7 Disabling policing, protecting community health
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Chris Cunneen
Abstract
There is an absence of systematic evidence internationally on the extent of police violence, including lethal violence, against people with disabilities and mental ill-health. However, we know from individual cases and research data that the problem is extensive. Some of the most well-known police killings in the US which spurred the BLM movement involved Black Americans with disabilities, as has also been the case with deaths of Indigenous, Black, and people of colour in Canada and Australia. There is extensive police intervention into the lives of people with mental ill-health and cognitive impairments, and policing is a key part of the disablist processes of state control. The policing of disability is not a new phenomenon, but it has intensified with the neoliberal contraction of social support and the growth of the carceral state. Further, police decisions affecting people with disabilities compound through the carceral system, often justifying more extreme legal measures. As will be evident in this chapter, it is impossible to conceptualise policing without understanding its dis/abling effects. Centring disability is fundamental to the Defund the Police project and abolitionism more generally.
Abstract
There is an absence of systematic evidence internationally on the extent of police violence, including lethal violence, against people with disabilities and mental ill-health. However, we know from individual cases and research data that the problem is extensive. Some of the most well-known police killings in the US which spurred the BLM movement involved Black Americans with disabilities, as has also been the case with deaths of Indigenous, Black, and people of colour in Canada and Australia. There is extensive police intervention into the lives of people with mental ill-health and cognitive impairments, and policing is a key part of the disablist processes of state control. The policing of disability is not a new phenomenon, but it has intensified with the neoliberal contraction of social support and the growth of the carceral state. Further, police decisions affecting people with disabilities compound through the carceral system, often justifying more extreme legal measures. As will be evident in this chapter, it is impossible to conceptualise policing without understanding its dis/abling effects. Centring disability is fundamental to the Defund the Police project and abolitionism more generally.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- List of abbreviations vi
- About the author viii
- Acknowledgements ix
- Time for change 1
- A brief history of policing 21
- Don’t police solve crime? 42
- The protest movement never stopped: from Black Power to zero tolerance 63
- Police violence is the pandemic 87
- The protection racket 111
- Disabling policing, protecting community health 130
- The failure of reform 147
- What is to be done? 168
- Notes 191
- References 216
- Index 252
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front Matter i
- Contents iii
- List of abbreviations vi
- About the author viii
- Acknowledgements ix
- Time for change 1
- A brief history of policing 21
- Don’t police solve crime? 42
- The protest movement never stopped: from Black Power to zero tolerance 63
- Police violence is the pandemic 87
- The protection racket 111
- Disabling policing, protecting community health 130
- The failure of reform 147
- What is to be done? 168
- Notes 191
- References 216
- Index 252
