Calls for Police Reform Are Getting Louder – Here Is How to Do It

Published in Foreign Policy

By Robert Muggah

Horrifying videos of police officers suffocating and shooting Black people in the United States have generated outrage around the world. The killings also triggered demonstrations in thousands of cities and towns in the United States and across the globe, temporarily displacing the COVID-19 pandemic from headlines. Footage of peaceful protesters being beaten, tear-gassed, and rammed with police vehicles escalated the outrage. Some demonstrators and commentators have called for defunding and abolishing the police outright. For many, the persistence of police violence—especially against African Americans—warrants radical policy moves, and anything less seems like capitulation to the status quo.

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