Resources

The question of whether police belong in schools has been a long-debated topic in the United States. With the increased focus on policing generally, the debate has grown more intense. Proponents argue that police can more effectively address student-to-student conflict, such as bullying, and increase overall safety in an age of recurring school shootings. Those who oppose argue that police in schools contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline and result in disparities based on race and/or disability in discipline and arrests, as well as a climate of fear for students of color. Speakers on this program present the data, discuss the impact of police in schools and examine this issue critically to confront the question of whether police in schools result in enhanced student safety.

Researchers have conducted hundreds of studies looking for effective ways to prevent and reduce violence, but the knowledge base is far from complete, especially as it relates to one important question: are there ways to prevent violence without relying on the police? The obvious answer is “yes.” Policing has never been the primary explanation for obviously varying levels of community safety. Residents of wealthy areas do not experience the intense police surveillance and enforcement imposed on poor neighborhoods. Yet, rates of violence are reliably lower in wealthy communities.

Arnold Ventures asked the John Jay College Research and Evaluation Center (JohnJayREC) to review the research evidence for violence reduction strategies that do not rely on law enforcement. The scan was carried out by an expert group of researchers from the fields of public policy, criminology, law, public health, and social science. The members of the research group worked collaboratively to identify, translate, and summarize the most important and actionable studies.

The primary purpose of this guide is to serve as a pragmatic tool for individuals and communities organizing and advocating for non-police mental health crisis responses, and to offer key considerations for what can be a complex, costly, and long-term intervention strategy.

This guide highlights considerations for real, meaningful shifts away from law enforcement and towards autonomous, self-determined community-based resources and responses to unmet mental health needs. It also takes into account a range of knowledge and expertise among the intended audience: community members, advocates, organizers, activists, mental health professionals, policymakers, and other change agents working towards the selection and implementation of mental health crisis responses.

Though the campaign ended in 2019, this organizing toolkit was developed over the past year plus by #NoCopAcademy youth and adult alumni who wanted to share out how we did what we did (because people kept asking us), to document our work, and to share it with the hundreds and thousands of young people taking action today to defund policing, get cops out of our schools, and build abolitionist futures. Campaigns are an important tool for building power, and we wanted to break down all the parts that went into ours.

As the nation grapples with defining the proper roles and limits of police generally, and particularly in Black, Brown, and other communities that have borne disproportionate harms from police (as well as from many other institutions), we propose an approach that we believe would be both realistic and effective: adopting the goals, metrics, and lenses of public health. By replacing current performance metrics with public health metrics and flawed conceptions with ones that are based upon evidence, and by demanding agility and accountability in changing practices and policies when they are shown to cause harm, we can improve the health, safety, and well-being of communities across the United States. This article sketches out the way forward and provides some illustrative examples.

This playbook outlines revenue generating options for fully funding our communities, including strategies to reduce and eliminate the bite Wall street takes out of our city budgets, that we can use to supplement our demands to defund the police (and prosecutors, jails, prisons and all carceral systems) to ensure full investment in safe, sustainable, and thriving communities: Tax the Rich and Use Progressive Revenue to Fund our Communities & Cancel Wall Street and Choose Progressive Finance.

In the wake of the recent conviction of Derek Chauvin and the police killing of Daunte Wright, a new nationwide survey by BSG sheds light on the factors that contribute to public safety and reveals an overwhelming public support to reallocate police funds for a wide range of public safety proposals. The research also illuminates American’s perceptions around police accountability and de-escalation training.

Defund. Re-Envision. Transform. is a grassroots campaign anchored by Action St. Louis, CAPCR, Forward Through Ferguson, and ArchCity Defenders, which demands the defunding of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department (SLMPD), the re-envisioning public safety through reinvestment into community resources that actually keep our communities safe, and transformation of the St. Louis region.

A collection of resources about campus policing and ways to get cops off campus.