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Police ter­ror and mass incar­cer­a­tion do not exist in a vac­u­um. In our coun­try, harm and pun­ish­ment have invad­ed every aspect of soci­ety, and have done so with sur­gi­cal racial pre­ci­sion. We see it in the ways we address drug depen­den­cy and men­tal health crises by dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly putting Black and Brown peo­ple behind bars instead of pro­vid­ing holis­tic treatment.

We see it in inhu­mane pan­han­dling laws and cash bail that pun­ish­es peo­ple for being poor. We see it when we sus­pend Black chil­dren from school and give them deten­tion at dis­pro­por­tion­ate rates. At each step, our gov­ern­ment has legit­imized pun­ish­ing Black and Brown peo­ple. It is not sur­pris­ing, then, that the police com­mit harm and vio­lence against Black and Brown bod­ies with impunity—and at alarm­ing rates.