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Samuel Sinyangwe Profile picture
@samswey
Aug 24, 2019 • 8 tweets • 3 min read • Read on X
When we reviewed police union contracts in 81 cities, 53% of the cities required misconduct records be “purged.” The entire accountability system for police is structured by these contracts, which are approved by city councils every 3-5 yrs. PAY ATTENTION. checkthepolice.org
If you want more accountability in policing then you probably will need to change the police union contract to address the systemic factors that prevent officers from being held accountable. If you don’t know what’s in your city’s contract, find out here: checkthepolice.org
If you want an empowered community oversight structure that can independently investigate police misconduct...you probably will need a strategy that involves getting your city council to reject the current contract/push for this structure to be added in negotiations.
If you want your city to stop investing so much money in policing and invest in communities instead - guess where most of that policing $$ is spent? Most of the money is spent on police salaries, benefits and incentives that are established in THE POLICE UNION CONTRACT.
And if you want to reduce the size of the police force (and overall spending), the contracts usually require layoffs/force reduction based on officer seniority (rather than, say, a record of not using excessive force) so the contract preserves older, whiter officers on the force.
In fact, recent research from @abdulisrad finds cities that have the most problematic police union contracts also have *the highest rates of police violence.* The contracts are where a corrupt system is specified and maintained, hidden in plain sight. joincampaignzero.org/s/Police-Insti…
The good news is the contracts can be changed. Cities like Austin have done it. Activists like @iGiveYouMoore have organized local campaigns that have won these changes. The challenge is to scale this strategy nationwide. nytimes.com/2019/04/08/opi…
It’s wild that language like this gets negotiated behind the scenes and approved in a contract between a city and police union and it’s barely even reported in the media. Police unions aren’t even asked to defend these things in public. That has to change.

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More from @samswey

Samuel Sinyangwe Profile picture
Jan 31, 2023
Mapping Police Violence documented nearly 1,200 killings by police in 2022, a record year for police violence nationwide. Here’s what the data tells us about rising levels of police violence. (1/x) policeviolencereport.org
1. Killings by police have increased, but these changes haven’t been uniform. GA, NM, OH, TX reported record highs in 2022. CA and MD reported record lows for the decade. Within states, *County Sheriffs Depts* are increasing killings, but most local PDs are not. Image
2. The increase among sheriffs departments in notable, in part, because these are usually elected positions. Are sheriffs doubling down on aggressive policing to appear “tough on crime” to some voters? Will voters have enough info to hold these sheriffs accountable next election? Image
Read 11 tweets
Samuel Sinyangwe Profile picture
Nov 4, 2022
PAY ATTENTION TO COUNTY SHERIFF ELECTIONS. This is one of the biggest ways you can help combat police violence and mass incarceration this year. Let me break it down… A map of states where sheri...
Sheriffs control most local jails and have also been responsible for a growing share of the nation’s deadly police violence. 1 in every 3 people killed by law enforcement is killed by a sheriff’s department. *Half of those sheriffs are on the ballot in this election.* A chart showing the proport...
Sheriffs are elected positions, policing communities with little oversight, no mayor to fire them and every incentive to be perceived as “tough on crime” to more rural/conservative constituencies. To hold them accountable, they need to be voted out of office.
Read 6 tweets
Samuel Sinyangwe Profile picture
Sep 22, 2022
Since October 2019, the DOJ missed:
18% of deaths in state prisons
39% of deaths in local jails
62-71% of deaths in police custody

Meanwhile, media orgs and nonprofits like mappingpoliceviolence.us are doing a far better job than the federal government at collecting this info.
Now projects that *have* done a good job tracking these deaths are gone/at risk. Some state databases have been shut down (ex: Colorado’s police shootings database). Non-governmental databases by The Guardian, HuffPo Jail Deaths tracker & Killedbypolice.net no longer exist.
Other projects tracking police killings like Fatal Encounters haven’t been updated in a year. And since deray/Campaign Zero tried to forcibly take over mappingpoliceviolence.org earlier this year they’ve mismanaged it & failed to keep that URL up-to-date or methodologically sound.
Read 5 tweets
Samuel Sinyangwe Profile picture
Aug 30, 2022
The research indicates Biden’s plan to hire another 100,000 police officers WILL increase arrests, incarceration and police violence ESPECIALLY for petty non-violent issues. Research also indicates these harms WILL be concentrated in Black communities. That much is crystal clear.
Study: “low-level arrest rates declined most in places that reduced police expenditure and personnel…findings suggest increasing police budgets or police force size will likely be accompanied by increases in misdemeanor arrests and their attendant harms.” academic.oup.com/bjc/advance-ar…
Here’s a description of that study and it’s findings/implications from one of the co-authors: slate.com/news-and-polit…
Read 6 tweets
Samuel Sinyangwe Profile picture
Aug 30, 2022
Low level arrests have been declining in almost every major city, with New York City cutting these arrests by more than 2/3rds since 2014. This spared hundreds of thousands of people from arrest, criminalization and police violence. Now that progress is being actively reversed.
From 2013-2020, the nation’s largest cities saw overall arrests decline by 46% and low level arrests (which make up 2/3rds of all arrests) were cut by more than half. This has outpaced other parts of the country and accelerated during the pandemic. AND… policescorecard.org/findings
These declines in low level arrests are associated with declines in police shootings and killings in cities. And while cities were changing their approach to low level non-violent issues, arrests/enforcement of violent crime remained relatively unchanged. fivethirtyeight.com/features/polic…
Read 4 tweets
Samuel Sinyangwe Profile picture
Jun 25, 2022
The level of structural change required to make this country a democracy is too great for our backwards constitution to accommodate. This outcome isn’t happenstance, it was enabled by the current structure. A system - especially the courts - designed to reject the people’s will.
It shouldn’t be up to interpretation whether the people have a right to vote, to healthcare, to privacy. Clearly defined rights countries around the world have enshrined in their constitutions. And a process to amend those constitutions that isn’t impossible in the modern era.
A democracy wouldn’t have an electoral college, a wildly undemocratic distribution of power in the Senate, wouldn’t allow for the current restrictions on the ability to vote or the disenfranchisement of millions of potential voters.
Read 5 tweets

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