June Virtual (and virtuous) Happy Hour
We're holding our next virtual happy hour on Tuesday June 30th from 5:30 to 6PM. Due to the Memorial Day holiday, we held the last one on June 2nd. Admittedly it was during the state virtual convention so turnout was a bit light, but fun none the less.
Had a great time and look forward to seeing everyone again at the next one.
I will be sending out Zoom meeting info by email about a week before and Linda will post to our Facebook page.
Police Abuse Protests
Obviously the protests against police abuse have been big news, and I imagine that many activists here in Dallas have been active in marching and engaging our elected officials. I have a couple of websites that may be of interest in helping all of us understand the issues and data driven policy options to discuss with our local, state, and national elected officials.
DeRay Mckesson's Campaign Zero is a wealth of policy information, data and a superb resource for anyone engaging our elected officials. DeRay's work has been heavily used by BLM to promote tangible reforms to policing in America and he has been interviewed many times on national podcasts such as Pod Save America.
https://www.joincampaignzero.org/
Another researcher with excellent policy ideas is Rashawn Ray. One of his ideas that may have merit is the idea of requiring police departments have liability insurance similar to hospitals holding malpractice insurance. Since our current police regulatory structures at the national, state and local levels are minimally effective at best, it would provide incentives for agencies to push out bad officers or see insurance costs rise. Rashawn has many other interesting publications and blog posts about structural racial biases and policy options to reduce those biases.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/05/30/bad-apples-come-from-rotten-trees-in-policing/