Resources

Everyone loses when we criminalize a person with a mental illness. People with mental illnesses experience trauma and mental health treatment is rarely adequate in jail or prison. In addition, they find it more difficult to get a job and find housing when they have a criminal record. Families suffer when their loved ones are imprisoned. Law enforcement resources are diverted when people with mental illnesses are arrested and tax dollars are misspent. Ultimately, the Bazelon Center aims to end incarceration of individuals with mental illness by diverting them away from jails and into community-based programs.

This study summarizes results from the first New Orleans citywide youth survey, which was conducted in conjunction with
local education and community organizations during the 2018-19 school year. The report also discuss differences between the responses of white students and students of color, which is of particular importance, given the large share of people of color in the city and the longstanding inequities they have historically faced in school, community, and life opportunities. Students were surveyed on topics related to school and teacher quality, student beliefs, transportation, neighborhoods, and police presence.

As protests to demand an end to racist policing and the carceral system catalyze a long overdue national conversation on law enforcement’s role in upholding White supremacy, this report seeks to help quantify the extent of explicit contemporary far-right and anti-immigrant influence on sheriffs departments.

In May, many of us were devastated and heartbroken when George Floyd was murdered by police in Minneapolis. This marked yet another Black man’s life being taken too soon by the very people that are supposed to protect us. As Philadelphians took to the streets to express their First Amendment rights with justified anger at the institutions that enabled this to happen and to advocate for Black lives, the City of Philadelphia appeared unprepared to handle the resulting unrest. The investigation shows that the root cause of the lack of planning was a lack of leadership at the highest levels.

It is also important to spend time reflecting on the fact that teargas was deployed in our city during these events. Teargas is banned in warfare and has not been used in Philadelphia for civil unrest since the MOVE crisis in 1985. Despite this, teargas was deployed on our own people several times during the unrest. The negative and painful effects of teargas cannot be overstated, and it should not have been used the way it was. The report details how our own police department shot teargas canisters down residential streets in West Philadelphia, hurting children in their own homes and innocent bystanders.

Authored by Rebecca Epstein, Jamilia J. Blake, and Thalia González, this 2017 report provides – for the first time – data showing that adults view Black girls as less innocent and more adult-like than their white peers, especially in the age range of 5-14. The report builds on similar results that have emerged from studies of adult perceptions of Black boys. In 2014, for example, research by Professor Phillip Goff and colleagues revealed that beginning at the age of 10, Black boys are more likely than their white peers to be misperceived as older, viewed as guilty of suspected crimes, and face police violence if accused of a crime.

This update to our June 2020 #DefundPolice toolkit reflects victories won across the country, key strategies deployed, some lessons learned – including, tricks, tensions, and roadblocks along the way – and key questions communities are contending with in campaigns to defund police as we look forward to 2021. It contains some excerpts from the original toolkit, but is not intended as a substitute. Our hope is that this report will be read in conjunction with the original #DefundPolice #FundthePeople #DefendBlack Lives toolkit, along with our What’s Next: Safer and More Just Communities Without Policing report and Domestic Violence Awareness Month & Defund Fact Sheet.

A multi-part report series that explains this crisis of death and disappearance on the US-Mexico border and the policies that have created it. This serves to set the scene for reports which open a window to violent Border Patrol practices.

So what do we do when we inevitably run into conflict? This was the question on our minds when we wrote a new conflict workbook for groups working towards a shared purpose. As two people who come from community-building and social movement backgrounds, we have seen and experienced dreams crumble because we, or people we love, couldn’t find a way through a difficult interpersonal conflict with a comrade or a colleague. We care deeply about our communities and the ways they’ve been harmed by structural oppression. We put together Turning Towards Each Other because of all the times we found ourselves in gut-wrenching, sometimes relationship-ending tangles with people we depended on.

Andrea Ritchie joins the show to talk about her research with the group Interrupting Criminalization, specifically their new report looking back on the “Defund the Police” demand in 2020. The discussion begins with a look at the work that Interrupting Criminalization does, and their findings on the various successes and failures activists have had with the “Defund” demand over the last year. Perhaps most importantly, we talk about how the state has tried to undermine abolitionist efforts. Toward the end, we speak about the need to fund experimental approaches to harm, including those that might fail.