Vahid’s Reviews > The End of Policing > Status Update

“[High housing prices] creates a sense of social entitlement and financial insecurity that can drive even liberals to call on local governments to “get tough” on homeless people in their midst. My own research has documented the role of social activists with long histories of liberal activism calling for the removal of homeless encampments by police in New York and San Francisco”

What the fuck.

“Special-needs children make up over a quarter of those referred to police (even though they represent just 14 percent of students), leading to horrific results. In spring 2015 ...profiled the case of an 11-year-old boy with autism was charged with criminal offenses by the school’s SRO... the boy was slammed to the ground and handcuffed by the same SRO after resisting being dragged out of the classroom.”

“While putatively under civilian political control, the reality was that the state police remained a major force in putting down strikes, though often with less violence and greater legal and political authority”

“Our entire criminal justice system has become a gigantic revenge factory. Three-strikes laws, sex-offender registries, the death penalty, and abolishing parole are about retribution, not safety”

“In Cleveland, the DOJ got the local police to agree to prohibit shooting at fleeing vehicles unless there was an immediate threat to life. That agreement seemed to have little effect when officers killed an unarmed driver and passenger after firing 137 shots at them, because they mistook an engine backfire for a gunshot.”

Well.