Special Issue Guest Editor: Envisaging the future of policing and public health

I had the great opportunity to partner with Dr. Nick Crofts of the Centre for Law Enforcement and Public Health (Australia) to serve as the Guest Editor for a special issue of the Journal of Community Safety and Well-Being. The special issue, Envisaging Healthy and Safe Communities, shares lessons from a project we led that sought to document and highlight initiatives across the globe that are taking alternative approaches to promote health and safety.

Ferguson, Missouri: Not Just an American Tragedy

The shooting death of Mike Brown by a Ferguson, Missouri police officer and the subsequent stand-offs between protestors and heavily armed law enforcement units might seem like a quintessentially all-American tragedy. But it’s not. Consider the violent rioting that erupted across England in 2011, after police in London shot dead Mark Duggan, a black British …

Equality Betrayed: Speaking Out Against Ethnic Profiling by French Police

Adji Ahoudian is a French citizen, and an elected member in the office of the mayor of the 19th arrondissement in Paris. He proudly remembers the day he received his new official I.D., with the Republican motto “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”. But then, after attending a council meeting one day, he was stopped by the police …

Immigration Crackdown in Stockholm Provokes Pushback

The messages keep coming in to the Facebook and Twitter accounts of a social network called REVA Spotter: 10.37am: uniformed police at Fridhemsplan station, on their way to the platform. 11.04am: uniformed cops at Central station, Sergels Square exit. Seem to be checking ID. 11.30am: police checks at Maltesholmsvägen and Hasselby Square. The updates provide …

Still Waiting for an End to Police Discrimination in Spain

Rosalind Williams has a special place in the struggle against discrimination by European police forces against people of color and ethnic minorities. Twenty years ago, she was stopped and asked for her identity papers by Spanish police in a railway station. An African-American who had acquired Spanish citizenship by marriage, she was travelling with her …

Policing the Police: Civilian Video Monitoring of Police Activity

Police misconduct and violence continues throughout the world, often without any oversight, accountability or justice for the victims. Recent deaths of civilians by police officers in New York, violent repression of “Occupy” protestors, and rampant police violence in response to the “Arab Spring” have brought renewed attention to the persistent issue of police violence. A …