Gangs of sheriff’s deputies, violent cliques who glorify “aggressive” policing, have operated out of Los Angeles County stations and jails for decades. Their criminal behavior has been so egregious it has resulted in $55 million in legal payouts.
Plainclothes police ‘jump-out boys’ terrorize American cities. Sometimes they become all-out criminal gangs.
As calls to defund police grow, peacemakers on the frontlines of Chicago’s gun violence epidemic have dramatically reduced homicides and shootings.
The barriers to reform police unions erected over the years will pose an enormous obstacle to establishing a new, more accountable kind of policing in the United States.
“I just don’t feel that police evicting people is a way to ‘protect and serve.’”
Dr. Linda Murray, former chief medical officer for Cook County Department of Public Health, was a doctor serving public housing residents when one of the deadliest heat waves in U.S. history hit Chicago. 25 years later, she sees the same root causes.
While some in the labor movement are seeking to distance themselves, most are supportive even as they call for reforms.
A debate heats up among NBA players over whether to return to the court amid nationwide protests against racist violence. Many players feel the issues of racial justice and stopping police violence are pressing, now is not the time for pro basketball
As protests against police brutality grow, calls to abolish the police have become increasingly popular. While those demands have been shocking to many, they're not new. Calls for police abolitionism date to the earliest establishment of the police.
Recent Portside posts have explored different sides of the repressive role of the police and whether or not police unions as they are constituted should remain within the labor movement. Here Portside readers respond.
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