How To Make The Public Safer? It's A Lot Harder Than Just Hiring More Police
The NPR Politics Podcast
NPR
4.4 • 25.7K Ratings
🗓️ 20 June 2022
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the wake of violence and tragedies, people are often left in search of ways to feel safe again. That almost inevitably to conversations about the role of police. On today's episode, we're talking to the author and sociologist Alex Vitale, who argues that many spaces in U.S. society over-rely on the police to prevent problems that are better addressed through other means. Doing so, he says, can prevent us from properly investing in resources and programs that could make the country safer in the long run.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey everyone, it's Asma Khalid and today on our show we're featuring an episode from |
| 0:04.2 | our friends over at the Code Switch podcast. |
| 0:06.7 | It's about how the simplest policy responses often are not the best ones. |
| 0:11.2 | And for those of you all who are interested, we'll leave a link to subscribe to Code Switch |
| 0:14.5 | in the show notes. |
| 0:15.7 | And we will be back in your feeds for regularly scheduled programming tomorrow following |
| 0:19.9 | the January 6th theories. |
| 0:20.9 | You're listening to Code Switch, the show about race and identity from MPR, I'm Gene |
| 0:25.8 | Demby. |
| 0:29.2 | And it has been a rough couple of weeks, I mean we often have rough weeks on the race |
| 0:34.0 | beat, but between the mass shooting and Buffalo and then the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas |
| 0:41.7 | has been a lot. |
| 0:44.1 | So after that shooting in Uvalde, people were angry and frustrated both because the details |
| 0:51.3 | that come out are more horrific and disturbing with each passing day, but also because if |
| 0:59.0 | you're over the age of 10, you have been through several rounds of this. |
| 1:06.5 | A gunman goes on a killing spree, in a school somewhere in the United States, the grieving |
| 1:12.8 | families are forever fractured. |
| 1:15.7 | Elected officials then doodifully offer up their requisite thoughts and prayers, their |
| 1:20.9 | calls for a striker background checks before someone is able to buy a gun, their calls |
| 1:24.3 | for assault weapons bands, their calls for lawmakers in Washington to pass so-called |
| 1:29.4 | common sense gun laws. |
| 1:32.2 | But when these things have happened in recent years, there have also been very loud calls |
... |
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