When a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd, it was as if a fire was ignited. His death, along with the killings of Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery have sparked the most widespread protests in the US since 1968. Hundreds of thousands of people have marched under banners such as “Black Lives Matter”, “No Justice, No Peace” and “Say Their Names”. Now, the voices of activists are converging around a call to “defund the police”. In this episode, we hear from Rachel Harmon, a professor of law at the University of Virginia, and Vesla M Weaver, a professor of political science and sociology at Johns Hopkins University, about the role the federal government, and federal funding, have played in transforming policing in the US.
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