Jeanne Theoharis. A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History (Beacon Press. Kindle Edition) [E]ven those civil rights heroes we recognize today were reviled in their day and made to feel crazy. Today’s lamentation—that we need another King—misses the fact that we have many
Read moreWhen the NYPD Rioted
(updated March 4, 2024 to include quotations from Black newspapers) In New York in 1992, about 10,000 off-duty police officers and their supporters protested and about 4,000 of them rioted against then-mayor David Dinkins (who is Black) for his advocacy of an all-civilian review board to monitor police misconduct. Rioting
Read moreRecent Anti-Police Brutality Protests Since George Floyd’s Death are Far Larger than Previous Black Lives Matter Protest Waves
Much excellent work has been written about the need for systemic reform of policing in the US, the discrimination and inequalities faced by Black Americans, and the brave struggles of anti-racist protesters amidst the ongoing police repression and the unprecedented COVID-19 global pandemic. As social movements go, the ongoing mobilizations
Read moreThe Importance of Demonstrating that Communities Can Police Themselves
Chloe Haimson, University of Wisconsin-Madison, haimson@wisc.edu Note: This piece is based on research collected for a forthcoming paper in Mobilization. In recent weeks, heated interactions nationwide between protesters and police, were sparked by the murder of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American, by a white Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin.
Read moreDismantling the Minneapolis Police Department
Note: This post originally featured on scatterplot. Over the past 4 years, I’ve studied community perceptions of the Minneapolis Police Department. With a team of students, we conducted qualitative interviews with over 100 residents and 20 leaders of police reform/transformation/abolition groups; tracked reform efforts by the MPD; and attended city
Read moreResisting Repression: Black Lives Movement in Context
The huge wave of protests against police violence that is happening this week has new features tied to the current moment, but is grounded in a movement that has been building for decades. Its direct ties to the Black Lives Matter protests of 2014-2016 should be obvious, but that movement,
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Methods of Jail Data Collection and Rapid Turnover
Pamela Oliver, PhD in collaboration with Eric Howland Local activist groups such as Madison’s MOSES are concerned about reducing the number of people in jail. As part of this effort, activists use technology to automate the collection of public data to monitor local authorities. Eric Howland has been collecting data
Read moreDane County Jail Downsizing
Dane County Jail Downsizing: How was it accomplished and who was still in on May 9, 2020? Link to PDF version of this report Author: Pamela Oliver, analyzing data collected by Eric Howland. Data source: Scraping daily web reports of Dane County Jail. In custody status as of 6:30 a.m.
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