Kanya Bennett
Kanya Bennett serves as a Legislative Counsel in the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office.
Articles by this author
 |
Views Monday, June 15, 2020 Congress Can Lead the Charge on Divesting From Law Enforcement As a former Hill staffer, I know how the sausage gets made: the backroom deals, the pet projects, and the extreme partisanship. Our current moment requires far more than the ego, moderation, and compromise that is typically reflected in federal legislation. This country’s recognition—finally—of the... Read more |
 |
Views Sunday, June 14, 2020 Congress Can Lead the Charge on Divesting From Law Enforcement As a former Hill staffer, I know how the sausage gets made: the backroom deals, the pet projects, and the extreme partisanship. Our current moment requires far more than the ego, moderation, and compromise that is typically reflected in federal legislation. This country's recognition—finally—of the... Read more |
 |
Views Friday, May 18, 2018 Congress Wants More Protections for Cops While Ignoring Police Reform An “ empty gesture ” — that is the term that Rep. Jerrold Nadler, Democrat from New York, used to describe H.R. 5698 , the Protect and Serve Act of 2018, which creates a new federal crime for targeting law enforcement officers. “There is no profession more widely protected under federal and state... Read more |
 |
Views Friday, July 15, 2016 Congress: Enjoy Your Recess, But Here Are Six Police Reform Bills You Must Pass In September This week, we continued to mourn the loss of Alton Sterling , Philando Castile , and the Dallas police officers . But the reality is that we've been in mourning for victims of color of police violence for a long time: Anthony Hill (Ga.), Laquan McDonald (Ill.), Freddie Gray (Md.), Aura Rosser (Mich... Read more |
 |
Views Thursday, May 19, 2016 One Year Later: We Still Don’t Know How Many Shot by Police One year ago today, the White House released The Final Report of the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing — 116 pages of recommendations meant to address the epidemic of killings of unarmed Black and brown people by the police officers sworn to protect them. The report was supposed to be... Read more |
 |
Views Friday, August 07, 2015 365 Days and 605 Armored Military Vehicles Later: Police Militarization a Year After Ferguson Last August Ferguson and Fallujah had a lot in common. Those protesting the death of Michael Brown were met with “armored vehicles, noise-based crowd-control devices, shotguns, M4 rifles like those used by forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, rubber-coated pellets and tear gas.” The scene looked more... Read more |