Dr. Jessica Katzenstein discusses her research on how U.S. police officers absorb and resist reforms during a mounting legitimacy crisis. She explores why reforms fail to realize their promises to curb racialized violence. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with officers and reformers in Maryland, she examines ideas of “police common sense” and “command presence” hide implicit bias through the frame of safety and threat assessment. WIth her focus on scenerio trainings and virtual reality assisted role playing, police training retains aspects of state control and racist definitions.
Jessica Katzenstein completed her PhD in Anthropology at Brown University in 2022. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University’s Inequality in America Initiative though 2024.