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.

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 Black Lives Matter protests swept the nation, the rubber bullets and tear gas canisters started to fly. This epidemic of “blinding by police” inspired an unlikely network of survivors.

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.

The Police Scorecard is the first nationwide public evaluation of policing in the United States. The Scorecard calculates levels of police violence, accountability, racial bias and other policing outcomes for over 16,000 municipal and county law enforcement agencies, covering nearly 100% of the US population. The indicators included in this scorecard were selected based on a review of the research literature, input from activists and experts in the field, and a review of publicly available datasets on policing from federal, state, and local agencies. This project is designed to help communities, researchers, police leaders and policy-makers take data-informed action to reduce police use of force, increase accountability and reimagine public safety in their jurisdictions.

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.

Mennonite Church USA (MC USA) received requests across the denomination to provide an Anabaptist grounded resource for clergy and congregations to engage in learning about the call for police abolition. When we confess “Jesus is lord” we are leaving behind systems that operate by coercion, violence and punishment. Mennonites have long recognized that following Jesus occurs in our bodies and with our lives. We remove ourselves from military service because we refuse to harm or kill people at the direction of the state. We affirm that all people are made in the image of God. We believe that it is incumbent upon the church to discuss and discern policing as another form of state-sanctioned violence.

This curriculum is an initial guide for congregations who are desiring to begin or continue their reflection on what it means to engage the forces of state, their commitments to non-violence and how to act to end policing and police brutality.

Sitting at the intersection of criminalization and capitalism, the use of emerging surveillance technology has become increasingly popular among police departments in the United States over the last few decades. While public knowledge is still catching up to the full extent of the tools that police use, we are quickly understanding more about this technology each day. Adopted for use as police “reforms,” sophisticated electronics and tech capabilities do not address the unchecked power and ballooning budgets of local police departments. Instead, they open the door for law enforcement to monitor communities while private companies profit from sales and contracts. As the movement to defund the police becomes impossible to ignore, replacing police officers with police cameras is called progress.

Living in a “surveillance state,” however, is not a foregone conclusion. Organizers across the country are pushing back against intrusive and problematic surveillance technologies by providing program models and model legislation to disrupt 21st Century Policing and ensure awareness and meaningful interventions. This report presents an overview of ongoing trends in police surveillance and the funding streams that have made and continue to make these trends possible. It also highlights ongoing advocacy efforts and provides recommendations for pushing back against the use of such technology by law enforcement.