Resources

In response to COVID-19, numerous public health and national security measures are being proposed and implemented across the nation. Historically, states of emergency, mandatory quarantines, and curfews have often been used to expand state control over political and civil freedom. Emergency powers often criminalize movement, freedom of expression, protest, and marginalized communities. Nevertheless, it is important that we know what rights exist to protect ourselves and resist increased policing.

The Playbook is a resource for advocates working at the intersection of mass deportation and mass incarceration. It offers messaging recommendations for some of the most prominent issues that face our communities, including: decriminalizing migration/humane treatment at the border, “sanctuary” policies, gang issues, people in state prisons, and ending detention. The Playbook also offers a set of provocative guest essays that outline the history of policy and messaging on ‘enforcement issues.’

This is a living collection of mostly Canada-centric information and resources on the criminalization of COVID-19 responses, with other examples from the US and the rest of the world. It contains further resources around mutual aid, petitions, community action, alternatives to policing during the crisis, and more.

Police in Alabama made 2,351 arrests for marijuana possession in 2016. This study analyzed demographic data about the people arrested, along with arrest locations, in addition to examining broader impacts. The report also includes an economic analysis of the cost of marijuana prohibition, conducted by two economists at Western Carolina University.

Asian Americans have been targeted by racism and xenophobia related to the coronavirus or COVID-19. Asian Americans Advancing Justice offers the resources in response to this hate.

A concise visual and written resource that explains and evaluates Crisis Intervention Teams (CIT), which is the most common type of training law enforcement receives for responding to people with mental illness.

From the Movement for Black Lives policy platform on community control – a report with policy proposals around community control of the police. This report includes an analysis of policing issues in the US and models for creating and implementing Civilian Police Control Boards to create and sustain change.

Governments now use the ability to collect and analyze hundreds of data points everyday to automate many of their decisions, but does handing government decisions over to algorithms save time and money? Can algorithms be fairer or less biased than human decision making? Do they make us safer? Automation and artificial intelligence could improve the notorious inefficiencies of government, and it could exacerbate existing errors in the data being used to power it.

MuckRock and the Rutgers Institute for Information Policy & Law (RIIPL) have compiled a collection of algorithms used in communities across the country to automate government decision-making. They have also compiled policies and other guiding documents local governments use to make room for the future use of algorithms.

As civilians, how do we hold the police responsible for wrongdoing? On the first episode of Season 3, Josie Duffy and co-host Darnell Moore discuss different avenues of police accountability and explain why it’s so hard for the criminal justice system to hold police accountable. They are joined by Alicia Garza, an activist, writer, and organizer, who currently serves as principal at Black Futures Lab. Alicia is a co-founder of Black Lives Matter and has been a leader in the fight against police brutality and discriminatory policing, particularly in black communities.