School of Public Policy 394PI - Pol&Policy/AmericanPoliceState

Between news stories and tv shows, attention to policing in the United States is typically high. However, since 2013 the diversity of reasons why attention has turned to the police and policing and the nature of that attention has varied widely. For example, beginning in 2015, the Washington Post began tracking the number of people the police kill each year: on average, around 1000 people are. Similarly, from 2013 through 2020 the rate of protests against police violence and racial inequality in the United States have increased, culminating in protests sweeping the nation in the wake of the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. During that same period, a new national consensus arose that the police in the US need to be reformed. A stumbling block in seeking and implementing those reforms is a lack of agreement on what role the police should play in a community, what the central problems may be, and how to address those issues. In this course, we will tackle each, with the aim of understanding of the basic contours of policing in the United States today through a public policy lens, including an understanding of: what the police do and who they are, challenges and problems facing the police and policing today, proposed policy changes, and possible tradeoffs or considerations when considering the current state of affairs and potential changes. Central to this is developing an understanding of power dynamics and hierarchies, how the police?s presence is felt by the populations and people they interact with, and the public?s response. Woven throughout are discussions of race, class, and gender as personal testimonials, anecdotes, and quantitative research have revealed differential policing patterns across groups and that members of different groups respond to police contact differentially. Although the course primarily asks about the contours of policing from a public policy lens, we will draw heavily from a range of intimately related disciplines including but not limited to history, political science, sociology, and public administration. This course constitutes an IE (Integrated Experience) designation for SPP.

POLISCI 280,SPP 280, LEGAL 250 10 seats reserved for SPP students until 11/20.