CICS White Paper: Reimagining the Role of Police Stops in Public Safety
Over the course of a week in October 2020, CICS hosted a series of workshops in collaboration with The Lab @ DC and Howard University to reimagine police stops and their role in public safety.
These virtual workshops were attended by over 130 community members, researchers, and members of law enforcement. CICS faculty co-director Chrisy Lopez facilitated a panel on how to make alternatives to policing work in the D.C. context, and what the measures of success for public safety should be. CICS-affiliated faculty Kris Henning also facilitated a panel on the community point-of-view of police stops and public safety, and Professor Paul Butler took part in a keynote conversation with (now) MPD Chief of Police Contee. In addition, several Georgetown Law students facilitated workshops.
The discussions and knowledge generated during these workshops provided the foundation for the three resources created by CICS, The Lab, and Howard University which were released in March 2023. These three resources include policy considerations for reducing harm, sample learning agendas to guide efforts to reduce the negative impacts of police stops, and the CICS white paper summarizing the workshops. This white paper was initially drafted by Georgetown law student Camilla Brandfield-Harvey (’21), along with students from Howard University Law School.