, or very little, de-escalation training. Chiefs cite cost, lack of staff, and a belief that the training isn’t needed.

Some police departments are embracing tactics designed to reduce the use of force – and prevent shootings. Rather than rushing in aggressively, officers back off, wait out people in crisis and use words instead of weapons. It’s a technique called de-escalation. But this training isn’t required in most states. Reveal teams up with APM Reports and finds that most police spend a lot more time training to shoot their guns than learning how to avoid firing them.

In this episode, The FRONTLINE Dispatch teams up with ProPublica to investigate a fatal police shooting in Weirton, West Virginia and the ramifications of its shocking aftermath.

Over the course of 2019, Local Progress engaged local elected officials and community leaders in a range of communities to evaluate their localities’ policing practices using the Reform/Transform toolkit. Those evaluations have produced the first results of the Reform/Transform toolkit in 12 cities: Chicago, Dallas, Durham, Louisville, Madison, Minneapolis, New York City, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Louis, and Washington, D.C.

Although members of law enforcement do not serve as treatment providers for any other illness, they have become “road runners,” responding to mental health emergencies and traveling long distances to shuttle people with mental illness from one facility to another. This report is the first-ever national survey of sheriffs’ offices and police departments on these issues, and it provides a unique glimpse into the burdens they must shoulder as well as the fiscal and societal implications of the current situation. The survey responses represent 355 sheriffs’ offices and police departments in the United States.

Over reliance on the criminal justice system only inflicts more harm on people who need help while burdening taxpayers with an expensive and ineffective system. That’s why cities across the nation have begun to rely on pre-arrest diversion and crisis response strategies that direct people away from the criminal justice system and toward treatment, housing, and other services. Unfortunately, legislative barriers often exist at a state level that prevent local governments from maximizing the benefits of this approach.