Trauma, Policing, and United States Social Work Practice

Abstract

The murder of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer in May 2020 led to an unprecedented reckoning on policing, racial injustice, and trauma in the US and around the world. Many likened the cruelty of Mr. Floyd’s killing to a modern-day lynching harkening back to America’s recent past in which Black people were terrorized. This system of terror leaves psychological, physical, and emotional scars as well as trauma. Moreover, the disproportionate impact of police violence on racial and ethnic minorities is a collective trauma that has pernicious effects that persist across generations. This chapter explores the implications of police violence on well-being. We describe: 1) the history of policing as an instrument of racially targeted state control in the US, 2) the relationship between social work, policing and shared trauma, 3) how discrimination and violence by police specifically affects minorities, 4) the current challenges to implementing police reform, and 5) how some social work practitioners (and other providers) may experience (shared) trauma along with their clients, while others may struggle to understand the particularities of racial trauma and police violence. Throughout this chapter, we present case studies to facilitate analysis and discussion. Keywords: Racial Trauma, Shared Trauma, Police Violence, US History of Policing, US History of Social Work, Police Violence as Trauma, Racial Disproportionality in Policing