Violence, the State, and the Poor: A View from the South ,

Previous research suggests police surveillance practices confer health risks to community members. This study examines whether the public health burden of excessive or ethnoracially inequitable police use of force are amplified or buffered by ethnoracial composition. Multilevel models are used to assess data from the 2009-2012 New York City Community Health Survey merged at the United Hospital Fund level with data from the 2009-2012 New York City Stop, Question, and Frisk Database. The illness associations of ethnoracial composition are amplified by the areal density of police use of force but buffered by the disproportionate police use of force against minorities. Specifically, living in minority communities with a high concentration of use of force by police against pedestrians is associated with an increased risk of diabetes and obesity. However, living in areas with a heavy presence of whites where there are large racial differences in police use of force is associated with an increased risk of poor/fair self-rated health, high blood pressure, diabetes, and obesity. The article concludes by considering the implications of the findings for better understanding the racialized nature of police violence and the consequences of place in distributing surveillance stress and structuring legal cynicism.

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confidence: 99%

The Illness Associations of Police Violence: Differential Relationships by Ethnoracial Composition

Sewell

2017

“… Editor's Note : This article is part of a special issue of Sociological Forum titled “Whose Lives Matter? Violence, Social Control and the Racial Divide.” For other articles featured in the issue, see Auyero and Sobering (2017), Carter, Parker, and Zaykowski (2017), Cerulo (2017), Henricks and Harvey (2017), LeCount (2017), Roschelle (2017), Ruane (2017), Scarborough (2017), Sewell (2017), Sykes, Piquero, and Gioviano (2017), and Torres, Cannito‐Coville, and Rodriguez (2017). …”

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confidence: 99%

Not One but Many: Monetary Punishment and the Fergusons of America^,

Henricks

Harvey

2017

How typical is Ferguson? That is, to what extent is monetary punishment driven by fiscal crisis and deficit spending? Do communities that increasingly rely less on property taxes generate higher rates of fines and fees? And how might increased spending on policing over time impact whether local governments turn to these sanctions for revenue? We compile city-and county-level information from four national data sets to answer these questions through a series of least squares regression models. Our findings add to what sociologists, criminologists, and policymakers know about monetary punishment in at least three ways. First, we offer an analysis that focuses on monetary sanctions for not only criminal but civil courts. Second, our focus broadens the scope of local case studies that emphasize questions of process. And third, our study furthers the project of the New Fiscal Sociology. Throughout, we stress how public finance formalizes inequality in ways that define the symbolic relations between groups, their relation to the state, and the unspoken social contract. Our discussion concludes with some policy recommendations.

“…Ethnographers of the urban margins have explored why these populations often lack trust in police. Lack of trust in police may be perpetuated by myths like that of the “bad cop” (Venkatesh :236), by known police involvement in criminal activity (Auyero and Berti ), by suspected police collusion with gangs (Auyero and Sobering ; Vargas ), by belief that policing is part of a system of racialized social control (Rios ), or by heavy‐handed policing practices that unite residents against what they perceive as an “unjust overreach of the police” (Goffman :200). Understanding residents’ perceptions of and experiences with police in marginalized areas is a prerequisite to being able to answer questions like how those perceptions (and the institution of policing) can be positively changed.…”

Section: Favelas As Margins: Myth and Realitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Pacification of Rio's Favelas and the “Pacification of the Pacification Police”: The Role of Coordinating Brokerage in Police Reform

Souza

2019

Rio de Janeiro's drug dealer–dominated favelas are territories where the state lacks the monopoly of violence. They have historically been sites of sporadic and violent police operations. Rio's favela “pacification” program aimed to consolidate state control via the establishment of a Pacification Police Unit (UPP). This proximity policing program initially experienced mixed results in different “pacified” favelas. I take advantage of this state intervention at the urban margins to ask, what explains the positive reception of this policing initiative in some communities but not others? I concentrate my fieldwork in two communities sharing a UPP that represented extreme cases of success in terms of the program's reception by residents. I find that the coordinating brokerage of respected local organizations helps acculturate police to the community and minimize offensive police behavior, thereby “pacifying the Pacification Police.” Residents are receptive to these resocialized police who comply with local norms of respect. This police‐reforming brokerage is possible due to the high level of closure in the local network and due to a vibrant local community with a strong history of organizing. My findings emphasize the importance of considering the role of local civil society in police reform at the urban margins.