{"id":189660,"date":"2024-09-27T13:32:52","date_gmt":"2024-09-27T17:32:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/?post_type=issue&#038;p=189660"},"modified":"2025-06-17T14:59:01","modified_gmt":"2025-06-17T18:59:01","slug":"public-safety-and-freedom-from-police-overreach","status":"publish","type":"issue","link":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/issues\/criminal-law-reform\/public-safety-and-freedom-from-police-overreach","title":{"rendered":"Public Safety and Freedom from Police Overreach"},"parent":46391,"menu_order":0,"template":"","class_list":["post-189660","issue","type-issue","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":{"featured-image":210625,"intro":"We want a world in which people have an equal right to go about their lives without invasive, humiliating, or violent encounters with the police regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, or disability. To achieve this world, the ACLU works to increase individual rights against police violence and oppression, while shifting power to people impacted by police overreach to build better models for public safety.","what-you-need-to-know":[{"highlighted":"","description":"On average, police in the United States shoot and kill more than 1,000 people every year and police are much more likely to kill Black people than white people.  "},{"highlighted":"","description":"Government reports have repeatedly found that numerous police departments were disproportionately targeting and using excessive force against Black, Latine, and Indigenous people. "},{"highlighted":"","description":"One study found that, over a 10 year period, a police officer was caught committing sexual abuse or sexualized misconduct at least every five days."}],"promo":{"description":"","button":"","url":""},"faq":{"description":"","faq-items":[{"title":"Why do we need to strengthen individual rights against police power and build better models for safety?","content":"<ul>\r\n \t<li>The problems with policing go beyond inadequate oversight, training, or procedures. Ending police abuse will require meaningful accountability mechanisms that interrupt and prevent misuse of police power. It will also require strong individual rights that protect against police overreach, bias, and violence, and that disincentivize the misuse of police power.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>Ushering an end to oppressive policing will ultimately require investing in communities to build alternatives to police and better approaches to safety, including investments that address housing, health, food access, and opportunity.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Toward this end, we design and implement litigation strategies and integrated advocacy campaigns to strengthen individual rights, advance alternatives to police, and build better models for safety. We aim to coordinate this work with people most impacted by police violence and oppression, such as Black, Latine, and Indigenous people.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>"}]},"featured-stories":[{"image":142485,"title":"Unaccountable Police Units Are Wrong for Safety","content-type":"news_and_commentary","last-updated":null,"description":"Specialized units give police too much power, leading to abuse and violence. If we want to keep people safe from both crime and police violence, we need to build something better.","url":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/news\/criminal-law-reform\/unaccountable-police-units-are-wrong-for-safety"}],"latest-stories":null,"whats-at-stake":{"title":"What\u2019s At Stake","description":"From \u201cslave patrols\u201d that terrorized enslaved Black people, to armed militia that enforced Black Codes and Jim Crow, to police that subverted union organizing in the 19th century, policing has always been tied to oppression. Today, police continue to primarily patrol Black, Latine, and Indigenous people, particularly in lower income areas. The harms from police abuse fall disproportionately on those populations.\r\n\r\nThroughout the country, there are issues with police abuse of power. This is seen commonly in the use of excessive force, improper pedestrian stops, pretextual traffic stops, invasive surveillance tactics, and the misuse of asset forfeiture.\r\n\r\nThese common abuses leave the people and communities most affected with lasting harms \u2014 including physical injuries, trauma, and estrangement from public institutions. In the case of killings by police, it includes the irrevocable loss of life. Where people are wrongfully arrested, the harms from police abuse compound the harms from mass incarceration."},"actions":"","drupal-id":"","is_hidden_issue":""},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>American Civil Liberties Union<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We want a world in which people have an equal right to go about their lives without invasive, humiliating, or violent encounters with the police regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, or disability. 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