In the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder in 2020, policing has been at the center of the cultural and political conversation in the U.S. Since then, the explicit ways policing impacts communities of color have increasingly come under the microscope, from police brutality to discrimination in traffic stops. However, new research argues that in order to address the root issues in the criminal legal system, we need to redefine the very idea of policing and its purpose.
Korey Tillman, an assistant professor of criminology, criminal justice and Africana studies at Northeastern University, explains the mundane ways that Black people specifically are policed are just as important as the headline-catching incidents. These everyday occurrences all come back to what he calls punitive inertia, a concept inspired both by his interviews with Black Americans and the world of physics.
