Browsing by Subject "Policing"

Now showing 1 - 9 of 9

An analysis of the racial geography of Austin Police Department traffic stops in 2020
(2023-04-26) Mejia, Matthew; Karner, Alex; Solis, Miriam
The City of Austin collects and compiles data on Austin Police Department (APD) traffic stops annually. In early 2021, they released the data for 2020 APD traffic stops. This report adapts contemporary research methods to analyze this dataset with an aim of discerning whether and to what degree racial bias occurred throughout the city. Largely a spatial analysis, key findings point to East Austin’s historic areas of racial segregation—now areas of recent gentrification—as primary districts for disparate police traffic stop outcomes, though Black and Hispanic/Latino drivers were also found to be overrepresented in stops and searches across most of the city. This report concludes with a set of nine recommendations, first among them for Austin voters: vote “yes” for Proposition A and “no” for Proposition B on Austin’s May 6, 2023, ballot.
Furtive Blackness : on being in and outside of law
(2021-05-05) Wilson, Tabias Olajuawon; Marshall, Stephen H.; Thompson, Shirley; Perry, Imani; Livermon, Xavier; Arroyo-Martinez, Jossianna
This dissertation is comprised of three chapters; Furtive Blackness: On Blackness and Being (“Furtive Blackness”), The Strict Scrutiny of Black and BlaQueer Life (“Strict Scrutiny”) and Sexual Profiling: BlaQueer Furtivity. It takes a fresh approach to both criminal law and constitutional law; particularly as they apply to African descended peoples in the United States. This is an intervention as to the description of the terms of Blackness in light of the social order but, also, an exposure of the failures and gaps of law. This is why the categories as we have them are inefficient to account for Black life. The way legal scholars have encountered and understood the language of law has been wholly insufficient to understand how law encounters human life. This work is about the hermeneutics of law. While I center case history and Black letter law, I am also arguing explicitly that the law has a dynamic life beyond the courtroom, a life of constructing and dissembling Black life. Together, these essays and exercises in legal philosophy are pointing toward a new method of thinking about law, a method that makes central the material reality of the Black—and BlaQueer—in black letter law.
Institutionalizing terror : militarization and migration in Central America’s forever wars
(2021-05-03) Avineri, Ilan Palacios; Garrard, Virginia, 1957-
On November 25th, 2018, Reuters published a harrowing image of a Honduran refugee named Maria Meza rushing her two daughters away from tear gas fired by the United States Border Patrol. The photograph depicted the mother intensely clutching her children’s arms as they desperately fled from the metal fence demarcating the US-Mexico border. Upon reaching shelter, a journalist asked Meza what she would do if the border remained closed. She replied that she would pray to “God that here in Tijuana, or in another country [that] they open doors to us, to allow me to survive with my children.” Over the following days, US media situated Meza’s story within a broader political discussion about whether the nation has a moral obligation to assist refugees from Central America. Few commentators, however, asked if the US played any role in engendering their displacement; even less considered if historical knowledge could lend insight in the face of such human suffering and help to shape policy responses. By contrast, this report examines the Central American refugee crisis as a historically contingent phenomenon. The paper begins with the region’s Cold War past, spotlighting the US-backed militarization of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras during the 1970s and 80s. It details how, amidst escalating civil conflict, right-wing regimes across the region incorporated their armed forces into everyday life while engaging in extreme acts of terror and violence. It then spotlights how, during the purported “democratic opening” of the 1990s, the presence of militarized institutions persisted. The paper showcases how these organizations consistently failed to address social problems, spurring emigration from the region. It concludes by analyzing US policy proposals aimed at addressing the root causes of migration from Central America. Ultimately, the report argues that, given the US’ record of disrupting Central American communities, the country should consider a migration policy that extends legal status to refugees as a form of reparations (in addition to defunding the region’s security forces).
Landscapes of care : youth perspectives on gentrification and desired geographies in Austin, Texas
(2023-05-17) Martin Benitez, Paulina Gabrielle; Sletto, Bjorn
This thesis is the culmination of collaborative work centering youth in Austin and their lived experiences of gentrification and policing in the city, in addition to their imaginaries for what an Austin that cares about its residents could look, feel, and be like. Youth participants (ages 16-18) from the Caminos program at the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center in Austin were interviewed, participated in arts and counter-mapping methods, and co-analysis for the purpose of better understanding these experiences. While the project began with a focus on the mental health impacts of gentrification for Austin youth and the application of a social determinants of health framework for planning, the project evolved to encompass the racialized nature of policing in Austin, its impacts on youth access to and use of public space, and its impacts on youth experiences in school settings. Overall, the study holds implications for the need to deeply consider abolitionist theory and practice; ethics of care; and youth-centered initiatives in the planning field.
Law and Order: The Role of Policing in Black Oppression
(2020-11-22) Huang, Christina
New faces changing spaces : how gentrification shapes individual demand for policing
(2023-12) Verrilli, Allison; Walker, Hannah L.
How does gentrification impact individual demand for policing? Previous research finds that gentrification is associated with more calls to the police but cannot show which residents make these calls or evaluate explanations for why these calls occur. My novel individual-level approach allows me to test common assumptions and ethnographic findings about gentrification and policing. Using a within-subject design that matches 2014-2021 voter file data with administrative police records from Austin, TX, I show that gentrifiers make more calls to the police than long-term residents in gentrifying neighborhoods and that this increasing call volume is associated with the act of moving. Specifically, I show that wealthier, white gentrifiers demand more policing as they move into spaces with relatively higher levels of poverty and more non-white residents regardless of changes in crime. These findings challenge the common assumption that crime alone drives demand for policing, instead highlighting the impact of poverty and race in shaping individual political behavior in gentrifying contexts.
Policing globalization : the imperial origins of international police cooperation
(2014-04-25) Whitaker, Robert David; Louis, William Roger, 1936-; Brands, H.W.; Hunt, Bruce; Vaughn, James; Warr, Marc
This thesis studies the early history of international police cooperation and international crime control. It argues that the British Empire played an active and often decisive role in this history by encouraging the development of international police organizations, such as Interpol. Additionally, it contends that Britain’s support for these organizations was based in large part on the country’s experience policing its Empire. The effort to reform colonial police brought British police in regular contact with police throughout the world, and led to exchanges of philosophies and technologies between the international and colonial spheres. During the aftermath of the Second World War, the reforming zeal of Britain’s imperial police was translated into several foreign police missions in occupied Europe and elsewhere. The British police involved in these missions attempted to encourage the development of civilian, unarmed policing with little reference to local circumstances. The failure of these missions, combined with the development of several colonial emergencies, caused Britain to abandon their forward foreign policy with regard to policing. In this vacuum, the United States emerged as the leading force in international law enforcement, though without Britain’s emphasis on civilian style policing and pursuit of cooperation with other countries.
(Re)making community on Station Road : stories of masculinity and mobility among rickshaw drivers in postwar Jaffna, Sri Lanka
(2021-06-11) Dillon, Daniel James; Hindman, Heather; Kumar, Shanti; Rudrappa, Sharmila; Selby, Martha; Thiranagama, Sharika
This dissertation represents twelve months of ethnographic research conducted in Jaffna, Sri Lanka with a group of rickshaw drivers who work on the street leading to the Railway Station, Station Road. In trying to understand the lives of these men, this research has focused on developing a collection of narratives of everyday experiences as told by the drivers and observed by the researcher. These stories, and therefore this dissertation, center around the promises and paradoxes of mobility and masculinity in postwar Jaffna through an examination of ordinary realities such as playing games, the struggle to earn hires, vehicle ornamentation, and experiences of militarized policing. These narratives are told situationally in an effort to keep the analysis grounded in the mundane and unexceptional even as it incorporates the extraordinary insights and implications of feminist, queer of color, and postcolonial theoretical frames. In weaving together ethnographic narratives of everyday life with a varied assemblage of disciplinary and methodological sensibilities, this dissertation works to evoke and interpret the unacknowledged complexity of that which is seen but unremarked. Doing so, this dissertation argues, is important in light of, and not despite, the understandable urge to simplify narratives of unfamiliar and/or distant peoples, places, and cultures. Thus, while it important to interrogate the causes and contexts of war and terrorism, which are necessarily macro and global concerns, it remains vitally important to give attention to small stories playing out in small places, without which it becomes impossible to grasp the nuances of larger events. This dissertation is therefore only indirectly about the tragedies that are often the focus of scholarly attention. War, trauma, and violence serve as background, but rarely ever as subject, for the routine, ordinary lives of the men of Station Road. This dissertation takes masculinity and mobility to be dominant themes in these lives, examining them according to the premise that prolonged engagement and attention to their everyday struggles and joys yields something worthwhile, something less than extraordinary but more than ordinary.
The gentle art of force : Brazilian jiu-jitsu and institutional change in American policing
(2023-12) Krasnicki, Daniel; Sierra-Arévalo, Michael
This thesis explores the dynamic relationship between institutional reform, technology adoption, and cultural influences, using Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) as a lens to investigate its integration into policing practices to mitigate excessive force incidents. Beginning with the context of recurrent crises of legitimacy in American policing, particularly highlighted by the tragic murder of George Floyd in 2020, the research examines the emergent trend of training officers in BJJ as a reformative measure. Drawing from extensive qualitative data, the study demonstrates that the existing cultural norms within police departments act as formidable barriers to the effective implementation of BJJ. This thesis unveils how BJJ, heralded for its potential to mitigate use of force, encounters challenges within the entrenched cultural frameworks of law enforcement. Despite proponents' arguments citing BJJ's holistic approach to physical and psychological factors influencing force usage, the research highlights the struggle of institutional culture to absorb this technology without distortion. Instead of catalyzing significant institutional change, BJJ tends to adapt to prevailing norms, resulting in a modified version termed Police Jiu-Jitsu (PJJ). This adaptation, tailored to address the emphasis on lethal violence within policing, dilutes the potential benefits of BJJ, undermining its intended purpose of reducing police violence. Ultimately, the research underscores the complex interplay between technology adoption, institutional culture, and resistance, shedding light on the limitations of technological reform within deeply entrenched social institutions like policing. The study's insights bear significant implications for both theoretical discourse surrounding policing, culture, and technology and practical policy considerations aimed at addressing police misconduct and use of force.