In an essay for Vital City New York, Ford School professor David Thacher looks at the potential fall-out of Mayor Eric Adams’s recent order of forced psychiatric evaluation for people causing trouble on the streets and in the subway. He traces New...
Competing concerns about police brutality and high crime rates are reflected in Detroiters' attitudes toward the police, according to University of Michigan research.
A recent U-M survey finds that about 6 in 10 adult Detroit residents believe...
One month ago, activists across the country recognized the one-year anniversary of George Floyd's killing, sparking discussion of what has changed in policing since then. While many ideas have been thrown around, like employing social workers to...
More local law enforcement agencies are using military equipment, such as tear gas, armored vehicles and rubber bullets, to handle social justice protests—calling into question police militarization.
But if police no longer used weapons and...
An article in Bridge news on June 15 says that “as thousands of protesters across Michigan and the nation march against racial injustice and police brutality, one policy proposal has emerged as a rallying cry: defund the police.”
Ford School...
The Student Affairs Committee (SAC) and International Policy Student Association (IPSA), two longstanding Ford School student organizations, have released statements of solidarity with the Black community and the movements for Black lives. We share...
Images of heavily-armed police have been one jarring aspect of the scenes on American streets for the past week. For decades, the Department of Defense has run a program that has distributed “everything from bayonets to grenade launchers” to police...
This Sunday's print edition of the Washington Post included an opinion piece penned by joint doctoral student Jessica W. Gillooly. The post, titled "Want to stop more Starbucks scenarios? Train these people." suggested that 911 operators have a key...
In December 2016, David Thacher's "Channeling Police Discretion: The Hidden Potential of Focused Deterrence" was published in the 2016 volume of University of Chicago Legal Forum.
Abstract
The breadth of the criminal law and the unfettered...
On Monday, February 22, the Ford School hosted “21st Century Policing: Lessons from Cincinnati,” as part of the University of Michigan's 2016 Martin Luther King Jr. Symposium. The event brought together a roundtable of community leaders to talk...
In the summer of 1967, James B. Hudak (MPP '71) watched Detroit burn. He was between his sophomore and junior years as an undergraduate at Yale. A friend got him a summer job working the night shift at a Chrysler assembly plant in Detroit. He lived...
David Thacher explores the growing gulf in public safety between haves, have-nots.
Flint and Ann Arbor, Mich., are roughly equal in size. But that's where the comparison ends. Ann Arbor is home to a rapidly growing tech industry, a highly...
Join us for a panel discussion on police reform and mass incarceration. Featured panelists include Lisa Daugaard, Director of the Public Defender Association in Seattle, Broderick Johnson, Towsley Foundation Policymaker in Residence at the Ford School and Chairman of My Brothers Keeper Alliance, and David Klinger, Professor of Professor of Criminology & Criminal Justice at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Professor Christian Davenport will moderate the conversation.
This discussion will analyze the well-being and neglect of police officers, which affects their decision-making and mental health in a vicious cycle, and possible solutions to the issue. November, 2021.
