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Georgia Criminal Law Review

Autumn Sanford

Document Type

Notes

Abstract

Over the past twenty years, police departments across the country have instated LGBTQ+ liaisons in response to overwhelming rates of violence against the transgender and gender non-conforming community. Despite the creation of this position, rates of transgender victimization remain the same, with transgender people still being 2.5 times more likely to experience violence than a cisgender person. At-lanta Police Department’s LGBTQ+ liaison has existed since 2004, however, in this time, nearly twenty brutal mur-ders of transgender and gender non-conforming individuals have been reported in Atlanta, with three high-profile kill-ings occurring in 2023 alone. Based on these findings, this Note argues that, as they exist now, LGBTQ+ police liaisons and liaison units do not protect the transgender and gender non-conforming community.

Not only is the transgender community hesitant to trust law enforcement after decades of police harassment and violence, but police departments also continue to ad-vance problematic policies that put transgender people at risk of revictimization. In reviewing the Atlanta Police De-partment’s protocol, one can find policies that prevent vic-tims from receiving services from the LGBTQ+ liaison unit and questionable search and detention protocols. Ulti-mately, this Note argues that to end the epidemic of violence against transgender people, either serious reforms to LGBTQ+ liaison units must occur, or the community must turn to non-police alternatives.

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