Copaganda: Whatever Happened to Officer Friendly?

In this workshop, we will discuss how police were historically formed to protect the interests and power of the wealthy and political elite. “Copaganda” is a special kind of propaganda employed by police, prosecutors, and news media. It stokes fear of police-recorded crime and distorts society’s responses to it. As the United States incarcerates five times more people per capita than it did in 1970—despite record-low crime rates—a sprawling and profitable punishment bureaucracy spends a lot of time and money to manipulate what we think that bureaucracy does and why.​

Copaganda is all around us. ​

Here are some examples: ​

• When you hear on the radio that crime is up when it’s actually down—that’s copaganda. ​
• When your local TV station obsessively focuses on shoplifting by poor people while ignoring billions of dollars being fleeced from taxpayers through fraud, wage subsidies, and environmental pollution that harm far more Americans—that’s copaganda. ​
• When you hear on your daily podcast that there is a “shortage” of prison guards rather than too many people in prison—that’s copaganda. ​
• When your newspaper quotes an “expert” saying that more money for police, prosecutors, and prisons is the answer to violence despite scientific evidence to the contrary—that’s copaganda.​

Copaganda often targets people of color, placing them in the direct line of fire when it comes to violence and police brutality. ​