"They have all the power" : Youth/police encounters on Chicago's South Side
Craig B. Futterman (Author), Chaclyn Hunt (Author), Jamie Kalven (Author)
"Public conversations about urban police practices tend to exclude the perspectives and experiences of the young Black people, the citizens often most affected by those practices. The aim of the Youth/Police Project -- a collaboration of the Mandel Legal Aid Clinic of the University of Chicago Law School and the Invisible Institute -- is to access that critical knowledge and ensure that it is represented in the public discourse. This paper describes what we have learned from our ongoing project. In contrast to the attention commanded by high profile incidents of police abuse, we focus on the routine encounters between police and Black youth that take place countless times every day in cities across the nation -- interactions that shape how kids see police and how police see them. Our methodology is straightforward. We ask Black high school students to describe their interactions with the police. And we listen. Three findings stand out, above all, from these conversations: (1) The ubiquity of police presence in the lives of Black youth. Every student with whom we work lives with the ever-present possibility of being stopped, searched, and treated as a criminal. These negative encounters make many students feel "less than a person," and cause them to curtail their own freedom at critical times in their development to avoid being stopped by the police. (2) The depth of Black students' alienation from law enforcement. The overwhelming majority expressed great distrust of the police, so much that they did not feel comfortable seeking police assistance, even when someone close to them was the victim of a violent crime. (3) The primacy of accountability. Unchecked police power -- lack of accountability -- emerged as the single greatest barrier to building a relationship of trust with police. This paper offers a concrete policy, advocacy, and research agenda to address these issues. Central to our recommendations is acknowledging the realities of young people living in marginalized communities. Drawing on our work with youth, we propose a set of policies that, taken together, have the potential to yield more equitable and constructive relationships between Black communities and police."
eBook, English, 2016
Law School, University of Chicago, [Chicago, Illinois], 2016