The NAACP LDF Calls For a Public Safety Transformation and an End to Over-Policing

Today, less than one month before the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) released “We Are Not Lesser,” a report examining the pronounced disparities in Tulsa’s policing practices, including its arrests of Black youth, Black adults, and uses of force against Black Tulsans.

“We Are Not Lesser” draws on official data and the testimony and accounts provided by Tulsa residents at multiple public convenings from June through September of 2019. The report calls for the city to remedy the Tulsa Police Department’s disparate enforcement practices against Black Tulsans and invest in services and programs that would reduce its reliance on policing, offering a number of recommendations including:

• Reducing the city’s over-reliance on policing services by investing in community-based programs and services to address issues to which law enforcement officers are ill-equipped to respond.
• Improving transparency into officers’ actions by collecting and routinely publishing data regarding officers’ enforcement activity.
• Decreasing racial disparities in arrests by decriminalizing or repealing minor offenses.
• Reducing police interactions with youth to prevent their involvement in the criminal legal system.

Read the source article at naacpldf.org