A Review of Campaign Zero: We Can End Police Violence In America

Campaign Zero is a campaign that's goal is to live in a world where the police don't kill people. Their plan to do this is by limiting police intervention, improving community interaction, and ensuring accountability. The ten categories or focuses of their plan are: 

  1. End Broken Windows Policing
  2. Community Oversight
  3. Limit Use of Force
  4. Independently Investigate & Prosecute
  5. Community Representation
  6. Body Cams / Film the Police
  7. Training
  8. End for Profit Policing
  9. Demilitarization
  10. Fair Police Union Contracts
The campaign's main goal is to encourage policymakers to focus on reducing police violence and hope to put pressure on elected officials to enact legislation to address police violence. There is also a tool on the site to demand action from your representative which I believe is an effective tool in getting people across America involved in an important cause. Further analysis will now be done on Campaign Zeros' policies they wish to enact. 

Campaign Zero states that only five percent of arrests made in America are for violent crimes, and most other police-involved crimes are not a threat to society in the way they need to take control. They state that the police departments should decriminalize or deprioritize enforcement of these issues and rather get more mental health providers and substance abuse counsellors, to step up and handle situations like this. By doing this, fewer people will be exposed to the possibility of police violence during low offence crimes.  

Ending for-profit policing is another important goal of the campaign which states that police should not be making a profit from aggressive ticketing and fines. This can be done by establishing a cap on the amount of revenue that is raised in fees and fines, prohibiting police to seize cash and property from civilians who have not been convicted of a crime and force people departments to pay misconduct settlements from their own budgets. 

One of the major goals is to limit the use of force by police such as chokeholds and to focus on de-escalation techniques. The Campaign believes this will help make police officers' jobs safer as well and should require the police to be more transparent on all occasions any force is used. The final goal of this section is to not allow officers who have been fired for misconduct back into the police force. 

 Demilitarization of the police is a goal to reduce the likely hood of police killing people. The federal 1033 program currently supplies military-grade weapons to police departments, which Campaign Zero believes is unnecessary and can lead to more harm than good. 

Body cameras are another piece of technology Campaign Zero hope for police departments to invest in. They believe that body cams will lead to the police being held more accountable for their actions but do see the many issues that can arise with constant monitoring of potentially marginalized communities. 

Campaign Zero also believes there needs to be more independent investigations when police kill people and the Federal government has the potential to do this with more funding. They want more independent investigations and prosecutions of officers and the authorization of the state Department of Justice to investigate police departments for a pattern of unconstitutional policing. 

Training and community representation are the main proactive strategy for police departments to perform. Campaign Zero believes police training needs to focus on de-escalation rather than shooting practice and a large emphasis on community members to bring safety to their own communities through community representation. This would also mean more community oversight which would leave communities in charge of watching over themselves and holding the police accountable. 

The final important factor of the Campaign Zero project is to create fair police union contracts, which make it harder to investigate and hold officers accountable for misconduct. The goal is to remove provisions within state police laws that impose barriers for when police either kill someone or perform another form of misconduct. 

Overall, Campaign goals' are very realistic and can be performed if the right leadership, funding, and support are carried out. Campaign Zero has the potential to revolutionize policing in America to make it safer for everyone involved. 

REFERENCE: 

CAMPAIGN ZERO. (2020). Campaign Zero. Retrieved from https://www.joincampaignzero.org/


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