A child raises his fist for a photo by a family friend during a demonstration in May in Atlanta. Protests erupted nationwide following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Photo by Elijah Nouvelage, courtesy Getty Images
The killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers on May 25 — which set off much-warranted protests — has led to new interest from local, state and federal policymakers on police reform.
While a lot of discussion has focused on chokeholds, body cameras and internal investigations, other methods with proven results use more of a public health approach.
Such measures include reducing police contact at schools and on streets to avoid confrontations and shifting funds from law enforcement to community-based programs such as employment initiatives and affordable housing. Decriminalizing low-level offenses, such as marijuana possession and loitering, while offering social services as alternatives to arrest, is also beneficial.
These approaches and more are detailed in APHA’s “Addressing Law Enforcement Violence As a Public Health Issue,” a policy statement formally adopted by APHA in 2018. The statement has become a go-to document for advocates looking to launch or fine-tune interventions.
“This evidence-based APHA statement is the access point for us as public health workers to enter into this work, enter into this movement,” said Omid Bagheri Garakani, MPH, co-author of the statement and a health policy advocate and educator at the University of Washington in Seattle, during a June webinar. “We simply cannot and will never police our way to public health.”
Under the policy statement, APHA supports redirecting funds from policing to programs involved in social determinants of health, including community-led health and violence-reduction strategies.
APHA has relied on the statement in its outreach to media, legislators and policymakers. In a June 4 news release condemning police violence, APHA noted the statement “affirms that law enforcement violence is a public health issue. We emphatically restate that perspective and our resolve to address it.”
Divesting in law enforcement and investing in communities is one step toward addressing police violence. According to Robert Rooks, chief executive officer and co-founder of Alliance for Safety and Justice in Los Angeles, that may mean more closely involving social workers and mental health professionals.
“We need to expand the stakeholders who are responsible for safety,” Rooks told The Nation’s Health. “Right now, we are asking law enforcement to be social workers, to be counselors, to be mental health workers. They are too stretched. They are not trained to do all those things. And we are seeing before our eyes that they don’t have the tolerance or patience to do all those things.”
Law enforcement violence is disproportionately aimed at people of color, particularly Black men. About 1 in every 1,000 Black males can expect to be killed by police in their lifetimes, a risk that is 2.5 times higher than that of white males, according to a 2019 study in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science.
Even with recent increased attention, police violence against Black Americans continued in the weeks and months after Floyd’s killing. In June, David McAtee, a Black barbeque owner in Louisville, Kentucky, was shot and killed by police who were dispersing a crowd near his business. And in Atlanta, Rayshard Brooks, a Black man who struggled with police outside a Wendy’s and tried to flee was shot and killed. As those killings made headlines, activists noted that such encounters occur regularly in the U.S., calling for justice for other victims, such as Breonna Taylor, who was killed in March by Louisville police in her home.
Police violence also disproportionately involves people with mental illness. As many as half of all fatal police shootings involve people with untreated severe mental illness, according to the Treatment Advocacy Center. When they or their families call for help, they may be met with violence instead.
To avoid such scenarios, the Pre-Arrest Diversion Initiative in Atlanta was formed in 2013 to partner with law enforcement.
When a call comes in to police on an issue not involving a crime, such as a mental health concern, counselors are notified to be with officers to assess the situation. The initiative works to reduce arrests and incarceration of people suffering from extreme poverty, substance use or psychological challenges. Since 2017, the program has enabled some 200 people to avoid arrest, jail or police violence by diverting them to social services.
“We are building evidence for why police should not be in this business,” initiative Executive Director Moki Macias, MCP, told The Nation’s Health. “Officers tell us that for so many of their calls, they are not the right people for the job.”
In Seattle, advocates are addressing police-led sweeps of areas where people who are homeless live together, an action that can result in violence and arrests. Inspired by APHA’s policy statement, public health practitioners and homeless service providers decried the sweeps in a May 26 letter to city council, saying Seattle is criminalizing homelessness without addressing the underlying causes of why people become homeless. Allocating funds for safe housing, outreach and mental health services is a better approach.
Reducing contact between police and students is another public health strategy to reduce violence. School districts in Minneapolis, Denver, Portland and Chowchilla, California, have terminated public safety contracts with police departments in the wake of Floyd’s death.
Law enforcement presence at schools has not reduced crime and instead represents a threat to the physical and mental health of students, APHA’s policy statement notes.
In 2011, a police officer contracted by the Oakland Unified School District shot high school student Raheim Brown five times because the 20-year-old carried a screwdriver. That year, Jackie Byers was inspired to start a campaign to end armed law enforcement in the school district.
A demonstrator kneels in Anaheim, California, during a June protest over the death of George Floyd. APHA’s policy statement calls for a public health approach to address police violence.
Photo by Apu Gomes, courtesy AFP/Getty
In June, nearly 10 years later, Byers, now executive director of the Black Organizing Project in Oakland, submitted the George Floyd Resolution to Eliminate the Oakland Schools Police Department to the school board.
The resolution directs the district’s superintendent to reallocate funds previously used for law enforcement toward student support positions, such as school-based social workers, psychologists and restorative justice practitioners. It also supports a community-driven process for creating a revised district safety plan with strategies for student learning, safety and well-being.
Student arrests, many for petty and disputable offenses, place them at risk of not graduating, limiting their higher education choices and reducing lifetime earning potential, Byers told The Nation’s Health.
While hopeful the resolution passes, Byers said her feelings remain mixed about the whirlwind of events this summer — from the social uprising to local, state and federal police reform policies, to her own reflections on Floyd and other Black Americans killed by law enforcement.
“It has been an array of emotions of grief, anger and inspiration,” she said.
For more information, see APHA’s policy statement at www.apha.org.
This article is third in a series focused on violence prevention, which ties into the theme of APHA’s 2020 Annual Meeting and Expo: “Creating the Healthiest Nation: Preventing Violence,” to be held Oct. 24-28.
- Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association
