Resolutions for a New Year Free from Police Violence

NPAP exists to build a better future, one that is free from police violence and abounding in safe, trusting communities who are free to determine how to thrive.

In some cases that looks like reforming the law to limit police power and discretion to inflict harm on the communities they are supposed to protect. In others, we are strengthening or establishing legal protections to empower people harmed by police violence to seek justice. Always, we are listening to the people and communities most targeted by police abuse to build a safer, more just future together.

As we step into a new year, here are our resolutions:

1. Removing Dangerous Police Presence and Limiting Unnecessary Police-Civilian Interactions.
   • Reducing police involvement in contexts like schools, traffic stops, and mental health crises where officers are untrained to provide help and consistently deploy unnecessary violence.
2. Ending Oppressive Law Enforcement Practices.
   • Jails, prisons, and law enforcement agencies expressly authorize or tacitly permit their officers to engage in harmful, sometimes life-threatening practices like retaliation, solitary confinement, and racially biased policing.
   • Reducing harm by ending retaliatory conduct, eliminating brutal practices like solitary confinement, and removing officers with histories of explicit bias or hate group affiliation.
3. Excellent legal representation for every person harmed by police.
   • More attorneys with the experience, skill, and resources to address police misconduct, especially in communities with predominantly populations of color in the South, where too often there are few sources for civil rights representation to address high instances of abusive law enforcement. 
   • This resolution is at the heart of our co-counsel program, where we have increased the capacity of local counsel to take on law enforcement agencies including the Rosenberg Police Department (Texas), the Alabama Department of Corrections, and the Lexington Police Department (Mississippi), which the U.S. Department of Justice recently announced will be the subject of a civil pattern and practice investigation.

We can’t pursue these resolutions alone. We are a nation-wide movement of attorneys, organizers, and activists like you. 

Thank you for your continued support. Together we are building a future free from police violence.