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AUGUST 13, 2026 |
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Harvard Kennedy School | | | |
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In Brazil, support for police killings is generally high, but testimony from victims' mothers can shift perspectives. (Photo by Cris Faga/NurPhoto/Getty Images) | | |
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Fairness & Justice |
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After police killings, mothers’ voices cross political divides |
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In 2023, more than 6,300 people were killed by police in Brazil. Professor Yanilda González, the Ford Foundation Associate Professor of Public Policy at HKS, and coauthor Natán Skigin from the University of Georgia explored public support for these killings and the impact of testimony around it. They found that support for police killings was significant, especially when people read accounts from police who claimed they killed in self-defense, and that the person they killed was committing a crime. When presented with statements from victims’ mothers, however, couched in either their belief in their son’s innocence or the impact of his race and poverty, support for police killings fell.
Learn more about Fairness & Justice at HKS » | | |
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Democracy & Governance |
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In honor of America’s 250th, historians look forward and back |
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As part of their “Democracy 250” discussion series, The Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation collaborated with the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Agora Institute in hosting historians Lindsay Chervinsky, a presidential historian and executive director of the George Washington Presidential Library, and Leah Wright Rigueur, a historian at the SNF Agora Institute. Their discussion, “Myth, Memory, and the American Story,” took on “the facts and flaws of the American experiment.”
Learn more about Democracy & Governance at HKS » | | |
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Education, Training & Labor |
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The “double bind” of unstable work and frayed social connection |
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Many workers in the service industry manage precarious schedules. They might learn of a shift just days or hours before it starts, leaving them to manage transportation, childcare, and other needs at short notice. This precarious work is associated with worse sleep, reduced happiness, and psychological distress. Social supports can be a “buffer” here; neighbors, friends, and family can help lessen the negative impact of unstable schedules. But in a recent paper, HKS professor Daniel Schneider and his co-authors find that workers with unstable schedules have greater need for social support—and are less likely to feel that they have it. “This vicious cycle,” the authors write, “is likely to act as a poverty trap that impedes day-to-day coping as well as upward mobility for millions of low-wage workers and has immediate and longer-term repercussions for worker well-being.”
Learn more about Education, Training & Labor at HKS » | | |
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