COVID19 Policing Project
The COVID19 Policing Project’s October 2020 report, Unmasked: Impacts of Pandemic Policing, documented the fallout of policymakers’ decisions to police and punish individual behaviors and survival strategies instead of investing public resources into health care, income support, housing, and long-term strategies to address the structural inequalities laid bare by the devastating impacts of the coronavirus on Black, Indigenous, migrant, disabled, incarcerated, and unhoused communities. Not only did this approach fuel rather than curb the pandemic, it gave increased powers and resources to police to target communities already disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 crisis, austerity economics, and state violence.
This report offers an update from that original October 2020 report. As we continue to fight for a just recovery from the pandemic and glean lessons from the past year, it is more clear than ever that the safety of our communities requires divestment from policing as the default response to any crisis and robust investment in health care, housing, income support, and other critical supports.