He pinpoints how police unions frequently challenge proposals from city mayors and make it difficult to discipline officers for any misconduct. John Oliver does manage to raise some good points during this episode, but it felt a little bit biased to try and justify the looting of the stores. Minneapolis police have been found to use force against black people at a full seven times the rate that they have against white people. 9 of 50 people found this review helpful. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin. (07 Jun 2020).

Sundays at 11PM - only on HBO. Oliver drills down on several of the ways police tend to avoid having to clean up their act each time a flagrant abuse of power goes viral, such as the 2016 murder of Philando Castile. Like many people who have adopted the rallying cry “Defund the police” in recent days, Oliver encourages viewers to rethink police from the ground up. Title:

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It’s the strongest signal yet that Americans are taking the topic of police reform seriously and responding to protesters. Show full articles without "Continue Reading" button for {0} hours. Apparently, these unions have a pattern of throwing the maximum amount of red tape in the way of any officer getting disciplined, occasionally resorting to the threat of a police strike. Police Police budgets have steadily soared over the past several decades, and not just under a Law & Order president like Donald Trump. Directed by Christopher Werner. (To be fair, this latter point isn’t exactly groundbreaking; it’s part of the plot of Joker.)

Black Americans are about two and a half times as likely to be killed by police as white people. Was this review helpful to you? Looking for a movie the entire family can enjoy? Breaking news on a weekly basis. After establishing what this episode will not be focusing on (Donald Trump, looters), Oliver rattles off some statistics that should alarm all the people who have not already internalized them just from being out in the world. This episode tackles the hard truth about the history of Police in the United States and the many problems that are faced in fixing those problems.

The murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police two weeks ago has awakened more Americans than ever before to the existence of racist police brutality. For even more, visit our Family Entertainment Guide. View production, box office, & company info. These statistics prove that the instances of police brutality caught on camera are merely the tip of the iceberg. A day after this episode of Last Week Tonight was filmed, Minneapolis city council moved to disband the local police department. All officers had to reapply to get back on the force afterward, which led to a massive culture shift, fresh policy initiatives, and ultimately, a huge drop in excessive force complaints and renewed trust from the community. While the whole episode is worth watching for anyone interested in the conversation about police reform, here are five key takeaways. Like us on Facebook to see similar stories. Choose an adventure below and discover your next favorite movie or TV show. Chipotle reveals it killed the free tortilla side because people were ordering too many during the pandemic, 5 takeaways from John Oliver’s outstanding ‘Last Week Tonight’ episode on defunding the police. With Kimberly Latrice Jones, John Oliver. Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Add the first question. And at the rate we’ve been going, one in a thousand black men can expect to be killed by police.

COVID-19 showed how deadly racism could be. Of course, there’s a lot of disagreement about what that overhaul might look like, along with a collective misunderstanding of the deep-rooted problems that have led us here. Use the HTML below. He cites as an example the city of Camden, New Jersey, which in 2013 dissolved its corrupt police department entirely. Not only do most Americans support the ongoing protests that have followed Floyd’s murder, more of them are more troubled by the police violence that sparked them than they are by the occasional violence that has resulted from them. “This is about a structure built on systemic racism that this country created intentionally and now needs to dismantle intentionally, and replace with one that takes into account the needs of the people that it actually serves.”.

He then details how some of America’s earliest law enforcement units were slave patrols, which simply evolved into a new form with similar designs after slavery ended. This episode tackles the hard truth about the history of Police in the United States and the many problems that are faced in fixing those problems. Americans largely seem to agree that the police as an institution is in desperate need of some kind of overhaul. “This clearly isn’t about individual officers,” Oliver says near the end of the episode. Check out our picks for family friendly movies movies that transcend all ages. Worked to death: Latino farmworkers have long been denied basic rights. The most recent budget for the Los Angeles police department was $1.8 billion, and as Oliver points out, not only do numbers like this mean that the police are now armed to the teeth, but maintaining them requires slashing the budgets of crucial social services. According to a survey from Yahoo News/YouGov, 61 percent of Americans recognize that race was a “major factor” in Floyd’s death. 5 takeaways from John Oliver’s outstanding ‘Last Week Tonight’ episode on defunding the police Joe Berkowitz 6/8/2020. “For much of history, law enforcement meant enforcing laws that were specifically designed to subjugate black people,” Oliver says.

Wildfire-fatigue forces some to consider moving out. There’s a clear line that runs from the purpose of those first forms of police to racist policies like Stop and Frisk in New York City, which disproportionally affected BIPOC citizens at a rate of 90%. Looking for something to watch? It could've been great if he was able to explain the whole picture rather than disregarding certain events or justifying certain actions to push the narative. The fact that police are routinely called upon to handle various mental health and drug addiction crises that should be part of the social safety net is a critical factor in their overall dysfunction. Over the weekend, John Oliver stepped into the fray with a plus-size episode of Last Week Tonight entirely devoted to this topic.