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Videos of police abuse are often spread through technology, raising questions around how perceptions of police are impacted by these images, especially for 18–24-year-olds who are constantly “logged on.” Limited research investigates the impact of social media on attitudes toward police accounting for age and race. The present study utilizes 19 in-depth interviews with a diverse sample of urban college students who regularly use social media in order to understand how they have been impacted by this content. The findings suggest the necessity of using an intersectional framework to understand the impact of tech-witnessed violence. While no gender differences were uncovered, racial differences did surface. White participants described being minimally influenced by videos of police misconduct, rationalizing it as a “few bad apples.” In contrast, participants of color, except those with family members in law enforcement, described being negatively impacted. Viral content contributed to negative opinions of police, emotional distress, and fears of victimization. Ultimately, videos of police brutality do not impact young populations equally. Instead, they are comparatively more harmful to young people of color who spend more time on social media, can envision themselves as the victims, and experience feelings of fear, despair, and anger after watching these videos.

The purpose of this paper is to present insights into the way in which system change can be activated around the provision of services and support for people experiencing multiple disadvantages in an urban setting.

This paper is informed by a thematic analysis of reflections, reports, learning logs, interviews and experiences of those “activating” system change in the Golden Key partnership in Bristol between 2014 and 2021.

Four themes are identified, including “creating the conditions for change”, “framing your involvement”, “investing in relationships” and “reflective practice and learning”. For each of these, an illustrative vignette is provided.

Practical recommendations and reflective questions are provided with suggestions of further considerations for applying this approach in different contexts.

This paper describes an original approach of activating and supporting people to do system change to improve the lives of people facing multiple disadvantages.

Black Canadians have a historically tenuous relationship with the police. Negative perceptions of the police held by Black people have traditionally resulted from high levels of police contact and perceived negative treatment during these encounters. Well-publicized instances of police violence involving Black civilians have also fostered hostility and mistrust of the police, often resulting in social unrest. Recently, in the wake of George Floyd's death at the hands of American police, people across Canada rallied in support of the Black Lives Matter social movement and calls to defund the police entered mainstream political consciousness. At the same time, police leaders have vehemently argued that racial bias within Canadian policing has been greatly reduced as the result of various reform efforts.

This paper explores the police racism debate in Canada through an analysis of three waves of survey data collected between 1994 and 2019.

Despite well-publicized reform efforts, the authors' findings demonstrate that little has changed over the past 25 years. Black people still report much higher rates of police stop and search activity than people from other racial backgrounds. Furthermore, racial disparities in negative police contact remain strongly significant after controlling for other theoretically relevant factors, including self-reported deviance and community crime levels. Finally, reflecting their negative experiences, most Black people still perceive Canadian law enforcement as racially biased. Nonetheless, the data do reveal one significant change: the proportion of white people who perceive police discrimination against Black people has increased dramatically over this same time period. The paper concludes by discussing the prospects of meaningful reform in light of the current findings.

This paper contributes to the literature on race and policing through an examination of 25 years of survey data across three waves of collection.

Purpose – This chapter explores how select “evidence-based” police scholars act as gatekeepers to research opportunities, in Canada, thus impeding critical research that pertains to Black communities.

Methodology/Approach – Using the critical race method of counter-storytelling, the following narrative demonstrates how race and racism may play a role in the collection and dissemination of research that examines racial bias in Canadian policing. This methodology aims to refute the notion of critical objectivity, which is often used to promote the principles of evidence-based policing (EBP).

Findings – Findings suggest that through various powers and levels within both the policing and academic community, a select number of scholars have influence over Canadian policing research that explores racial bias and discrimination. As such, research that may help to develop effective and efficient policing programs to address racial bias, is thwarted.

Originality – No Canadian study explores anti-racist training programs or evaluates their effectiveness. This chapter demonstrates that this may be the result of gatekeeping. The following chapter provides insight into how this is done within EBP circles.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how police authority – in its “soft” form – is used and understood by staff and detainees in police custody in England, examining how these meanings are shaped by this unique police setting. It is argued that the nature of this setting, as fraught and uncertain, along with the large volume of citizens who come into contact with the police therein, makes police custody the ultimate “teachable moment”.

The present paper is based on in-depth qualitative data collected between March 2014 and May 2015 in four custody suites (in four forces). In each site, the researchers spent three to four weeks observing and then interviewed 10-15 staff (largely police officers, detention officers but also a few other criminal justice practitioners) and 10-15 detainees. In total, the paper is based on 532 hours of observing and 97 interviews (47 with staff and 50 with detainees).

One way that the staff used their authority in the custody suites in the research was softly and innocuously; this entailed for example staff communicating in a respectful manner with detainees, such as by being deliberately polite. The authors conclude that this “soft” power was a dynamic, processual matter, shaped in particular by the physical conditions of the suite, the uncertain and insecure nature of detainees’ circumstances, as well as by the sense of disempowerment they felt as a result of being deprived of their liberty and autonomy, all of which contributed to police custody being the ultimate “teachable moment”.

The paper draws on a range of qualitative data collected from both staff and detainees in four types of police custody suites as part the “good” police custody study. It therefore makes an original contribution to the field which has tended to rely on cross-sectional surveys of citizens not policed populations (Harkin, 2015; Worden and Mclean, 2017).

The purpose of this paper is to explore the perceptions of and barriers to reporting female genital mutilation (FGM) by victims and survivors of FGM to the police in England and Wales.

The paper is based on 14 interviews conducted with adult survivors and victims of FGM. A combination of 1:1 and group interviews were used, based on the preference of the respondents. Respondents were recruited in collaboration with specialist non-governmental organisations and major stakeholders in the area of honour-based violence and black and minority ethnic communities.

A key finding in this research was that all victims/survivors the authors interviewed stated that they did not support the practice of FGM, and that they would not follow it for younger women in their own family. Second, the authors found that none of the respondents had reported their experience to the police. Third, they identified key barriers to reporting, which included: their belief that reporting their own experience would not serve any purpose because they had experienced FGM as children, and in another country; and that they did not feel able to report new incidents of FGM in the community because of a lack of trust in the police due to previous negative experiences. Finally, they believed that FGM could be prevented only by work within the community, and not through engagement with the criminal justice system.

This is, to our knowledge, one of the first papers that is based on victims and survivors’ perceptions that explores barriers to reporting cases of FGM to the police, and offers levers for change.