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cover of episode Philip V. McHarris, "Beyond Policing" (Legacy Lit, 2024)

Philip V. McHarris, "Beyond Policing" (Legacy Lit, 2024)

2025/4/27
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Philip McHarris: 我的研究融合了学术训练、参与社会运动的经验以及个人经历,这使我能够多角度地理解警务问题,特别是其历史维度和对少数族裔社区的影响。我的著作《超越警务》旨在填补学术界对警察批判性历史的空白,并提出一种超越警务的更安全社会模式。在弗格森和巴尔的摩的抗议活动中,我亲身经历了警察的军事化和镇压,这些经历深刻地影响了我的研究和写作。我主张废除警察制度,因为现有的警务制度不仅没有解决安全问题,反而加剧了安全问题。我们需要重新定义“安全”的概念,它不应该仅仅与犯罪联系在一起,而应该关注社区的整体福祉和居民的安全感。我们需要探索各种社区主导的安全模式,例如社区调解、暴力中断和非警察危机应对团队,以创造更安全、更公平的社会。 我的下一本书《砖头梦:公共住房的未完成工程》将探讨公共住房的历史、现状和未来,以及警务制度对公共住房社区的影响。 Nekazi Oates: 作为访谈者,我引导了与Philip McHarris教授关于其著作《超越警务》的讨论。我关注了美国警务的历史,特别是奴隶巡逻队和911报警系统在种族压迫中的作用。我还探讨了安全性的概念,以及如何超越警务制度,建立更安全、更公平的社会。我与Philip McHarris教授就警务改革、社区主导的安全模式以及废除警察制度的可能性进行了深入的探讨。

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Welcome to the New Books Network. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to New Books in African American Studies, a podcast channel on the New Books Network. I am Dr. Nekazi Oates, the host of the channel.

Dr. Philip McHarris joins me today. He is an assistant professor at the Frederick Douglass Institute and the Department of Black Studies at the University of Rochester. He is the author of Beyond Policing, which we are discussing on the show today. Dr. McHarris, welcome to New Books. Thank you very much. Very happy to be on with you. I'm so glad to be in conversation with you about this book.

So before we dive into the content, I want to talk a little bit about yourself and your intellectual pedigree. You earned your PhD in 2021 from Yale in the departments of sociology and African American studies. And you have written extensively on race and policing since then.

including Time, Magazine, Essence, and the New York Times. And you also appear on HBO's Axios, Al Jazeera, and ABC, talking about policing as well. How has your research training in sociology and African American studies helped you to understand policing?

So that's a great question. And you know, I think my training has definitely informed how I approach writing, scholarship, engaging in theories and ideas. And when I got to grad school in 2014, you know, there was so much going on. There was the uprising in Ferguson following the murder of Michael Brown, which was coming on the heels of the murder of Trayvon Martin.

And there was just so much happening in terms of social movements and protests and resistance against police violence, state violence, as well as vigilante violence. And, you know, I got to grad school in the middle of that period. And so I think it was a space where I was able to dig into the ideas, dig into the history, and have tools and have a growing amount of tools, whether it be from a historical standpoint, whether it be thinking sociologically,

or understanding it from thinking about the political dimensions and so on and so forth.

It was really helpful to be in a space where I was able to rely and use different tools and training to approach these questions. And it was also just helpful to be able to sit with ideas and books and articles and see what other folks have written and also to see in some ways what folks haven't written. And when I got to grad school, one of the main things that I wanted to see was a sort of a cohesive, comprehensive approach.

overview of the critical history of police. And to be honest, it was hard to find at that time. And so a lot of what I was seeing was like different pieces of the puzzle. And so the first part of the book is called Histories. And essentially I write the history that I wanted to essentially read when I first got to grad school. And so it was helpful to be in that space because I was able to learn

to learn, see, figure out a patchwork of histories. And I was also able to see some of the gaps in the literature and figure out ways that I wanted to sort of contribute to the conversation around policing, especially in the context of that first part around histories.

As you mentioned, you came into your Ph.D. program against the background of the killing of Michael Brown. And you actually were a protester in Ferguson, Missouri, the place in which Michael Brown was killed by a white police officer in 2014. Tell us a little bit about that.

Yeah, 2014 was a very intense time and there was growing social movements that were emerging across the country. I spent some time in Ferguson when there were protests going on there. I spent some time in Baltimore following the murder of Freddie Gray. And in New York City, close by New Haven while I was in grad school, I was a founding member of Black Youth Project 100.

the New York City chapter there. And so there was a range in a lot of different spaces. There was a campaign that was started in New York City called Safety Beyond Policing that I became involved with. I was in these spaces learning about these issues, but then I was in places like Ferguson where I'm seeing the tactical equipment, the military grade equipment, the MRAPs.

And, you know, the weaponry and I was seeing these things. And so my master's project was around police militarization. And so I'm like reading about it. I'm learning about the 1033 program, but then I'm actually like seeing it. It was a really interesting experience. And I feel like a lot of that came out in the book. You know, so I include some of those stories in the interludes of being head on with this project.

massive policing apparatus that exists within the context of the U.S. at the same time while I'm like studying and reading and learning about these things. And so it was definitely an interesting experience. And a lot of it I treated ethnographically, like in terms of being pooch on the ground. A lot of like even the essays that I include, they literally were notes that I had essentially akin to field notes that I had or just sort of notes around the experiences.

that sat, some of them sat within my notes folders or like as notes for a while. And then when I started to turn to this book, I started to sort of like really sift through, make sense, synthesize.

The book project ended up being a mixture of the academic work, also these experiences within activist spaces, but then also my own experiences growing up as a young Black kid in the Bronx and in New Jersey and experiencing police violence myself and also seeing it affect my family. That all ends up

becoming a part of the texture of the book. And it was something that was important for me. I could have just wrote a book, and I think there are plenty of great books that do this, but just wrote a book from an academic standpoint around policing. But I came into a world that was structured by a particular kind of reality. And the part of that reality was that the communities that I was embedded in experienced the brunt end of police violence routinely. And so for me, it was important to include that rather than try to, you know, write that out as if it wasn't a part of what made this book

And I want to stay on this point for just another moment about the realities of you being in the throes of protest. You were also a protester in Baltimore over Freddie Gray, who was arrested for allegedly possessing a knife. And while under police custody, he had fatal injuries to his cervical spinal cord that ultimately caused him death.

His death is untimely death. And so thinking about your protesting experience a year before in Ferguson, protesting the death of Michael Brown to thinking about the next year in 2015 over the death of Freddie Gray, how was the protest and policing experiences different or was there a difference?

That's a really good question. And it's interesting because it was something that I have thought a lot about and I did at the time. And it was something that ended up becoming a part of my understanding of police repression and police tactics in different geographic and spatial context. So I appreciate that question. And so I definitely think space matters for everything and it certainly matters for policing and policing

how communities are policed and also how protests or resistance is policed. And so one of the things that became very apparent in Ferguson, and I have this story where I detail an experience when I was with my sister in Ferguson, is

you know, essentially where there was protesters that were in front of the police station. There were calls to disperse with the protests that were directly in front of the police station and not across the street. Chaos ensued. And then I just remember this split second where I saw police and military grade equipment descend from almost every direction.

And they essentially bottlenecked us in a way where, like, it was almost every single way that you can get out was sort of blocked by police descending from those spaces. They weren't there before, but once things sort of kicked off, they immediately descended in a way that created almost a container. I remember being in Baltimore where...

There were different kinds of strategies and tactics. I remember the helicopter overhead, and I remember when they were dispersing. I remember at night, Nadiz tell the story where they set off tear gas, and there was a young kid that got hit by it, and he went into a health emergency. He couldn't breathe, and he was unconscious, and his friends literally put him in the back of my Honda Civic at the time, and I was with my two sisters because they couldn't run and carry him away from the tear gas.

And I just remember that experience. I remember seeing the MRAPs. I remember, essentially, we were functioning as first responders for protesters that were getting injured by police repression. And so remember that spatially it was different because

the environment was different. And so it would be much harder in a context like Baltimore, where the environment is different. It's spanned out in a different way spatially. There's different kinds of arranges where people could come from, escape, flee, run. It was very different. I remember noticing that very early on, and it shaped also some of the police tactics, some of the police reactions and

you know, what was possible. And so that became very interesting to me. And I just remember being in those different contexts and feeling like the possibilities for what police repression looks like and also what dissent looks like was very much informed by the spatial logics. So that was definitely something that was really interesting when you take a place that can be more insular and more contained

And so it was very interesting to look at these different kinds of strategies, these like kettling strategies and containing strategies that could take place in a context that was relatively insular versus a place that was a bit different. And so there were different kinds of strategies and tactics that the police employed. And also just even in terms of the amount of police, the presence of the helicopter, things of that nature. That was something that I spent a lot of time thinking about.

the spatial logics of policing and the spatial logics of resistance and when those two things meet, what that looks like. And so I definitely think, like, everything else, space matters, and it matters in different ways. Man, that's so fascinating. I want to take a moment to ask a question that I ask every guest on the show, and it causes everyone to investigate the interiority for just a moment. You...

I found a member of the Black Youth Project 100 New York chapter. You are an academic. You are an activist. You have published and have spoken in mainstream platforms. And among all of those things that you have done, name a moment in your career in which you had self-doubt and then to think about your greatest achievement. Does the...

What stands out is I remember coming into undergrad and I remember when I started at Boston College it being a very different spatial context, racially, socioeconomically, from the predominantly Black and Latinx high school that I went to in Northern New Jersey. And I remember getting to

college and feeling a sense of uncertainty around whether or not I was prepared for what was ahead, especially thinking about all of these people who had come from spaces that were relatively similar to Boston College and that might have had a certain kind of preparedness for that, uh,

that environment and that space. I just remember it took me a while to sort of like shift out of that to realize like, wait, I'm as capable as anyone else here of being in this space. And, you know, actually my experiences give me a level of insight that allow me to approach and view things in a particular lens. And that's additive in a lot of ways. And so that's one of the things that I think about. And I just remember when that light bulb clicked,

It changed my trajectory in like such profound ways. I'm grateful for also the advisors and mentors that I had that helped me like see and help to cultivate that ember to make that light spark. Once it did, things like grad school and wanting to pursue a life of academic study, all of these things really started to get put together. And then things like McNair Scholars Program, which I was a part of, I

at Boston College, you know, was another helpful thing. And I think about like my mentors, like Professor Sean McGuffey and other folks who really provided a lot of mentorship, advising and support. It was really helpful. I remember passing like the dissertation submission and the dissertation presentation. I just remember being in New Haven. I went out to a mountain that I had climbed many times while I was a grad student at Yale.

And I just remember I still had on my gown. I got pictures on top of the mountain. I went up there with my best friend and we climbed it. And that was a feeling that, you know, that was like a once in a lifetime kind of experience. It was like years of work had sort of culminated literally in a critical moment where I had climbed this mountain that I had loved so much. And just as like one other memory of

I did two events in Boston and I was actually, I mentioned my mentor, Professor Sean McGuffey, and he was the discussant.

He had pulled up some of my papers and my grades from being an undergrad when I took his classes that first year in Allward. He even pulled up my letter of recommendation that he wrote for grad school. And it was such a full circle moment where he was like just listing and describing his experience with me from like from when I was an undergrad. And it was really a full circle moment. The launch of Beyond Policing was actually in Boston with Professor McGuffey. It was really a

a beautiful moment as I started BC with some apprehension and hesitancy. And 14 years later, I'm back with the book and with the mentor who inspired me to become a professor was really a special moment for me. That's definitely special and a full circle moment. Thank you for sharing those two. For sure.

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Now, let's get into the book because I really appreciate the book. I think anyone who needs a starting point for understanding policing in America needs to read this text. I encourage anyone to read it. Now, I appreciate the interludes in which you weave in your personal experiences with police and policing. I want to think about American identity first.

I know this isn't a comparative analysis of policing, but if you have to think about what makes policing in America is distinguished, what would it be? Very interesting question. And I think we can think about it in a few different ways. And so one way is

We can look similarly to how we can look at the fact that America has one of the highest rates of incarceration. You know, in fact, the highest rate of incarceration in the entire world. And we incarcerate so many more times over in terms of population-wise, given the size of a population versus the rest of the globe. And...

Similarly, we can look at how much money is spent on policing. We can look at the size of policing in the context of the U.S. We can look at the sheer amount of interactions and we can see that there is definitely a policing state that exists that is a part of a broader prison industrial complex slash carceral state that structures so many

communities' experiences with everyday life, with, you know, everyday forms of governance. And policing is all around us. When we look at the rates, the statistics, the budgets, the funds, America really

is similarly invested in policing in a way that is very deep and entrenched into almost every aspect of American society. And so we can think about it in that way, but I also just want to complicate the question as well, because when we look historically, and this is one of the things I really wanted to tackle in that first section,

is the interesting thing is that you can't tell a history of policing without telling a transnational story because so much of the logics of policing in the context of the U.S. were imported

So we can look at contexts like Britain, where there was the importing of police logics, police strategies, you know, the Metropolitan Police Department in London and Robert Peel and how those logics were spread and informed the formation of police departments, particularly in the 1800s in the U.S.,

And we can also trace it back. We can look at models of slave patrols, many logics and approaches that were imported from the Caribbean. And we can look at other models as well, in which early on the U.S. had a number of different logics of policing that was being imported. But then the U.S. started to experiment, expand, and really start to develop its own models.

models of policing. And then we start to see in the 1900s, specifically through the Office of Public Safety, we started to see the U.S. begin to explore different kinds of policing logic, strategies, approaches, tactics throughout the entire world.

And so a part of this interesting thing is that a part of the reason why we can see parallels as well, of course, there's differences across different geographic content, but we can also see certain parallels because you have things like the International Association of Chiefs of Police and you have these other kinds of bodies and you have things like office of public safety that emerges in the 1900s that start to try to co-chair different kinds of models that have similar kinds of principles and logic.

And so it's very interesting because in many ways, of course, the U.S. is a standout when we think about incarceration rates, when we think about policing, police budgets, police personnel. But in other ways, we can also see many parallels. And the reason why there's so many parallels is because insofar as policing emerges early on as a form of race class control and, you know, really plainly as a colonial tool for managing oppressed populations,

We can see how those logics also transcend borders and we can see how there are a number of different contexts throughout the globe where we can see these kinds of parallels because there's this importing and exporting that has been happening since the onset of policing in early colonial days. So how central is slave patrols in the creation or the origins of policing?

Yeah, so slave patrols are definitely a central aspect of the story around the history of policing. They were one of the first models of publicly sort of funded and resourced policing approaches. And so they're definitely central. We see them early on and they serve as an important foundation for policing that would come to be across the nation in the decades and centuries to come.

There are also other models that don't necessarily specifically evolve from slave patrols, but a part of the core logics and the core functions is as a tool of race class control. And so when we look at Texas Rangers, for example, and indigenous dispossession, or if we look at the labor suppression and union organizing suppression and the role that policing was involved in the North,

as well, when we see anti-immigration enforcement and where we can look across from 1600s, 1700s, 1800s onward, we can see that race class control and all of the ways that it emerges was really a core function and aspect of the development of policing as we know it. Slave patrols are definitely an aspect of it, but there are also other, you know,

points of origin that we can look to historically that are also that help us fill out a sort of a more cohesive and comprehensive picture of the origins of policing as we know it now within the consciousness of the U.S.

You know, we all think about 9-1-1 as a national emergency response number. But the origins for that crisis response number actually is not benevolent, as we might think about it, or altruistic, maybe. That it came about for a very specific reason, created in 1968. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about it?

For sure. Yeah, so it's a very fascinating and unfortunate history in the context of

9-1-1, it really emerges out of this racist history and specifically as a form of repression of resistance and dissent to racist oppression. And so a part of 9-1-1, it was strategized as a way essentially to avoid mass mobilizations, uprisings, resistance. And it was developed as a tool in other countries as a form of counterinsurgency. And it was essentially recommended that

within a supplementary report, specifically the Kerner Commission report, which investigated urban uprisings. And it essentially said, have a number that people can call so that if there is a mounting sort of movement happening or some form of dissent, it can be more immediately sort of quelled and repressed. And that was a key part of the

of the logics of the formation of 911. And then even when we see the onset of it, the ceremonial-- first ceremonial call featured a sheriff that is well known as being racist, Bull Connor, as a part of the ceremonial first call. And he's pictured

making as a part of sort of like making the first sort of 911 launch call. And so we see that it's, it seems like it's just this neutral number for folks to call in and out. But what we see is there's literally a photograph of Eugene Bull Connor. And he was at the time, the director of the Alabama Public Service Commission.

Connor spent his life, his career, really involved in white supremacist violence, specifically against civil rights organizations. And he was a part of this ceremonial call. He was a part of this first launch onset ceremony of 9-1-1 as a number. And so we see this very different history once we look into the archives and look into the history and history.

Even at the time, there was conversation at the time with the National Fire, you know, Fighting Agency and other entities essentially over like how would emergency response be managed. And so it seems like it's just this take-up-for-granted way, but it actually has this very, very, very deep history that's steeped within racist individuals and literally as a way of trying to understand and think about how to repress

resistance to state violence that is structured along racial logics. And so, yeah, you know, the history of 9/11, it really tells a lot. And a part of what I think that history tells us is 9/11 is a relatively recent invention.

And it wasn't the only pathway that society could have went down. It was the way that ended up becoming the pathway. But it also means that insofar as that was human made and is relatively novel, is that we can have other pathways as well.

Which leads me to thinking about one of the underlying themes of the book is the notion of safety. You write, it's a human desire to have safety. So when you pose the question, what does safety mean to you? Some might say it might mean a reduction of police violence. Others might say more police violence.

And to think about the notion of safety and to place that onto police, we often hear the institution of policing and the police state is that they are institutions to protect and serve. But protecting those who aren't racialized, and you underscore that in the book very well,

What if we reframe it to say that police are institutions to serve and to make a safer society? How can we reconceptualize safety where we can all agree on what safety looks like?

That's definitely a layered question. So, you know, one, I think we need to have different kinds of grammar and language for how safety is even understood. As we understand it right now, just in mainstream ways, the framework of safety is typically discussed and theorized through a framework around crime.

Crime is a social and historical construct, which is why there are many things that have been in criminal codes which are no longer in criminal codes. There are things that are criminalized that are not harmful, and there are things that are harmful that are not criminalized. Crime is really, you know, a political and social construct. And so we even start to see things that become crimes once they start to become certain behaviors and activities start to become racialized.

A part of what is required is a reconfiguring of how we understand safety in general. One of the things that I ask many people, and this is, it's a way to try to get at something deeper about safety, because when we think about safety, often certain things come up. And I think for many people, there are patterns of things that might come up. One of the things that I will often prompt people to think through or think about, or just as an exercise is to say, think about a time where you felt safe.

close your eyes and try to remember what you feel, what you saw, what you heard, what you smelled, how you felt. Was it warm? Was it cold? Think about all of these things.

And hold that experience. And for me, that's what safety is. Now, of course, we navigate lives in different spaces in different ways. Whatever experience comes up, and after multiple times of asking people this many times, I've never heard anyone say, oh, there was a time where I was with the police or I saw the police or when there was a whole bunch of police around. I've never heard that.

And so what that means is that there's something deeper and more complicated about safety and how we imagine how we produce it beyond the ways that it's often depicted by the criminal legal system.

And what that means is also that we need a more qualitative and complicated way of trying to understand what safety actually is and what makes people feel safe. Part of what I'm getting at is the reason why even when you look at crime rates as they go up and down, it often does not track neatly or well to how people feel in terms of their safety. So crime can drop and people can still feel very unsafe.

And so that means that we have to have a more complicated and nuanced understanding around how people understand, perceive, conceive, and navigate safety and concerns around safety. And so one of the things that I talk about in my dissertation is like, how can we think about safety without thinking about ourselves?

being in a housing development where the gas is out or where the elevators don't work or where people cannot walk in and out the building easily because there are mounds of trash that's in front of the building. That could easily be solved with resources, but at the same time, there's police that might be stationed there constantly.

Right. It's like this all factors into safety as well, but because it's outside of the criminal legal system, it becomes illegible. And so I really think we need to like to just tease out a part of what you mentioned is also like what safety means.

And really try to dig deep around also what makes people feel unsafe. One of the things I think like is a part of this work of really moving beyond policing is to ask folks, what are the things that make you feel unsafe? I've had these moments where people in conversations around safety knee-jerk reactions is to say we need more police. And a part of what I try to prompt one is to say there are so many different ways, so many different approaches, so many different experiments, models, examples.

examples of ways where we can clearly see, based off of studies, things that improve safety within the community. And these are things like green spaces, for example, that has been shown. There was a study that where there was a conversion of an abandoned lot to a green space and it reduced violence within the surrounding neighborhood. Or things like violence interrupters or after school programs or employment initiatives.

or organizations, a community-based organization that, you know, focus on the needs of a community. And we can go down a list of so many different kinds of approaches, both in terms of other kinds of community-based safety approaches, but also the resources that can be invested in communities that we can see have an effect on creating safer communities and safer conditions.

And we can see how these really can transform community. And so we can look to all of those ways. And a part of what that means and a part of what I ask is when this comes up is like, do you want safety or do you just want more police? Do you want help or do you simply just want more police? Because if the answer is I actually want safety and help.

It allows us to start from a different starting point. The issue is that we're socializing to the idea that the only way that we can manage concerns around safety is through police. And the whole point of the book, and also why I'm an abolitionist, I want to begin a world where there are no police, is to say is that there are so many different ways that we can think about and conceive of safety that moves beyond policing. And not only that moves beyond policing, but will actually be safer for it.

And so I think a part of what it looks like is having conversations with folks and really getting into like, what are the concerns people have around safety? The other part is also a level of awareness raising around all of these other kinds of approaches and things that can actually not only keep us safe, but create a safer world. Because look how much police and prisons exist within the United States. Look how much punishment, carcerality, surveillance exists within the United States.

And look how many people have concerns around safety. Now, if policing and punishment equated to safety, insofar as we live in one of the most policed and punished and imprisoned societies, shouldn't we also live in one of the safest? But if that's not true, that goes to the first point is that safety is more complicated. You can't just trace it down to policing, carcerality, punishment, surveillance.

And what that means is that we need a more complex way of understanding safety. We also need a more nuanced and cohesive way of approaching how we keep each other safe. This episode is brought to you by Peloton.

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I'm told it's super easy to do at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of $45 for three-month plan equivalent to $15 per month required. Intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. Fee-full terms at mintmobile.com. So, Philip, how do we get there? As the title of your book suggests, how do we get to beyond policing and have a more robust experience of safety?

I think there are a lot of ways to think about that question. And, you know, I'll just start with saying I definitely think police abolition is the way that we get to a safer world, in part because the stronghold that policing has as an ideology that governs how society organizes itself, it not only prevents us from getting to

a society where we have a more robust way of approaching safety concerns, it also actively adds to concerns of safety, right? And so for someone who's walking down the street and is concerned around being stop and frisked or is getting stopped and frisked or someone who's being stopped

because the color of their skin or someone who was being harassed by the police or someone who was being murdered or assaulted by the police. All of these things are also concerned around safety. But again, it typically is framed outside of the criminal legal depiction of crime. And so, you know, it's both in terms of like the indirect ways in which policing sort of monopolizes resources, ideology, investments, approaches in terms of like all of the other things we could be doing. But it's also that policing is adding

to many of the concerns that a range of communities have. And so I think for me, police abolition is certainly the way abolitionist strategies and tactics, I think they range, and I discuss many of them in the book, but I'll default to a mentor of mine. And in the words of Robin Kelly, it's like study and struggle, I think are really important for how we get there. But I think it's essential

to engage in both and to really think about the question around like different kinds of strategies, especially in a world where the political landscape has been shifting and changing and it sure has changed with the recent election. And so I think it will require a lot of studying and it will require a lot of struggling to understand

It's not an easy, you know, task or battle, but I think it is an essential one. And in reality, we've seen hundreds of years of policing. We've also seen over 100 years of police reforms.

that had brought us to a context in which every single year the police kill over a thousand people, they assault many more, and harass and profile many more people. And many people across the nation have so many concerns around safety. And so it just goes back to this point of like, if it's not operating in the interest of the vast majority of the public,

Why is it just continuing on in this way? And so that gets to deeper questions. And I think the work of folks like Nicole Siegel and violence work and thinking about the relationship of state and violence work and policing is, I think, essential here. But...

Yeah, you know, I think it's not an easy one. I think there's a lot of strategies and I think divesting, divest invest, which was in recent years took on the framework around defunding is one strategy. And I think there are many others in terms of reducing the size and scope of policing and police capacity and police resources, because the reality is that the only way to avoid an encounter of police violence to really assure that encounter does not happen is to avert the encounter altogether.

Any context in which there is an interaction between a police officer and a person has the possibility of leading to an incident of police violence. Historically, a lot of what has been the focus is reforming these institutions to reduce the likelihood of these things happening. And what we see is that has not operated in that way. And there are so many ways, there's so much innovation within the human experience that we can discuss anything that

that might come up and discuss other kinds of approaches and ways that we can imagine these things can be managed, intervened in, and also responded with. We can look to models like healing justice and transformative justice and restorative justice as other kinds of models to also help us break from these punitive paradigms as well. Dr. McHarris, the last question I have for you is not about the book, it's about the future. Can you tell our listeners what is something that you are currently working on?

That's a great question. I'm actually working on my next book project. It's entitled "Brick Dreams: The Unfinished Project of Public Housing."

And it's essentially a mixture of a social history around public housing, as well as an ethnographic study that I engaged in for years around public housing, particularly in New York City, but also just pan outward to think about public housing across the nation, its history, its present realities, and its future directions. And so I've been working on that. And so, you know, of course, the

The book project includes elements of policing. Public housing is one of the most policed sites and spaces across the nation, but seeks to tell a broader story around public housing as it was, as it is, and as it can be. It's under advanced contract. We're printing Risky Press. And so, yeah, we're working on that as well as a number of other articles around policing, housing, land, and a number of other related topics.

Man, I can't wait for you to write that book. Definitely seems to fit in with the larger project of policing. You got to come back on. I would love to. It was a very bending conversation with you. Thank you so much for creating this space. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Dr. Philip McHarris is an assistant professor at the Frederick Douglass Institute and the Department of Black Studies at the University of Rochester. He is the author of Beyond Policing, which was published by Legacy Lit. Special thanks to Tara Kennedy. I'm your host, Dr. Nekazi Oates. Thank you for listening.

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