In a Time of Crisis, We Need a New Language of Justice

If you’ve found yourself aching for some semblance of sanity amid all the political bluster lately, Dr. Phillip Attiba Goff feels your pain. As a social psychology professor and former Visiting Scholar at the Harvard Kennedy School, he has, like many of us, been trying to come to grips with the vicissitudes of the presidential campaign season. The problems of racism, crime, and policing have come up frequently in presidential debates and among political news coverage. But these discussions are often out of alignment with reality.

Goff understands this perhaps too viscerally, given that he’s been working with dozens of police departments across the U.S. on rooting out the racial biases and mistreatment commonly found in law enforcement. His think tank, Center for Policing Equity, has been gathering data on exactly how entrenched racism is among U.S. police forces. He is currently developing what’s being billed as “the first national database on racial disparities in police stops and use of force,” with funding from the National Science Foundation. The U.S. Department of Justice has also tapped Goff to help launch the National Initiative for Building Community Trust and Justice, to help establish better relationships between police and historically disempowered populations.