On Wednesday the 12th of November, my group and I interviewed Robert Gangi the head of the Police Reform Organizing Project(PROP). PROP is an organization that is actively working on reforming, monitoring, and influencing smart and justified policing. We visited his office on broadway and W 36th in Times Square. This interview allowed us to get a little bit of insight on the actual professional world of social activism from an experienced person like him. It was good to enter a work environment such as his to see work similar to ours being done. We asked him about various things relating to our topic, like the relationship between the police and the general public. Also, while visiting the office, Robert provided us with many interesting statistics that helped us visualize and better understand the numbers and percentages of the racial inequities of arrests in the state. For example, Robert and his organization did a court monitoring project for minor crime cases and they found out that 93% of defendants in court were people of color. This fieldwork has inspired our group to continue working ambitiously to put ourselves out in the world and complete more fieldworks. After completing the interview, Robert was able to direct us towards a woman named Ashley Coneys with whom we have been hoping to plan a workshop with. This would be our next step in our work. Overall I am excited to continue working against police brutality and towards our next fieldwork or volunteer opportunity.
Troy listens as Mr. Gangi tells us about his work.
