Revealed: weak rules allow the world’s largest police forces to kill
Impunity means “exemption from punishment or loss or escape from fines”. In the international law of human rights, it refers to the failure to bring perpetrators of human rights violations to justice and, as such, itself constitutes a denial of the victims’ right to justice and redress.
Read the full article @TheGuardian Revealed: weak rules allow the world’s largest police forces to kill
Police departments in major cities across the world give their officers legal impunity to use lethal force even when their lives are not in danger.
The study by the University of Chicago and its research partners found that not one police department of the cities surveyed had policies that were consistent with human rights guidelines set forth by the UN when it comes to use-of-force policies.
The report involved 48 major US and international cities, many in some of the richest, most democratic countries in the world.
This research reveals that not only are police officers in the US and beyond acting violently with impunity, but that their professional codes allow them to do so. The research comes as police forces are under intense scrutiny in the year after the brutal killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and the unprecedented wave of uprisings that followed.