Name: Andrei

Social Justice Group: 2018-2019, Race & Policing

Date of Fieldwork: November 29, 2018

Name of Organization: PROP: Police Reform Organization Project

Person (people) with whom I met and their job titles: Robert/Bob Gangi

Type of Fieldwork: Interview

What I did:

We had a call Interview with Robert/Bob Gangi who is the current head of PROP and was one of the people who started the organization and we talked to him about his work so we could learn more about our topic.

What I learned:

One thing that I learned about my topic is that the NYPD is in charge of protecting a lot of things. You’d think this makes sense, but they are actually protecting things that are unnecessary, which leads to not only less police officers protecting different things that truly need protecting, but it also leads to a lot more unnecessary arrests. One other thing that I learned is more about the broken windows theory. Basically, the broken windows theory is that is you were to grow up in a neighborhood with more crime, you’re more likely to do crime. We asked Mr. Gangi about it and we learned more about this theory.

What I learned about Social Justice “work” and/or Civil and Human rights “work” from this fieldwork:

Through this interview, I learned that not all social justice work has to be hands on like going on protests and such. What I mean by this is that what PROP does most often, is that they will just sit in on a court case to make sure the Justice give a fair decision, and isn’t bias because of some other factor (such as their race). Before my interview with Mr. Gangi, when I thought of activism I though of marches and protests, but I now know more about the different kids of social justice work that different organizations do.