What's Wrong With Policing ?

 

In January the killing of Tyre Nichols, who was beaten to death by five police officers in Memphis Tennessee sparked continued outrage concerning police conduct towards black people; this despite the fact the five officers were also black. It's an all too familiar and increasingly common occurrence.

However, as this piece is being written just a few days ago on March 1 police officers in Farmington Utah shot and killed Chase Allen a law student who like Nichols died in a routine traffic stop. But in this case Allen and the officers involved were white. You can't deny racism is a problem in policing like everything else. But deadly force and brutality seem to characterize American policing in general. Many years ago, a friend at work, who had immigrated from Eastern Europe, asked me why American police kill and beat unarmed people in routine situations. I couldn't give him a satisfactory answer. 

Caroline Preston at the education policy news site Hechinger Report provided some facts about police training. It is a patchwork of programs with little standardization or oversight. Programs skew towards military style training, lacking emphasis on anti-bias, de-escalation tactics, conflict resolution, and are resistant to change. Preston notes that police departments began using military style training in the 1960s and 1970s as politicians called for law and order. At the same time President Richard Nixon launched the War on Drugs at the federal level. The federal Bureau of Justice in 2016 found that 48% of police academies followed the military model, 18% emphasized academic achievement, and a third balanced the two. The notes that in 2006 police academies spent 51 hours teaching self-defense, 11 hours on cultural diversity, and 60 hours on firearms. 

 A report by an independent group the Police Executive Research Forum entitled: Transforming Police Recruit Training 40 Guiding Principles begins with; Training standards for more than 18,000 police agencies are outdated; inconsistent; training is too brief; there's too much focus on weapons; tactics; too little focus on decision making; communications; and critical thinking skills. 

ABC News.com reports compared to police in other countries Americans on average only get 20 weeks of training. In Japan it's 15 to 20 months. For Germans it takes 2.5 years and in Finland it takes 3 years to become a police officer. Clearly there is something wrong with how police are trained. Even more alarming are the ties between law enforcement personnel and extremist groups like antigovernment militias and White Supremacists. Just think about the killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. Many of the January 6th attackers on the US. Capitol were part of law enforcement. It puts a controversial and very important 2006 FBI Intelligence Report on law enforcement ties to extremist groups in perspective. Only recently, has the general public gained knowledge of the document. Here are the highlights: 

Racist and extremist groups seek affiliation with law enforcement for recruitment

Infiltration of law enforcement by group members 

Current members of law enforcement volunteer their services to White Supremacist groups they sympathize with 

Opposition to domestic and foreign policies of the government generates support for these groups among law enforcement. 

In at least one case a White Supremacist leader got hold sensitive FBI intel online that became public...it identified FBI targets of interest in the White Supremacy Movement 

An investigative report by Reuters News Service focused on police trainers with ties to rightwing groups. One man is Richard Whitehead is a law enforcement consultant has taught 560 police officers in 85 sessions in 25 states. Whitehead had been a Deputy Sheriff in Travis County Texas for more than two decades before starting his firm in 1995. He's been a member of the Oath Keepers Milita whose members have been arrested for their involvement with the January 6th attacks. Whitehead has also made remarks against Muslims and LGBTQ people. By 2020 he was living in Kootenai County Idaho running as a Constitutional Sheriff. Those who subscribe to this principle refuse to enforce any law they believe goes against the U.S. Constitution. Whitehead lost the election. 

Some say better training is needed. But if we consider the ties between law enforcement and extremists others argue the culture within law enforcement must change. Maybe it's both these things along with defunding and demilitarization of policing. Of course, it's not easy to raise this issue in the current atmosphere of rising urban crime and violence. But something has to be done. We know lots of police officers are overworked, poorly paid, and stressed out. Some struggle with alcohol and substance abuse. And many experts are concerned about the growing number of suicides among police. Because of racism the whole issue is very adversarial. It's easy to overlook the challenges a lot of ordinary good police officers face. Perhaps the problem is so complex and multifaceted that activists, experts, police officials, and political leaders will have to come together and find pragmatic solutions that will be better for us all.