Cops Don’t Stop Violence
Combating Narratives Used to Defend Police Instead of Defunding Them
By Jared Knowles & Andrea J. Ritchie, July 2021
Police are facing one of the greatest crises of legitimacy in a generation. In the wake of the largest uprisings in recent U.S. history, sparked by police violence, bloated police budgets, and the deadly impacts of a failure to invest in community health and safety laid bare by the pandemic, pro-police forces are on the defensive. So they are reaching for one of their most reliable weapons — fear.
This is nothing new — cops and policymakers have always used fearmongering to push “law and order” agendas and pour more and more money into police departments. Now, with police budgets under scrutiny by campaigns to defund the police and refund our communities all across the country, lawmakers and the media are once again recycling old talking points about increasing violence and crime, claiming that campaigns to defund police are responsible.
Read this report to explore data, talking points, and narratives that highlight the fact that COPS DON’T STOP VIOLENCE.
Want to dive deeper into why policing doesn’t stop violence and instead perpetuates widespread harm? Want to learn why the demand must be to defund police, not reform the police?
Read the book No More Police: A Case for Abolition by IC co-founders Mariame Kaba and Andrea J. Ritchie. In this power call to action, Mariame and Andrea talk more about copaganda, outline the many failures of contemporary police reforms, and explore demands to defund police, divest from policing, and invest in community resources to create greater safety through a Black feminist lens. Part handbook, part road map, No More Police calls on us to turn away from systems that perpetrate violence in the name of ending it toward a world where violence is the exception, and safe, well-resourced and thriving communities are the rule.
Our resource page for the book offers interviews with the authors, excerpts from the book, a discussion guide and index, recordings of book events featuring the authors, and more.
Want to learn more about how to combat or avoid copaganda?
Check out our Don’t Be A Copagandist! series. These guides for media makers and journalists offer tips, context, and examples for how to avoid copaganda when covering or discussing issues around criminalization.
While this series was written with journalists in mind, the guides offer helpful information and reminders that are useful for anyone, regardless of profession, who is interested in avoiding copaganda and being a more discerning consumer of media.
