policing

Dezarae Newstrom writes that there is so much cruelty within policing and foster care, and that we need education on the history of these systems.

Eight days after a police officer killed Ma’Khia Bryant in front of her foster home in Columbus, Ohio, the 16-year-old’s anguished family convened on the steps of City Hall on Wednesday to call for federal investigation into the child welfare system that was supposed to care for her – and the police agency tasked with protecting her.

For young people like Zahria Thomas, schools are too often places where black and brown youth are seen as threats, not as students. When she was 16, the Inglewood resident was arrested at her Los Angeles high school, in front of her classmates, after she responded angrily to a teacher’s racist remark.

While a low-grade temblor shook the walls of Los Angeles City Hall on Wednesday night, Mayor Eric Garcetti announced an unprecedented plan to siphon up to $150 million from the Los Angeles Police Department budget as protesters continue to demand transformational policing reform.

Over the past several days, America has, yet again, borne witness to how deeply its people are wounded and angered over the disproportionate use of deadly force by police on African Americans. 

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention recently published a report by several researchers on the groundbreaking “Pathways to Desistance” project, which tracked about 1,300 serious juvenile offenders from the Phoenix and Philadelphia areas for seven years after conviction.