Grappling with Change: Grassroots Police Reform and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

• In Event: 30662 - Section on Crime, Law, and Deviance Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 2: Policing Issues 1

Abstract

Throughout American history there have been numerous attempts at police reform often coming in response to calls for change from social movements. Since the rise of the Movement for Black Lives in the 2010’s the demands for change have only grown louder and were further catalyzed by the murder of George Floyd in 2020. In the years since 2020, there has been a growing push to train officers in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) as a means of reducing police use of force. BJJ is a grappling martial art that emphasizes the use of leverage to control and subdue opponents through physical pins and submission holds. Policing has proven remarkably resistant to change as police have successfully utilized political channels to block many reforms. In the event that reforms have been implemented it has typically been in a top-down manner led by administrators with limited buy-in from and in some cases active resistance by the rank and file. Along with the “warrior” culture of policing, these factors have undermined the benefits of new policies, practices, and technologies meant to address longstanding issues with biased policing, overreliance on use of force, and a lack of officer accountability. Unlike earlier reform efforts, some the strongest proponents of institutionalizing BJJ as a mandatory aspect of police training are police officers themselves. Using insights from the study of social movements and data from three years of ethnographic field work, this paper seeks to explain why rank and file police officers who have historically been the most resistant to have embraced BJJ as a path to police reform.

Author

• Daniel Krasnicki, University of Texas-Austin