Download or read book United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division Investigation of the Ferguson Police Department Practices Violate the Law and Undermine Community Trust Especially Among African Americans written by U. S. Government and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2015-03-05 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice opened its investigation of the Ferguson Police Department ("FPD") on September 4, 2014. This investigation has revealed a pattern or practice of unlawful conduct within the Ferguson Police Department that violates the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, and federal statutory law. Ferguson's law enforcement practices are shaped by the City's focus on revenue rather than by public safety needs. This emphasis on revenue has compromised the institutional character of Ferguson's police department, contributing to a pattern of unconstitutional policing, and has also shaped its municipal court, leading to procedures that raise due process concerns and inflict unnecessary harm on members of the Ferguson community. Further, Ferguson's police and municipal court practices both reflect and exacerbate existing racial bias, including racial stereotypes. Ferguson's own data establish clear racial disparities that adversely impact African Americans. The evidence shows that discriminatory intent is part of the reason for these disparities. Over time, Ferguson's police and municipal court practices have sown deep mistrust between parts of the community and the police department, undermining law enforcement legitimacy among African Americans in particular. I. REPORT SUMMARY * II. BACKGROUND * III. FERGUSON LAW ENFORCEMENT EFFORTS ARE FOCUSED ON GENERATING REVENUE * IV. FERGUSON LAW ENFORCEMENT PRACTICES VIOLATE THE LAW AND UNDERMINE COMMUNITY TRUST, ESPECIALLY AMONG AFRICAN AMERICANS * A. Ferguson's Police Practices * 1. FPD Engages in a Pattern of Unconstitutional Stops and Arrests in Violation of the Fourth Amendment * 2. FPD Engages in a Pattern of First Amendment Violations * 3. FPD Engages in a Pattern of Excessive Force in Violation of the Fourth Amendment * B. Ferguson's Municipal Court Practices * 1. Court Practices Impose Substantial and Unnecessary Barriers to the Challenge or Resolution of Municipal Code Violations * 2. The Court Imposes Unduly Harsh Penalties for Missed Payments or Appearances * C. Ferguson Law Enforcement Practices Disproportionately Harm Ferguson's African-American Residents and Are Driven in Part by Racial Bias * 1. Ferguson's Law Enforcement Actions Impose a Disparate Impact on African Americans that Violates Federal Law * 2. Ferguson's Law Enforcement Practices Are Motivated in Part by Discriminatory Intent in Violation of the Fourteenth Amendment and Other Federal Laws * D. Ferguson Law Enforcement Practices Erode Community Trust, Especially Among Ferguson's African-American Residents, and Make Policing Less Effective, More Difficult, and Less Safe * 1. Ferguson's Unlawful Police and Court Practices Have Led to Distrust and Resentment Among Many in Ferguson * 2. FPD's Exercise of Discretion, Even When Lawful, Often Undermines Community Trust and Public Safety * 3. FPD's Failure to Respond to Complaints of Officer Misconduct Further Erodes Community Trust * 4. FPD's Lack of Community Engagement Increases the Likelihood of Discriminatory Policing and Damages Public Trust * 5. Ferguson's Lack of a Diverse Police Force Further Undermines Community Trust * V. CHANGES NECESSARY TO REMEDY FERGUSON'S UNLAWFUL LAW ENFORCEMENT PRACTICES AND REPAIR COMMUNITY TRUST * VI. CONCLUSION * FOOTNOTES

Download or read book The Ferguson Report written by United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division and published by New Press, The. This book was released on 2015-06-23 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On August 9, 2014, Michael Brown, an unarmed African American high school senior, was shot by Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri. For months afterward, protestors took to the streets demanding justice, testifying to the racist and exploitative police department and court system, and connecting the shooting of Brown with the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, and other young black men at the hands of police across the country. In the wake of these protests, the Department of Justice launched a six-month investigation, resulting in a report that Colorlines characterizes as "so caustic it reads like an Onion article" and laying bare what the Huffington Post calls "a totalizing police regime beyond any of Kafka's ghastliest nightmares." Among the report's findings are that the Ferguson Police Department "Engages in a Pattern of Unconstitutional Stops and Arrests in Violation of the Fourth Amendment," "Detain[s] People Without Reasonable Suspicion and Arrest[s] People Without Probable Cause," "Engages in a Pattern of First Amendment Violations," "Engages in a Pattern of Excessive Force," and "Erode[s] Community Trust, Especially Among Ferguson's African-American Residents." Contextualized here in a substantial introduction by renowned legal scholar and former NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund president Theodore M. Shaw, The Ferguson Report is a sad, sobering, and important document, providing a snapshot of American law enforcement at the start of the twenty-first century, with resonance far beyond one small town in Missouri.

Download or read book Charleston Syllabus written by Chad Williams and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2016-05-01 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On June 17, 2015, a white supremacist entered Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, and sat with some of its parishioners during a Wednesday night Bible study session. An hour later, he began expressing his hatred for African Americans, and soon after, he shot nine church members dead, the church’s pastor and South Carolina state senator, Rev. Clementa C. Pinckney, among them. The ensuing manhunt for the shooter and investigation of his motives revealed his beliefs in white supremacy and reopened debates about racial conflict, southern identity,systemic racism, civil rights, and the African American church as an institution. In the aftermath of the massacre, Professors Chad Williams, Kidada Williams, and Keisha N. Blain sought a way to put the murder—and the subsequent debates about it in the media—in the context of America’s tumultuous history of race relations and racial violence on a global scale. They created the Charleston Syllabus on June 19, starting it as a hashtag on Twitter linking to scholarly works on the myriad of issues related to the murder. The syllabus’s popularity exploded and is already being used as a key resource in discussions of the event. Charleston Syllabus is a reader—a collection of new essays and columns published in the wake of the massacre, along with selected excerpts from key existing scholarly books and general-interest articles. The collection draws from a variety of disciplines—history, sociology, urban studies, law, critical race theory—and includes a selected and annotated bibliography for further reading, drawing from such texts as the Confederate constitution, South Carolina’s secession declaration, songs, poetry, slave narratives, and literacy texts. As timely as it is necessary, the book will be a valuable resource for understanding the roots of American systemic racism, white privilege, the uses and abuses of the Confederate flag and its ideals, the black church as a foundation for civil rights activity and state violence against such activity, and critical whiteness studies.

Download or read book Proactive Policing written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2018-03-23 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Proactive policing, as a strategic approach used by police agencies to prevent crime, is a relatively new phenomenon in the United States. It developed from a crisis in confidence in policing that began to emerge in the 1960s because of social unrest, rising crime rates, and growing skepticism regarding the effectiveness of standard approaches to policing. In response, beginning in the 1980s and 1990s, innovative police practices and policies that took a more proactive approach began to develop. This report uses the term "proactive policing" to refer to all policing strategies that have as one of their goals the prevention or reduction of crime and disorder and that are not reactive in terms of focusing primarily on uncovering ongoing crime or on investigating or responding to crimes once they have occurred. Proactive policing is distinguished from the everyday decisions of police officers to be proactive in specific situations and instead refers to a strategic decision by police agencies to use proactive police responses in a programmatic way to reduce crime. Today, proactive policing strategies are used widely in the United States. They are not isolated programs used by a select group of agencies but rather a set of ideas that have spread across the landscape of policing. Proactive Policing reviews the evidence and discusses the data and methodological gaps on: (1) the effects of different forms of proactive policing on crime; (2) whether they are applied in a discriminatory manner; (3) whether they are being used in a legal fashion; and (4) community reaction. This report offers a comprehensive evaluation of proactive policing that includes not only its crime prevention impacts but also its broader implications for justice and U.S. communities.

Download or read book Communities in Action written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2017-04-27 with total page 583 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

Download or read book Critical Issues in Policing written by Roger G. Dunham and published by Waveland Press. This book was released on 2020-07-01 with total page 710 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The eighth edition of this comprehensive collection includes carefully chosen articles with fresh perspectives on the most current trends in policing. Critical Issues in Policing provides ready access to the brightest minds in the field of policing. The 36 contributions sharpen understanding of the intricacies of police work and encourage readers to change from holding the police responsible for crime rates to holding them accountable for specific goals, tasks, and objectives. The new edition continues its authoritative, insightful coverage of complex elements of policing and presents vivid and pragmatic illustrations of law enforcement issues. The anthology offers an alternative to traditional policing texts. It covers philosophies of policing that guide discussions about police culture, police misconduct, use of force, operational concerns, and technological innovations.

Download or read book Locking Up Our Own written by James Forman, Jr. and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2017-04-18 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years, America’s criminal justice system has become the subject of an increasingly urgent debate. Critics have assailed the rise of mass incarceration, emphasizing its disproportionate impact on people of color. As James Forman, Jr., points out, however, the war on crime that began in the 1970s was supported by many African American leaders in the nation’s urban centers. In Locking Up Our Own, he seeks to understand why. Forman shows us that the first substantial cohort of black mayors, judges, and police chiefs took office amid a surge in crime and drug addiction. Many prominent black officials, including Washington, D.C. mayor Marion Barry and federal prosecutor Eric Holder, feared that the gains of the civil rights movement were being undermined by lawlessness—and thus embraced tough-on-crime measures, including longer sentences and aggressive police tactics. In the face of skyrocketing murder rates and the proliferation of open-air drug markets, they believed they had no choice. But the policies they adopted would have devastating consequences for residents of poor black neighborhoods. A former D.C. public defender, Forman tells riveting stories of politicians, community activists, police officers, defendants, and crime victims. He writes with compassion about individuals trapped in terrible dilemmas—from the men and women he represented in court to officials struggling to respond to a public safety emergency. Locking Up Our Own enriches our understanding of why our society became so punitive and offers important lessons to anyone concerned about the future of race and the criminal justice system in this country.

Download or read book Race and the Jury written by Hiroshi Fukurai and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-06-29 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this timely volume, the authors provide a penetrating analysis of the institutional mechanisms perpetuating the related problems of minorities' disenfranchisement and their underrepresentation on juries.

Download or read book Civil Rights Investigations of Local Police written by and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Summary: ... the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Acy, which gives DOJ's Civil Rights Division the authority to investigate state and local law enforcement agencies that it believes have unconstitutional policies or practices of conduct. The law is intended to address systemic issues, rather than individual complaints... The alleged misconduct cannot be an isolated incident. And there is no private right of action under the 1994 law; only the Justice Department is given authority to launch investigations and litigation under this statute.

Download or read book Ghettoside written by Jill Leovy and published by One World/Ballantine. This book was released on 2015 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Discusses the hundreds of murders that occur in Los Angeles each year, and focuses on the story of the dedicated group of detectives who pursued justice at any cost in the killing of Bryant Tennelle"--Publisher's description.

Download or read book Race Ethnicity and Policing written by Stephen K. Rice and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2010-03-15 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The text includes both classic pieces and original essays that provide the reader with a comprehensive, even-handed sense of the theoretical underpinnings, methodological challenges, and existing research necessary to understand the problems associated with racial and ethnic profiling and police bias.

Download or read book Understanding Police Use of Force written by Geoffrey P. Alpert and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2004-08-16 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Description

Download or read book A Pound of Flesh written by Alexes Harris and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 2016-06-08 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over seven million Americans are either incarcerated, on probation, or on parole, with their criminal records often following them for life and affecting access to higher education, jobs, and housing. Court-ordered monetary sanctions that compel criminal defendants to pay fines, fees, surcharges, and restitution further inhibit their ability to reenter society. In A Pound of Flesh, sociologist Alexes Harris analyzes the rise of monetary sanctions in the criminal justice system and shows how they permanently penalize and marginalize the poor. She exposes the damaging effects of a little-understood component of criminal sentencing and shows how it further perpetuates racial and economic inequality. Harris draws from extensive sentencing data, legal documents, observations of court hearings, and interviews with defendants, judges, prosecutors, and other court officials. She documents how low-income defendants are affected by monetary sanctions, which include fees for public defenders and a variety of processing charges. Until these debts are paid in full, individuals remain under judicial supervision, subject to court summons, warrants, and jail stays. As a result of interest and surcharges that accumulate on unpaid financial penalties, these monetary sanctions often become insurmountable legal debts which many offenders carry for the remainder of their lives. Harris finds that such fiscal sentences, which are imposed disproportionately on low-income minorities, help create a permanent economic underclass and deepen social stratification. A Pound of Flesh delves into the court practices of five counties in Washington State to illustrate the ways in which subjective sentencing shapes the practice of monetary sanctions. Judges and court clerks hold a considerable degree of discretion in the sentencing and monitoring of monetary sanctions and rely on individual values—such as personal responsibility, meritocracy, and paternalism—to determine how much and when offenders should pay. Harris shows that monetary sanctions are imposed at different rates across jurisdictions, with little or no state government oversight. Local officials’ reliance on their own values and beliefs can also push offenders further into debt—for example, when judges charge defendants who lack the means to pay their fines with contempt of court and penalize them with additional fines or jail time. A Pound of Flesh provides a timely examination of how monetary sanctions permanently bind poor offenders to the judicial system. Harris concludes that in letting monetary sanctions go unchecked, we have created a two-tiered legal system that imposes additional burdens on already-marginalized groups.

Download or read book The Law of the Police written by Rachel Harmon and published by Aspen Publishing. This book was released on 2024-02-15 with total page 916 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Buy a new version of this textbook and receive access to the Connected eBook on Casebook Connect, including lifetime access to the online ebook with highlight, annotation, and search capabilities. Access also includes an outline tool and other helpful resources. Connected eBooks provide what you need most to be successful in your law school classes. The Law of the Police, Second Edition provides materials and analysis for law school classes on policing and the law. It offers a resource for students and others seeking to understand and evaluate how American law governs police interactions with the public. The book provides primary materials, including cases, statutes, and departmental policies, and commentary and questions designed to help readers explore policing practices; the law that governs them; and the law's consequences for the costs, benefits, fairness, and accountability of policing. Among other issues, the notes and questions encourage readers to consider the form and content of the law; how it might change; who is making it; and how the law affects policing. Part I introduces local policing--its history, its goals, and its problems; Part II considers the law that regulates criminal investigations; Part III addresses the law that governs street policing; and Part IV looks at policing's legal remedies and reforms. New to the Second Edition: New sections and materials on no-knock warrants, facial recognition technology, state regulation of pedestrian stops, alternatives to police-initiated traffic stops, state laws granting arrest authority, retaliatory arrest claims, state qualified immunity reform, private civil settlements for police reform, and community strategies to limit the scope of policing. New notes and materials on the role of prosecutors in shaping police conduct, the Second Amendment, the use of race in policing, policing homelessness, the impact of police unions and collective bargaining, and the Biden Administration's pattern-or-practice suits. A recent federal indictment charging an officer with constitutionally excessive force. Updates to laws and notes to reflect new data, laws, and criminological and legal research. Additional examples of controversial police encounters to illustrate legal issues and concepts. Benefits for instructors and students: Chapters and notes designed to allow flexibility--allow professors to assign materials selectively according to the needs of the course. As a result, the casebook can serve as materials for a range of lecture and discussion-based courses on the law regulating police conduct; on legal remedies and reforms for problems in policing; or on more specific topics, such as the use of force or constitutional rules governing police conduct. Descriptions of controversial policing encounters and links to and discussion of videos of such incidents--help students practice applying the law, consider its policy implications, and gain awareness of contemporary controversies on policing. Diverse primary materials, including federal and state cases and statutes and police department policies--provide a broad exposure to the types of law that govern public policing. Photos, links to videos, protest art, and charts--pique student interest, enable richer discussions, and provide additional context for legal materials in the book. Integration of scholarly work on policing, on the law, and on the impact of police practices--enables students to make more sophisticated assessments of the law. Notes and questions--designed to (a) highlight alternative strategies lawyers might use to change the law, and (b) raise comparative institutional questions about who is best suited to regulate the police. Discussion of legal topics relevant to contemporary discussions of policing--studied nowhere else in the law school curriculum.

Download or read book Report on the Police written by United States. Wickersham Commission and published by . This book was released on 1971 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Policing Protest written by Donatella Della Porta and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first international examination of how police respond to political protests. The way in which police handle political demonstrations is always potentially controversial. In contemporary democracies, police departments have two different, often conflicting aims: keeping the peace and defending citizens' right to protest. This collection, the only resource to examine police interventions cross-nationally, analyzes a wide array of policing styles. Focusing on Italy, France, Germany, Great Britain, Switzerland, Spain, the United States, and South Africa, the contributors look at cultures and political power to examine the methods and the consequences of policing protest.

Download or read book On the Courthouse Lawn Revised Edition written by Sherrilyn A. Ifill and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2018-08-14 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This exploration of the effects of lynching in the U.S. speaks powerfully to us in these times that have witnessed the creation of the Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice. Nearly five thousand black Americans were lynched between 1890 and 1960, and the effects of this racial trauma continue to resound. Inspired by South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and drawing on techniques of restorative justice, Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, offers concrete ways for communities to heal. She also issues a clarion call for communities with histories of racial violence to be proactive in facing this legacy. This revised edition speaks powerfully to us in these times that have witnessed the creation of the Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama. e new foreword from Bryan Stevenson helps readers to better understand contemporary struggles and come to terms with the legacy of racial terror in the United States. In a new afterword, Ifill reflects on the recent strides made throughout the country to break the silence surrounding lynching and to recognize the victims of violence.Th