Professor Maybell Romero was published in the University of Chicago’s Law Review in their series on COVID and criminal justice. In her article, Law Enforcement as Disease Vector, Professor Romero describes the historical public health threat posed by law enforcement, especially to the poor and communities of color.
Professor Romero then contextualizes that threat further in the current pandemic, exploring different creations and calculations of risks undertaken by both police and protestors in favor of police reform, and what these calculations say about the relationship between police and the public. Finally, she advocates for governors and heads of other political subdivisions to treat police in much the same way as one would medicine or a public health threat: only useful when benefits outweigh risk, and otherwise something that needs to controlled, regulated, and, if possible, abandoned to the greatest extent possible.
