NOTE: Faculty, if you are interviewed and quoted by news media, or if your work has been cited, and you have an online link to the article or video, please let us know. Contact us at news@csusb.edu.


Impact of defunding on Chicago PD’s consent decree discussed by CSUSB professor
Chicago Tribune
June 11, 2020

David Greising, president and chief executive officer of the Better Government Association, quoted Zachary Powell, CSUSB assistant professor of criminal justice, in an opinion column about what defunding the Chicago Police Department might look like.

“The paradox of all this is that any significant defunding of CPD might risk slowing implementation of a consent decree that offers the city’s single best hope for meaningful reform,” Greising wrote. A consent decree is an agreement between two parties submitted in writing to a court. Once approved by a judge, it becomes legally binding.

Powell, “who has written comparative studies on the impact of consent decrees, cites the risk of unintended consequences. ‘Depending on how much money is taken away, I would think it would impede the ability to meet the terms of the consent decree and draw out the process for many more years,’ Powell said.

Greising wrote: “The decree has objectives that line up well with those delineated by proponents of defunding. It seeks to stamp out bias, overly aggressive policing, poor tactics, inadequate training and a lack of accountability. Any defunding program would need to guard against starving CPD of resources needed to make progress toward the decree’s goals.”

Read the complete article at “Commentary: Defund CPD. A popular slogan but an idea in search of a plan.”


CSUSB professor discusses extremist ‘Boogaloo’ movement (in Spanish)
Univision Noticias
June 12, 2020

The Spanish-language network posted an article about the extremist “Boogaloo” movement, and included an interview with Brian Levin, director of CSUSB’s Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism.

The Boogaloo movement "is a call for armed insurrection against the government and, in more extreme circles, a call for racial war," Cassie Miller, lead research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), told Univision News.

"The most dangerous thing about them is that they have created a model of the radical right," Levin told Univision News . "They move around an extremist defense version of the Second Amendment and they want a civil war for the right to bear arms and they have the idea of ​​forming an army of citizens, but not all of them are racist."

Read the complete article, in Spanish, at “Qué es el movimiento 'Boogaloo' y por qué las autoridades lo consideran un grupo extremista peligroso.”


These news clips  and others may be viewed at “In the Headlines.”