This lecture was prepared for a national teach-in at Schools of Social Work in the United States in October 2020.

1. #SWEduActs Teach-In
Police brutality as a form of
structural racism
Elspeth Slayter, MSW, PhD
School of Social Work
Salem State University

2. Learning objectives
1. Define police brutality
2. Explore history of police brutality as a
form of structural racism
3. Discuss prevalence
4. Consider causes
5. Review responses
6. Action steps

3. Definition
• “Police brutality” is used to refer to various
human rights violations by police
• Includes beatings, racial abuse, unlawful
killings, torture, or indiscriminate use of riot
control agents at protests
(Amnesty International, 2020)

4. Why social workers need to
focus on police brutality:
• Experience of police brutality is traumatic,
life-altering & sometimes lethal
• Police actions are, arguably, state
sanctioned forms of social control that
impact our communities
• Circa 18,000 law enforcement agencies in
U.S. (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2016)

5. We’ve all
heard the long
list of names…

6. …but this is not new…
Smithsonian Museum Collection, 2020

7. Origins of U.S. police force
• 1704: First formal slave
patrol created in colonies,
roots of current police
system
• Focus: Preservation of
slavery
• Reconstruction: Sheriffs
functioned enforced
segregation &
disenfranchisement of freed
slaves
(Waxman, 2017)

8. BIPOC an early target of police
• 1838: 1st police department in Boston
• Communities most targeted by harsh
tactics: Recent European immigrants
• As Black people fled horrors of Jim Crow
south, they too became victims
(Nodjimbadem, 2020)

9. Police work always racialized
• 1929: Chicago
• Police killings: 30%
Black people
• Black people
constituted only 5% of
population
• Racialized focus of
police work (Nodjimbadem, 2020)

10. Problems with police noted
• 1931-32
• National Commission
on Law Observance &
Enforcement
• Commissioned a
report on
“Lawlessness in Law
Enforcement” (Nodjimbadem, 2020)

11. Violence in policing pervasive
• 1960s: Civil Rights
Era
• Aggressive dispersion
tactics
• Pervasive violent
policing in
communities of color
every day (Nodjimbadem, 2020)

12. Violence in policing pervasive
• 1965
• Congressman John
Lewis in Selma,
Alabama
• “Bloody Sunday”
(Nodjimbadem, 2020)

13. The power of video emerges
• 1991
• Beating of Rodney
King in Los Angeles,
CA, 50+ times
• Use of amateur video
allowed world to
witness (Nodjimbadem, 2020)

14. Case causes widespread outcry
• 1997
• Abner Louima,
sexually assaulted
with broomstick in
police precinct
• Brooklyn, New York

15. Case emblematic of overzealous
use of force
• 1999
• Amadou Diallo,
unarmed, shot 41
times
• Bronx, New York

16. Ignites protest of “stand your
ground” law
• 2012
• Trayvon Martin, 17
years old, shot on
walk home from
candy purchase
• Sanford, Florida

17. #BlackLivesMatter movement
• 2013
• Acquittal of Trayvon
Martin’s killer led to
founding of movement
• Organize & build local
power to intervene in
violence inflicted on
Black communities by
state & vigilantes

18. “I can’t breathe”
• 2014
• Eric Garner, unarmed,
selling cigarettes
• Staten Island, New
York

19. Body left on ground for hours,
widespread outcry
• 2014
• Michael Brown,
unarmed 18 year old,
• Ferguson, Missouri

20. An especially young victim
• 2014
• Tamir Rice, age 12,
had a toy gun, shot
dead in seconds
• Cleveland, Ohio

21. A death in custody
• 2015
• Sandra Bland,
commits suicide after
arrest for minor traffic
stop, police
misconduct
acknowledged
• Waller County, Texas

22. #SayHerName
• 2015-2016
• Hashtag campaign,
report, Ted talk
(African American Policy
Forum, 2020 & Center for
Intersectionality & Social
Policy Studies, 2020)

23. Use of livestreaming to
document abuse
• 2016
• Philando Castile,
complying with police
during traffic stop,
shot dead with baby,
partner in car

24. Outcry over no-knock warrants
• 2020
• Breonna Taylor, shot
8 times in her bed
• Louisville, Kentucky

25. A critical convergence
• 2020
• George Floyd killed in
Minneapolis,
Minnesota

26. An over-representation
• 2020
• Tony McDade,
transgender man
• Tallahassee, Florida

27. Transgender people over-
represented
• 3.7x more likely to
experience police
violence
• 7x more likely to
experience physical
violence from police vs.
cisgender victims
(Anti-Violence Project,
2013)

28. Transgender people over-
represented
• BIPOC transgender
people 6x more likely
to experience
physical violence from
police vs. White
cisgender victims
(Anti-Violence Project,
2013)

29. No recognition of disability
• Intersection with
disability
• Ruderman Family
Foundation report on
disability & police
violence
• 30-50% of people killed
by police are disabled

30. Measuring police brutality
• Measurement a challenge due to
underreporting (ACLU, 2020)
• Citizen complaint rates often reflect
underreporting
• Historically:
– Low SES most at risk
– 13.6% citizen encounters resulted in
complaints of abuse (Police Services Study,
1982)

31. Measuring police brutality
• Recommendations from ACLU are to
focus on:
– Police shootings/firearms discharge
– Use of physical force
– Understanding official policies
– Counting lawsuits

32. Measuring police brutality: What
we do know
MappingPoliceViolence.org

33. Measuring police brutality: What
we do know
MappingPoliceViolence.org

34. Measuring police brutality: What
we do know
MappingPoliceViolence.org

35. Causes of police brutality
• 2 competing theories re: lethal force in
literature
• Threat hypothesis: Explained by racism &
influence on interpersonal interaction (Jacobs &
Obrien,1998)
• Community violence hypothesis: Direct
response to higher rates of violent crime in
Black communities (Smith, 2004)

36. Causes of police brutality
• Traditional arguments focus on implicit
bias & “a few bad apples” (Mock, 2018)
• Newer research identifies structural racism
at state policy level (Mesic, Franklin, Cansever, Sharma,
Knopov & Seigel, 2018)
– 5 state racism index factors considered
– Correlation between level of state racism &
rate of unarmed Black people killed by police
– Data support aspects of both theories

37. Responses to police brutality
with limited to no success
• Use of implicit bias training inconclusive so
far (Maron, 2016)
• Diversifying police forces not very
successful (Cobbina, 2020)
• Body cameras have almost no effect on
behavior (Yokum, Ravishankar & Coppock, 2017)

38. Responses to police brutality
with promise
• Restrictions on use of chokeholds,
shooting at moving vehicles (Use of force Project,
2020)
• Preparing officers to support people with
mental illness with robust training (Calahan,
2020)
• Demilitarization of local police forces
(Delehanty, Mewhirter, Welch & Wilks, 2017)

39. Other suggested responses to
police brutality
• Re-negotiating police union contracts to
increase officer accountability (Bokat-Lindell, 2020)
• Eliminating “qualified immunity” for civilian
deaths (Brown, 2020)
• Initiating a truth & reconciliation process
about police abuses (Bokat-Lindell, 2020)

40. Other suggested responses to
police brutality
• Hiring more police officers (Bokat-Lindell, 2020)
• De-funding police departments (Ray, 2020)
• Hiring social workers to replace many police
functions in existing police structures (Singer,
2020)
• *Not* hiring social workers for work in police
departments as it will not change underlying
oppressive culture (Vakharia, 2020)

41. Discussion questions
1. How is police brutality a form of structural
racism?
2. How can social workers best respond to the
problem of police brutality at micro, mezzo
and macro levels?
3. Are there alternative conflict & dispute
resolution systems that we can foster to
avoid police involvement in “hot situations?”

42. Action steps:
• Educate yourself about how police
brutality gets made (Brooks, 2020)
– BIPOC: Tend to racial trauma, foster resiliency
– White people: Don’t ignore problem because
you can
• Speak up about what’s happening in your
community (Hao, 2020)
• Consider investing in positive community
supports & programs (Davis, 2016)

43. Action steps:
• Learn trauma-informed practices for work
with youth in urban communities due to
over-exposure (Geller, Fagan, Tyler & Link, 2014)
• Participate in anti-racism work in your
organization! (Kendi, 2019)
• Engage in anti-racism work on *yourself* &
spread the message! (Saad, 2020)

45. Contact information:
• Elspeth Slayter, MSW, PhD
• Professor
• School of Social Work
• Salem State University
• eslayter@salemstate.edu
• CC BY-NC-SA