The Center on Transnational Policing’s Police Torture and Community Healing Project team has been selected as one of the Group Winners of the 2024 New Directions Award of the General Anthropology Division. The team leaders are Laurence Ralph, the William D. Zabel '58 Professor of Human Rights, professor of anthropology and public affairs, and co-director of the Center on Transnational Policing, and Chelsey Carter, assistant professor of public health and anthropology of Yale University.

“The Police Torture and Community Healing Project demonstrates a deep commitment to social justice and community engagement by applying anthropology to address the urgent issue of police violence and racialized governance,” said Lucas Bessire, visiting professor of anthropology and the Stanley Kelley, Jr., Visiting Professor for Distinguished Teaching, who was the nominator for the New Directions award. “The project promotes awareness and discussion of the issues of police violence and community healing in public forums by utilizing ethnographic tools aimed at catalyzing collective reflections about self, world and justice — with a social focus on educational outreach for school-aged youth.”

The project was driven by Ralph’s research on police torture in Chicago and his book and animated short film “The Torture Letters” (2020). The Center on Transnational Policing has organized several community engagement events focused on issues of policing and police violence in Chicago since 2022.