public safety

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• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  6/2/2022
  

  Can We Stop Cars from Killing People?

  American cyclists and pedestrians are the victims of a century-long political campaign to reorganize public space around the needs of drivers, according to historian Peter Norton. Activists including the families of traffic victims are fighting to change that.

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• SOURCE: KOIN 6
  4/16/2022
  

  Elliott Young: Know the History Behind Today's Crime Panic

  The historian gave a minute-long background briefing on what's really driving fears of crime and what should be done. 

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• 8/15/2021
  

  Children Versus Cars: The First Road Safety Campaigns (Excerpt)

  by Tom Sandage

  As outrage over road deaths gave way to laws clarifying expected behavior by street users, pedestrians surrendered much of their free access to the street to drivers. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  3/16/2021
  

  We Were Warned about a Divided America 50 Years Ago. We Ignored the Signs

  by Elizabeth Hinton

  The 1968 Kerner Commission Report on civil disorders recommended a program of public employment, housing and school desegregation, and a basic minimum income to tackle economic inequality and racial segregation as conjoined problems, as well as police reforms. Lyndon Johnson shelved the report, and we pay the price today. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  10/15/2020
  

  In Fights Over Face Masks, Echoes of the American Seatbelt Wars

  The fight over seatbelt laws in the United States was fraught with trying to strike a balance between individual and public interests. Those concerns have also been reflected in similar matters of health and safety, including vaccinations, helmet laws — and masks.

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• SOURCE: Made By History at The Washington Post
  8/27/2020
  

  Qanon Misdirects Our Attention Away From The Real Threats To Children

  by Paul M. Renfro

  "Moral panics like QAnon work to distract from less outrageous, far more insidious sources of harm. Even worse, they contribute to punitive policies that separate and hurt families, perpetuate mass incarceration and keep people in a state of fear."

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• 7/26/2020
  

  Two Contagions, One Opportunity to Reboot our Approach

  by Steve Pyne

  Outbursts of megafires resemble emerging diseases because they are typically the outcome of broken biotas – a ruinous interaction between people and nature that unhinges the old checks and balances. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  6/12/2020
  

  Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police

  by Mariame Kaba

  A police abolition activist argues that the long history of commissions set up to investigate police violence against civilans shows that the institution can't be reformed or regulated. 

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• SOURCE: New York Review of Books
  6/15/2020
  

  How Defund and Disband Became the Demands

  by Amna A. Akbar

  An Ohio State University law professor summarizes the history of activists and academics who shaped the movement for police abolition that has received attention in the wake of George Floyd's killing and ensuing protests. 

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• SOURCE: Perspectives on History
  6/12/2020
  

  Defund the Police

  by Austin McCoy

  The emergence of a protest slogan is usually followed by struggles over its meaning; calls for defunding the police echo the contested slogan of "Black Power" in the 1960s.

• 
• SOURCE: The New Republic
  4/21/2020
  

  A Brief Criminal History of the Mask

  by Melissa Gira Grant

  The New York  City mask order, particularly without any subsequent plan to make masks accessible to the public, hands police another tool to regulate public space—and that is not the same thing as ensuring public safety.