Defunding Law Enforcement, Education's Role in the COVID-19 Recovery, and More

June 13, 2020

Protesters gathered at Mc Carren Park in Brooklyn.

To add value to Black communities, we must defund the police and prison systems

Black communities are not getting adequate returns on their tax dollars. Andre Perry, David Harshbarger, Carl Romer, and Kristian Thymianos write that as local and state governments reallocate resources to address the COVID-19 pandemic, they must consider taking money from the systems that throttle economic mobility—police departments and prisons—and allocate that money to other essential services.

As COVID-19 worsens precarity for refugees, Turkey and the EU must work together

Turkey is home to the world's largest number of Syrian refugees, a population that was already living in precarious conditions before the pandemic and now faces even more dire circumstances. Kemal Kirişci and Başak Yavçan explain how the European Union and Turkey can work together to alleviate the effects of the pandemic on these refugees.

Reinvesting in school improvement as a strategy for economic recovery

"Now is the time to be bold in our investment in educational infrastructure—an investment that must be substantial enough to foster sustainable improvement, rather than merely managing crisis and maintaining the status quo." Min Sun argues that investments in education have to be a part of the COVID-19 economic recovery.

New tech podcasts

Digital privacy law. In criminal trials, the prosecution can subpoena digital records from a social media company to build its case against the defendant. However, if the company has evidence that would prove the defendant's innocence, defense investigators are unable to obtain it due to the way data privacy laws are currently written. John Villasenor and Rebecca Wexler discuss how this privacy asymmetry could keep an innocent person in jail.

The U.S.-China tech rivalry. China's technological rise has led to anxiety in the United States over the possibility that China will dominate technologies of the future. Peter Petri joins David Dollar on the Dollar & Sense podcast to discuss these concerns and how the rivalry shapes the economic relationship between the nations.

Protecting free expression online. On an episode of the Lawfare Podcast, Alina Polyakova and Quinta Jurecic spoke with Stanford's Eileen Donahoe about protecting and moderating speech online, President Trump's executive order targeting Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, and more.

A note on the Brookings response to COVID-19:

The Brookings Institution campus in Washington, D.C. will be closed through at least September 7. For more information, read our full guidance here. As Brookings experts continue to assess the global impacts of COVID-19, read the latest analysis and policy recommendations at our coronavirus page or stay up to date with our coronavirus newsletter.

The conclusions and recommendations of any Brookings publication are solely those of its author(s), and do not reflect the views of the Institution, its management, or its other scholars.

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