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,
Read moreMethods 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.
Read moreWhy are People in the Dane County Jail?
December 2019 This report is my summary of the August 2019 “Analysis of the Dane County Jail Population” written by James Austin, Roger Ocker, and Wendy Naro-Ware of the JFA Institute (note1). The JFA report concludes that the best way to reduce the jail population is to speed the processing
Read moreLong-term prisoners
There is a great deal of discussion about the best ways to reduce mass incarceration. One topic that has received significant attention is the need to revisit parole for people who have been incarcerated for a long time. Some argue on moral grounds, that there should always be hope, and
Read moreTemporary Workers of the US Recycling Industry
Alexis Econie, University of Wisconsin-Madison, econie@wisc.edu need more space Michael L. Dougherty, Illinois State University, mdoughe@ilstu.edu Stepping into the large warehouse, our boots sink half an inch into a milky-brown river
Read moreBlack Men and the Politics of Redemption
This is a long review of a book I highly recommend, Nikki Jones‘s The Chosen Ones: Black Men and the Politics of Redemption University of California Press (2018) so let me begin by highlighting the material that struck me most vividly. This is the first piece I have read that
Read moreThe Fall of 2014: Recovering the Roots of The Black Lives movement
Most people have some rough idea of the history of “Black Lives Matter.” I use it to refer to the network of organizations now identified by the name Black Lives Matter. These organizations exist as part of a broader movement network known as the Movement for Black Lives. The founders
Read moreBlack Strike at UW Madison 1969
In February of 1969, Black students and their White allies at the University of Wisconsin Madison called a strike and blocked entrances to campus buildings to back up their demands. I agreed to be part of a panel June 16 on the Black Student Strike of 1969 at UW Madison.
Read more