Abolishing the police requires abolishing capitalism, argues historian Peter Linebaugh. Today, he joins Allen on the program to discuss the origins of policing as an institution in the eighteenth century; the relationship between policing, private property, and wealth; and the intertwined histories of racial capitalism and state violence. Peter Linebaugh is a historian who has […]
Roundtable: Reforming the MPD and Alternatives to Policing
The growing movement to defund the police and nationwide demands for police accountability have a history in Madison as well. Today, Allen hosts a roundtable discussion about local police practices, ongoing efforts to reform the MPD, and alternatives to policing with Brandi Grayson of Urban Triage, alder Rebecca Kemble from the Madison Common Council, and […]
Should Police Be Unionized?
As calls to defund the police reverberate across America, today Thursday host Allen Ruff takes a look at the renewed controversy around police unions with labor and racial justice activist Bill Fletcher Jr. They talk about the nature of policing in a capitalist society, police accountability, the role of law enforcement in a democracy, and […]
Revisiting The End of Policing with Alex S. Vitale
Today, we welcome back to the show professor Alex S. Vitale, author of the book The End of Policing, which has become an indispensable text for the rising movement to defund the police. For this interview, he and Allen discuss the militarization of the police, cops in schools and the school-to-prison pipeline, the local work […]
Policing in Madison Roundtable with Everett Mitchell and David Couper
“Until we change, we’re going to keep revisiting these events year after year after year,” says David Couper, former police chief of Madison. In the wake of George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis and the increasing demands to reform or even abolish the police, Ali Muldrow hosts a timely roundtable conversation about policing in Madison with […]
The Crisis of Policing in America
As ongoing nationwide protests demand an end to police brutality, today we focus our attention on the crisis of policing in America. Our guests are Jordan T. Camp and Christina Heatherton, activist scholars and co-editors of Policing the Planet: Why the Policing Crisis Led to Black Lives Matter. They talk about broken-windows policing, the U.S. […]
