Resources

This episode examines how news and pop cultural media deputize and urge listeners, readers, and viewers to act as neighborhood vigilantes. We study how this instills a climate of constant, unnecessary fear; presents the current US and criminal legal system as the only option to reduce crime; excludes crimes against the poor and working class like wage theft, food and housing insecurity, and lack of healthcare; and how these systemics can inflict unjust harm upon the subjects of these anonymous tips.

In this Live Interview from 1/11, we talk with Derecka Purnell, author of ‘Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom’ about her new book, her personal journey of embracing an abolitionist model and how, in the midst of a full blown reactionary moment over a rise in murders, activists can address legitimate fears of crime and provide an alternative vision to the cruel, failed “lock em up” approach.

On today’s show we discuss the gunshot detection system ShotSpotter with Alejandro Ruizesesparza from the Cancel ShotSpotter Coalition and Jonathan Manes, an attorney in the MacArthur Justice Center’s Illinois Office. Our discussion focuses on why activists and communities are rising up to confront the Chicago Police Department on their use of ShotSpotter.

This week on CounterSpin: “Crime wave” politics are a time-honored response to political movements that take on racist policing in this country, dating back at least to Barry Goldwater, as organizer Josmar Trujillo was reminding us back in 2015. But here we are again, as outlets like the New York Times announce a reported rise in the murder rate with coverage steeped in false presumptions about what that means and how to respond. Our guest says prepare to hear a lot about how cops need more resources because “crime is surging,” and offers antidote to that copaganda. We hear from Alec Karakatsanis, executive director of Civil Rights Corps, and author of the book Usual Cruelty: The Complicity of Lawyers in the Criminal Injustice System.

Amid all of the issues that exist in coverage and legal accountability when it comes to cases of police violence against Black people, separate hurdles remain when it comes to acknowledging the stories of Black women and queer people killed by the police. State violence against Black women, femmes, and queer folk is rarely at the center of mass mobilization and media attention. That’s despite the fact that Black women are overrepresented among the people shot and killed by the police. And also, the reality that transgender people are more than thee times as likely to experience police violence as cisgender people.

The Takeaway speaks with Andrea Ritchie, a co-founder of Interrupting Criminalization, an initiative that aims to end the criminalization of women and LGBTQ people of color. She’s also the author of “Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color.”

Today’s viral videos of police abuse have a long political lineage. But what if one of the oldest tools of copwatching is now taken away?

Ron Wilkins takes us back to 1966, in the wake of the Watts uprising, in which he joined an early cop watch program — one that would inspire the likes of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense.

Then, reporter Jenny Casas introduces us to journalists and activists who have been using police scanners for decades to peek inside the infamously closed world of police departments. Many departments are now trying to end the practice. Special thanks to Andy Lanset and KQED for the archival tape.

And transformative justice organizer Ejeris Dixon, who is the Founding Director of Vision Change Win and editor of Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement, joins Kai to take calls about how communities can keep themselves safe without – and from – police intervention.

Black Americans being victimized and killed by the police is an epidemic. As the trial of Derek Chauvin plays out, it’s a truth and a trauma many people in the US and around the world are again witnessing first hand. But this tension between African American communities and the police has existed for centuries. This week, the origins of policing in the United States and how those origins put violent control of Black Americans at the heart of the system.

Starting in 1965, summer after summer, America’s cities burned. There was civil unrest in more than 150 cities across the country. So in 1967, Lyndon Johnson appointed a commission to diagnose the root causes of the problem and to suggest solutions. What the so called “Kerner Commission” returned with was hotly anticipated and shocking to many Americans. This week, how that report and the reaction to it continues to shape American life.

This week on Intercepted: Organizer and educator Mariame Kaba talks to lead producer Jack D’Isidoro about the case, efforts born out of the uprisings of this past summer, and the role hope plays in building a long-term abolitionist movement. Whether she’s breaking down the historical foundations of the carceral state or laying out a framework for mutual aid, Kaba works tirelessly to reimagine and create a system not rooted in punishment and oppression. They also discuss her new book “We Do This ’Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice.”