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Past Event

Equity, Violence, and the Law: Policing Lessons for Europe and the United States

The deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and other individuals energized the Black Lives Matter movement and sparked calls for police reforms not only in the United States, but in Europe and around the world. With the trial of former police officer Derek Chauvin scheduled to begin on March 29, it is time to assess the impact of such efforts over the past year. While some U.S. states banned chokeholds or explored community-centered policing models, the use of deadly force by police in America is  than in Europe. Still, policy brutality is very real for people of color in Europe.

How do U.S. and European approaches to safety and policing differ? What can we learn from each other? Who needs to be at the table to make sure police are adequately equipped to respond? Join us for a transatlantic discussion on police reforms, how to re-imagine public safety and assure policing equity for all citizens.


Quotes

Artika R. Tyner
Professor at University of St. Thomas, School of Law

 鈥淲e鈥檇 be remiss to start here in 2021 with missing centuries of challenges around policing and in particular what anchors us here today around the experience of African Americans in our quest for racial justice.鈥

鈥淲e鈥檙e using the criminal justice system to address all of these societal challenges. We have police in schools鈥攕chool resource officers addressing school disciplinary issues鈥攚e have become a policing nation and an incarceration nation. Five percent of the world鈥檚 population, and over twenty percent of the world鈥檚 prison population and unfortunately, when we take it back to that centuries-old history, Michelle Alexander reminds us that we have more African Americans under the penal system today than were slaves in America in the 1800s.鈥

Ojeaku Nwabuzo
Senior Researcher "European Network against Racism"

鈥淚t鈥檚 not always so easy in Europe to describe this experience statistically. We know that racialized groups will experience individual forms of racism, institutional forms of racism, structural forms of racism. We document that, I document that as part of my work as a senior research officer at the European Network Against Racism. This is what we do, try to uncover people鈥檚 experiences of racism and discrimination.鈥

鈥淎t first, we found that they didn鈥檛 want to hear that police brutality exists and takes place in Europe, but I think you can see by the huge uprising across Europe that it was in solidarity with black people in the U.S. but also to say that this really does happen in Europe too. We don鈥檛 have figures of the number of people who have died at the hands of the police, but after the death of George Floyd we saw many activists across Europe saying 鈥榯his person had an interaction with the police and died鈥 and you can now see many more terrible examples of people who have died at the hands of the police.鈥

Kimmo Himberg
Director, Police College of Finland

鈥淧olicing in a way reflects the society or at least it reflects the general public administration and its practices and its attitudes. If you ask me to illustrate Finnish policing briefly I would do it by saying that firstly it is very, very strictly regulated through legislation and internal regulations and these are strongly based in international fundamental rights conventions.鈥

鈥淚t鈥檚 not about training practical skills, it鈥檚 about education. All Finnish police officers are educated to a bachelor level degree in policing and this means it鈥檚 a three-year education program so there is plenty of space to study law, to study legislation鈥攍earn to apply legislation and regulations in every day policing situations.鈥

Speakers

Ojeaku Nwabuzo Headshot
Ojeaku Nwabuzo
Senior Research Officer, European Network against racism

Moderator

Hosted By

Global Europe Program

The Global Europe Program is focused on Europe鈥檚 capabilities, and how it engages on critical global issues. We investigate European approaches to critical global issues. We examine Europe鈥檚 relations with Russia and Eurasia, China and the Indo-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa. Our initiatives include 鈥淯kraine in Europe鈥濃攁n examination of what it will take to make Ukraine鈥檚 European future a reality. But we also examine the role of NATO, the European Union and the OSCE, Europe鈥檚 energy security, transatlantic trade disputes, and challenges to democracy. The Global Europe Program鈥檚 staff, scholars-in-residence, and Global Fellows participate in seminars, policy study groups, and international conferences to provide analytical recommendations to policy makers and the media.   Read more

Global Europe Program