Roger Lancaster, a member of the Cultural Studies core faculty, and Tauheeda Yasin Martin, a Cultural Studies PhD candidate and Associate Professor at Northern Virginia Community College, recently participated in a Symposium hosted on Nonsite entitled "On Policing" responding to the recent calls to defund police departments.
"The Policing Crisis" by Roger Lancaster
"The call to defund or abolish the police is a gift to the right. We need instead a series of radical reforms along with enhanced training, closer supervision, and democratic accountability. We should be looking to models that work rather than engaging in fantasies about civil patrols and communal policing, which will ultimately mean an expansion of private guard labor and private policing, unaccountable to public oversight."
"By decriminalizing minor infractions and offering alternatives to police interactions, including utilizing technology to overcome unnecessary, unsafe, and costly traffic stops, the U.S. could improve safety outcomes. Instead of a call to #defund law enforcement, let’s question where funding comes from in order to restructure it and create a better public safety infrastructure."
The full symposium can be found here.
July 13, 2020