NACOLE Conference Human Rights & Policing panel featuring Nahal Zamani

Date 

Add to My Calendar Tuesday, September 24, 2013 12:00am

Location 

CCR Advocacy Program Manager Nahal Zamani will present at the 19th Annual NACOLE conference in Salt Lake City, Utah on September 24th. Since 1995, NACOLE has been bringing together individuals and agencies working to establish or improve oversight of police officers in the United States by hosting an annual training and networking conference. For more information and to register for the conference in order to attend, please visit the conference website here.

Human Rights & Policing: The Implications and Impact of Stop & Frisk, Racially Motivated Stops, and Police Brutality through a Human Rights Lens
Saturday, 9/24 at 3:30 - 5:00 p.m.
The United States was a leader in the creation of the modern human rights regime. In recent years, however, actual implementation of treaty provisions into domestic laws, policies, and practices that protect against human rights violations has been halfhearted and modest at best. Despite that, using a human rights framework has proven to be valuable in efforts to address improper and discriminatory police practices in a variety of ways.

In New York City, the New York Police Department’s (NYPD) policy of stop and frisk and other serious rights violations hinder the United States from meeting its international human rights obligations, and have deep impact on peoples’ lives. In Los Angeles, on the other hand, some of the same tools that have driven NYPD’s practices – such as COMPSTAT – have had different outcomes, with a reduction in racially-motivated stops.

In Puerto Rico, a longstanding culture of police impunity has been acknowledged by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) in a December 2012 agreement with the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico which the DOJ described in the following terms: “The comprehensive agreement addresses wide-ranging and ongoing constitutional violations by PRPD that were documented in a lengthy DOJ report issued in September 2011. The department found reasonable cause to believe that PRPD engages in a pattern or practice of use of excessive force, useof unreasonable force designed to suppress protected speech, and unconstitutional searches and seizures.The agreement also addresses allegations that PRPD fails to investigate sex crimes and domestic v
iolence, and engages in discriminatory policing.”

Panelists from New York City and Puerto Rico will discuss their experiences and work using a human rights framework to address biased policing and police brutality.

Panelists:
Nahal Zamani, Advocacy Program Manager, Center for Constitutional Rights
William Ramirez,
Esq., Executive Director, ACLU of Puerto Rico
Moderated by Brian Corr, Executive Secretary, Police Review & Advisory Board

Last modified 

September 18, 2013