Preparing Officers for Complex Realities

Sean Illing speaks with Rosa Brooks, a former reserve police officer and current law professor at Georgetown University. Brooks wrote Tangled Up in Blue: Policing the American City about her experience going through the police academy and becoming a cop on the streets of Washington, DC. They discuss what she saw during her time on the force, some of the differences between how cops see their jobs and how things are, and what could be done differently to fix American policing.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Rosa Brooks (@brooks_rosa), author; professor of law and policy, Georgetown University

References: 

• Tangled Up in Blue: Policing the American City by Rosa Brooks (Penguin; 2021)
• “Any situation can turn lethal in an instant, and other lessons I learned at the police academy” by Rosa Brooks (Los Angeles Times; Feb. 21, 2021)
• "New Perspectives in Policing: From Warriors to Guardians" by: Sue Rahr and Stephen K. Rice (PDF; NIJ and The Harvard Kennedy School)

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This episode was made by: 

• Producer: Erikk Geannikis
• Engineer: Patrick Boyd
• Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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