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Police investigate the scene of a shooting near the Chinatown neighborhood where four people were shot in an apparent road rage incident on September 19th, 2018, in Chicago, Illinois.

News in Brief

Police Are Most Likely to Use Deadly Force in Poorer, More Highly Segregated Neighborhoods

Researchers say knowing where fatal police interactions occur can help community leaders target programs aimed at reducing those deaths.

Francie Diep

Former Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke, left, listens with his attorney Daniel Herbert at Van Dyke's sentencing hearing at the Leighton Criminal Court Building on January 18th, 2019, in Chicago, Illinois.

News in Brief

The Laquan McDonald Case and Police Brutality in America: An Essential Reading List

Jason Van Dyke has been sentenced to over six years in prison. Read Pacific Standard's most relevant stories on the Chicago policeman's murder of a black teenager.

Kelley Czajka

Police advance on demonstrators protesting on August 17th, 2014, in Ferguson, Missouri.

Police Violence Is Linked to Suicidality and Other Mental-Health Concerns

A new study shows that exposure to police violence is linked with negative mental-health outcomes.

Emma Sarappo

Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke watches the closing statements during his trial in the shooting death of Laquan McDonald, at the Leighton Criminal Court Building on October 3rd, 2018, in Chicago, Illinois.

Jason Van Dyke Is Convicted on Murder and Aggravated Battery Charges

On Friday, a jury convicted Jason Van Dyke, a white Chicago police officer, of the second-degree murder of black 17-year-old Laquan McDonald.

Emma Sarappo

Viewfinder: Protesting Police Brutality at an Officer’s Trial in Chicago

A demonstrator holds an American flag emblazoned with the names of victims who were fatally wounded by police officers.

Pacific Standard Staff

Prisons have no incentive to pay inmates better—to the contrary. Unlike workers in the free market, who (theoretically, anyway) can weigh factors like pay, working conditions, and other benefits when deciding where to work, inmates do not have a choice between employers. If they need the money, or the experience, they must take or leave what the prison is offering.

Taking Freedom: Yes, Black America Fears the Police. Here’s Why.

On the historic role of policing in reinforcing racial inequality and how it has led to black Americans' fear of police.

Nikole Hannah-Jones

Protesters face off with riot police escorting conservative activists following a march in Boston against a planned "Free Speech Rally" just one week after the violent "Unite the Right" rally in Virginia left one woman dead and dozens more injured.

Social Justice

Why a History of the Police’s Relationship to the Working Class Is Being Re-Released Now

1983's Policing a Class Society argued that the police has always protected the interests of the upper classes.

Elizabeth King

A New Netflix Documentary Addresses Police Brutality With Personal and Political Force

Pacific Standard recommends Strong Island, more cinematic memoir than true-crime investigation.

Kristina Kutateli

A growing memorial for Eric Garner near where he died after he was taken into police custody in Staten Island on July 22th, 2014, in New York City.

Social Justice

The Fight for Racial Justice Can’t Stop With Fixing a Broken Policing System

Author Paul Butler employs the chokehold—the maneuver as well as the metaphor—as, in his words, "a way of understanding how American inequality is imposed."

S. Melody Frierson