A Roadmap for Re-imagining Public Safety in the United States

Police violence has a long history in the United States and remains a prevasive problem to this day. As recent research by the Human Rights Watch has shown, it is inextricably linked to deep and persisting racial inequities and economic class divisions. For reform efforts to be meaningful and effective, they need to address those societal conditions.

Too often police reform discussion in the United States focus on tactics that contribute to killings. Killings are only the tip of an iceberg of much more common daily interactions between police and Black, Latino and Native American, poorer people and people with disabilities, that are coercive and often violent, even if they do not result in death or serious injury, Such interactions result in high rates of arrest and criminalization, again disproportionately impacting people from these communities, contributing to mass incarceration and devastating long-term consequences for those convicted and those close to them.