Nancy Wallace

We have many deaths and tremendous suffering from our national culture of violence, but none cut so deeply into the heart of our country as the abuse of physical power by the our own government. The institutions we should trust, to protect and help us, instead betray with suspicion, assumed guilt, fear, and murder. Finally, a long-standing pattern of abuse of the state’s police power for African Americans, particularly men, has become known to all our country. We must act immediately to stop police violence, stop all instances of violence in our culture, and bring peace to our families, streets, and the relationship between communities and law enforcement. Our goal is peace in our communities, with police respecting people in every interaction, each step of their work – and return to their best role, peace keepers.

Mental health units have priority – Support establishing Mental Health units in all local social service departments as a professional standard, which police must call for all behavioral and mental health incidents before drawing any weapon. Put emphasis on simple containment of the person using non-violent means, no matter how disruptive temporarily to traffic or neighborhoods, putting the disturbed person’s life ahead of “maintaining order” for its own sake.

Increased screening and training for local police – use federal support to distribute best practices from the most successful, tolerant police forces in the country; the federal government should help local departments help other local departments.

Health Care for All – Single Payer Health Care and Men’s Contraception – a universal, comprehensive, national single-payer health care system would redirect the administrative waste of private insurance corporations -currently 31 cents of every dollar spent on health care in America today – into real patient care. And men need to be fully empowered to make their own decisions about having a child, with modern, safe, reversible effective contraception

Eliminate disparity between communities and their police forces – Fund a national survey of racial parity of local police forces to their communities; pro-actively identify areas with significant gaps and then support local recruitment to achieve parity quickly.

Full funding for social workers – Dramatically increased funding for social workers at the local level; the federal government can help communities by re-programming funds from the federal Department of Energy, as we switch from nuclear power to safe, local renewable electricity. Social workers are our front line to help protect children from abuse, which is a major predictor and cause of adult violence in both police and other adults.

Women and Girls’ Survival – violence against women in the US and worldwide has reached epidemic proportions, and we must protect the lives of women and girls along with all other victims of our culture of violence

Raise the standard for “acceptable force” above the legal minimum – Implement the 30 recommendations of the Police Chiefs Research Forum (PERF), a group of police chiefs and commanders. In January 2016 the group issued a 30-point policy paper, among them calling for a redefinition of acceptable force and many other specific, practical means to reduce excessive force. http://samuelwalker.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/PERF30Principles.pdf

Local citizen oversight boards– support implementation of oversight boards in all police departments, with all three components of authority to make independent investigations, review of police department’s investigation, and audit of internal review processes. The federal role should provide program training and measurement systems for local programs.

Pursue an emergency transition toward a fully renewable-energy economy and use federal policy to accelerate replacement of fossil fuels with renewable power.

• The current campaign site still displays legacy target years of 2020 for renewable electricity and 2030 for other energy uses.

Make prevention of violence against women and girls, and protection of victims of violence more broadly, a major federal policy priority.

Build a Green New Deal-style economy around local communities, small businesses, green jobs, social justice, and ecological sustainability.

Establish a universal national single-payer healthcare system and expand access to modern contraception, including reversible contraception for men.

Increase taxation of concentrated wealth and large corporations, restore higher estate and capital-gains taxes, impose a financial-transactions tax on currency speculation, shift energy subsidies toward renewables, and reform farm subsidies.

• Campaign also supports ending tax subsidies for petroleum, natural gas, and nuclear industries and increasing support for employee-owned businesses.

Reduce police and community violence through stronger officer screening and training, mental-health crisis response, independent oversight, external investigation of police killings, and public access to body-camera footage.

• Campaign also supports racial-parity recruitment, early-warning systems for problem officers, expanded local social-work capacity, civilian oversight boards, and national standards for de-escalation and use of force.