Wednesday, January 27, 2021
Meares & Prowse on Policing as a Public Good
Tracey L. Meares and Gwen Prowse (Yale University - Law School and Yale University) have posted Policing as a Public Good: Reflecting on the Term 'To Protect and Serve' As Dialogues of Abolition (University of Florida Levin College of Law Research Paper Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
This Essay is based on a lecture that was to be delivered in person in March 2020 but was cancelled as a result of the initial ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic. That a discussion of policing in the United States was cancelled because of what may well turn out to be the most significant public health crisis of this decade, if not this century, is important as these two subjects are intimately related. Sociologists and others have long noted that crime and especially violent crime, is concentrated in places. Research is also clear that the state’s primary response to concentrated violence in communities has been to send police and other apparatus of the criminal legal system to respond to crime rather than to provide state supports and other resources better aimed at preventing the circumstances that render certain neighborhoods susceptible to violence.
The goal of research described here is to investigate how ordinary people discuss a reconceptualization of policing in ways that respond to the current moment.
The goal of research described here is to investigate how ordinary people discuss a reconceptualization of policing in ways that respond to the current moment.
https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/crimprof_blog/2021/01/meares-prowse-on-policing-as-a-public-good.html