Rethinking 'safety' in the wake of Uvalde

Code Switch

NPR

Society & Culture

4.6 • 14.5K Ratings

🗓️ 1 June 2022

⏱️ 33 minutes

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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.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Code Switch, the show about race and identity from NPR, I'm Gene Dumbi.
0:07.0	And it has been a rough couple of weeks. I mean, we often have rough weeks on the race beat,
0:12.9	but between the mass shooting and Buffalo and then the mass shooting in Yvalday, Texas,
0:19.9	it's been a lot. So after that shooting in Yvalday, people were angry and frustrated,
0:28.2	both because the details that come out are more horrific and disturbing with each passing day.
0:35.9	But also because if you're over the age of, I don't know, 10, you have been through several rounds
0:43.3	of this. A gunman goes on a killing spree. In a school somewhere in the United States,
0:50.6	the grieving families are forever fractured. Elected officials then doodifully offer up their
0:56.2	requisite thoughts and prayers. Their calls for a striker background checks before someone
1:01.2	is able to buy a gun. Their calls for assault weapons bands. Their calls for lawmakers in
1:05.5	Washington to pass so-called common sense gun laws. But when these things have happened in recent
1:12.7	years, there have also been very loud calls to go in a really different direction. Meeting these
1:19.3	gunmen head on with more force with more guns. There has been clamoring to armed teachers with guns.
1:26.7	And of course, there were calls to put more police in schools. The thinking there is that if more
1:32.9	responsible trained adults were in schools armed and present, they could maybe prevent massacres,
1:39.5	like the one at Rob Elementary from happening, or at the very least, they could intervene sooner.
1:44.8	We can do a lot of things. In Texas, it has done a lot of things after the Santa Fe shooting. Obviously,
1:49.8	we have to do more. We have to harden these targets so that one can get in ever, except through
1:54.4	one entrance. Maybe that would help. I've introduced legislation to say schools like this elementary
2:00.0	school behind me can get federal grants to harden their security to put in bulletproof doors,
2:06.6	bulletproof glass to put in armed police officers to protect kids. $1.3 billion in federal funds.
2:14.4	One of the things you've talked about as armed teachers, is that a possibility in Texas?
	...

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