Race, police, and the pandemic: considering the role of race in public health policing

ABSTRACT

As cities and states implement social distancing guidelines to mitigate the effects of COVID-19, one concern is that the social construction of race, and the privileges inherent to those constructions, influence how and when to enforce social distancing. In this theoretical paper, we discuss why Black people may be at a greater risk for police intervention when not abiding by public health guidelines. We also describe the importance of considering how Whiteness, in addition to anti-Blackness, may influence how and when public health guidelines are enforced. Finally, we consider how disparate public health policing related to COVID-19 is situated in a broader historical and global context.

KEYWORDS:

• Race & ethnicity
• COVID-19
• prejudice
• stereotypes
• public health
• policing

Acknowledgments

We want to thank Charis Kubrin, Nicholas Vargas, Vanessa Gonlin, and Tristan Ivory for their thoughtful input on an earlier draft of this article. We are also grateful for the constructive suggestions from our anonymous reviewers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).