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Course Info for POLS - 341 - 01, Spring 2025
Class number: 2729 Title: Policing and Human Rights Department: Political Science
Career: Undergraduate Component: Lecture Session: Regular
Instructor's Permission Required: No Grading Basis: Regular Units: 1.00
Enrollment limited to 19 Current enrollment: 22 Available seats: 0
Start date: Tuesday, January 21, 2025 End date: Friday, May 9, 2025 Mode of Instruction: In Person
Schedule: MW: 10:00AM-11:15AM, LSC - 137 Instructor(s): Flom, Hernan
Prerequisite(s): None
Distribution Requirement: Meets Social Sciences Requirement
Course Description:
Policing and human rights are deeply intertwined. On the one hand, policing necessary involves limitations on fundamental individual rights. On the other hand, policing can also preserve rights such as life, liberty and property. This tension is evident not just in authoritarian regimes, but also in modern democracies, where police frequently commit human rights abuses such as torture, intimidation, and summary executions. Ultimately, the form policing takes, and its implications for human rights, are political decisions. This course adopts a comparative perspective to explain what police do, how they do it and why. We will discuss police organization and culture, linkages between police, politicians, and organized crime, and the movement to reform, defund or abolish the police.