Policing and Imprisonment in 2020: An Archive for the Future
Our archive will analyze the changes in policing and imprisonment during the COVID-19 pandemic. Abuse of authority has been an international problem for decades; however, the recent increase in the level of abuse has created awareness and protests to halt these behaviours. COVID-19 lockdown procedures that have been recently put in place — giving police officers a new sense of authority and greater power — is one of many reasons there has been an increase in abuse. Other reasons include but are not limited to: racism, classism, ethnic tensions, gendered violence, and corruption — on both a micro and macro scale.
The vitally important Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement may seem like a conspicuous omission; we consider BLM to be crucial enough to deserve its own separate treatment, and wish to instead focus on the many instances of police violence that occur in other contexts.
This page's goal is to show different perspectives on police violence on an international scale. While the United States has been a hot spot for police brutality in the media, it is important to consider that many other countries have also experienced similar — if not worse — police brutality during the pandemic. We will consider Jamaica, Nigeria, and Romania in addition to the United States, with the aim of understanding how policing has been affected globally by COVID-19.
FIRST PAGE: POLICE BRUTALITY IN CANADA