The 2020 murder of George Floyd while in the custody of Minneapolis police spurred more than 20 million people to demonstrate, the largest social protests in U.S. history. In a series of studies, criminologists assess the impacts of the protests on the criminal justice system. The studies focus on two aspects of the protests: 1) the policy changes to policing and public safety that resulted from the protests, including police turnover, police institutional change, and public safety, and 2) public attitudes and discussions about the protests, including the protests’ impact on public opinion, media accounts of the protests, and protesters’ perceptions about defunding the police and related matters.
The studies were conducted by scholars from the American Society of Criminology (ASC) and appear in a special issue of Criminology & Public Policy, the flagship policy and practice journal of the society, edited by Cynthia Lum and Christopher Koper at George Mason University.
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