”The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.” —W.E.B. DuBois (1868–1963)
Who pays for police misconduct?
The true cost of this war is measured in human lives. The controversial uses of force in policing is something that troubles most Americans. Yet, many do not realize that the financial burden of wrongful deaths is shifted onto taxpayers due to a lack of police accountability for misconduct. If a national program systematically collected the data needed to quantify and qualify the costs of police violence and its resulting procedural injustices, communities would then be able to determine how they want elected policymakers to negotiate contracts with police departments. Understanding the scope of the true costs could compel us to reform a system that privileges officers’ survival over public safety, especially when the perception of danger by law enforcement is impacted by racism and reductive biases.
Richard Williams for Mad Magazine, 2015, update of Norman Rockwell’s “The Runaway,” 1958.
