Defund PD? Not in Minneapolis! Per Prof. Simonson, historically Democrats funded America's PDs in the name of Civil Rights.  Minneapolis gets to keep its police department. That's the outcome of last week's ballot vote. 

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called for police officers "to make sure they are working directly with the community to keep us safe." In our podcast conversation, Professor Jocelyn Simonson brings attention to the complexity of the term "community". What is exactly a community and who is in it? Frankly, before this podcast conversation, I was under the impression that the term community had a geographical definition, such as the community within a precinct. But I now understand that a community can be much more diverse than that restrictive definition, and it may include citizens whose voices are not heard or are ignored. The term community is important because it goes to the heart of ordinary people's participation in the criminal system, which Professor Simonson also describes as bottom-up contestation, and it can include laws and ordinances, policing policies and courtroom watching. She also takes us through the history of America's police, how and when it was founded and when it began to receive federal funding for its growth and militarization.   

Professor Simonson, who writes and teaches about criminal law, criminal procedure, evidence, and social change at Brooklyn Law School, explores ways in which the public participates in the criminal process and in the institutions of local governance that control policing and punishment. In this episode, which was recorded prior to the ballot vote in Minneapolis, she also talks about her upcoming book on this subject.  

This is the link to her academic homepage: https://www.brooklaw.edu/Contact-Us/Simonson-Jocelyn, and it lists her research and provides information for her many publications - including those in popular journals such as the New York Times and the Washington Post.'

SUPPORT: To continue our free podcast program, we depend on our listeners’ support. So please click this link https://anchor.fm/the-peel-news/support and join our other supporters in the news peeler community. Thank you. 

Description to featured image: Student loan debt rose from $480.1 billion (3.5% GDP) in Q1 2006 to $1,683 billion (7.8% GDP) in Q1 2020. Orange and red boxes inserted by ThePeel.news. Chart by St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank (Public Domain). 

🎵 attribution, links and license for the theme music in this podcast is below: The Success by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoonMusic promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 

SOCIAL MEDIA: to watch the host of ThePeel.news, Adel, peel the history behind news with distinguished professors and critically acclaimed authors, follow us on social media by clicking the following links: YouTube TikTok Twitter Instagram Facebook Linked-In 

ThePeel.news Podcast Platforms: Our program is available pretty much wherever you get your podcasts. And for your convenience, here are direct links to several platforms: