Examining Historical and Contemporary Policing Disparities in the Black Community: Implications for Social Work

Betty L Wilson; Nikki R Wooten; Ronald O Pitner

doi:10.1093/sw/swac049

Examining Historical and Contemporary Policing Disparities in the Black Community: Implications for Social Work

Soc Work. 2022 Dec 23;68(1):8-17. doi: 10.1093/sw/swac049.

Authors

Betty L Wilson¹, Nikki R Wooten², Ronald O Pitner³

Affiliations

¹ PhD candidate, College of Social Work, University of South Carolina, 1512 Pendleton Street, Columbia, SC 29208, USA.
² PhD, LISW-CP, is associate professor, College of Social Work, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA.
³ PhD, is department chair and professor, Department of Social Work, Birminghan, AL, USA.

PMID: 36346331
DOI: 10.1093/sw/swac049

Abstract

An alarming number of unarmed Black men and women have been killed by police in the United States. Though research suggests that police violence is not a new phenomenon in Black communities in the United States, several shocking high-profile incidents of unarmed Black people killed by police in recent years have catapulted this problem more sharply into our nation's consciousness. Despite recent efforts to engage in critical discourse about police violence against unarmed Black people in mainstream media and across multiple disciplines, limited research exists on the connection between historical and contemporary acts of police violence in Black communities. This article conducts a critical analysis of the extant literature on historical and contemporary policing in the Black community and identifies linkages between these time periods using critical race theory. This article concludes with implications for social work to combat the issue of police violence in Black communities.

Keywords: Black communities; United States; critical race theory; police violence; social work.

MeSH terms

Black People
Black or African American*
Female
Humans
Male
Police*
Social Work
United States
Violence