Reforming the Police

 It’s been a little while since I posted because we have been busy with family duties (including a new granddaughter). Yesterday we did a current events presentation on police reform. As always, I learn a lot by assembling these sessions. A couple of thoughts from the presentation.

The history of policing is important to understand. The United States started with using constables and sheriffs, local officials who were responsible for enforcing warrants from the courts and maintaining order. In the South, policing also took the form of slave patrols as the fear of slave rebellion was always present. As American cities grew bigger and diverse in the 19th century, police were organized along the lines of the London police department established by Sir Robert Peel in 1829. Unlike that model, however, political patronage and corruption pervaded police departments in the United States into the 20th century. August Vollmer is usually credited as the creator of the modern police department in the U.S. 

Corruption continued nonetheless. William Parker reformed the Los Angeles Police Department after World War II on a military hierarchy basis, with formal ranks. Racism and implicit bias against the poor and immigrants remained the problems they had always been. Civil unrest, specifically the Watts Riots in 1965 gave rise to real militarization of the police under Parker’s successor,  Daryl Gates. Feeling the need for more police firepower, Gates is usually credited with the concept of Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) teams.

Originally envisioned as units to be employed in special situations, SWAT has become its own nightmare and part of what should be reformed. SWAT teams proliferated to the extent that over 60% of police and sheriff departments now have them. They have been provided with military gear and weapons to a risible extent; even school districts have received things like M16s, grenade launchers, and MRAPs. What in the hell a school district would do with any of that is beyond me. The militarization of civilian police departments is a threat to everyone.

What has happened to policing has brought out a number of theories. The “bad apple” theory is common, positing that rotten individuals in police departments are the reason for abusive policing. Undoubtedly there are bad people in police departments as there are bad people in society in general. Some of this may relate to recruiting practices. But many have come to understand that the culture of policing is often at the root of problems.

In preparation for this presentation I read the articles cited above, many others, and two books. Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces by Rodney Balko was, for me, an eye-opening book. The police I remember from my youth have been replaced in many cities by forces armed with military-grade weapons and trained for urban combat. They fit the truism that when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. With 80% of the uses of SWAT teams to deliver warrants (often for nonviolent crimes) combined with a large minority of those deployments involving dynamic entry (battering rams to break down a door often followed by a flash-bang grenade tossed into a residence), plus the use of no-knock warrants which often occur at 0500 while a resident is asleep, there is a setup for unnecessary violent confrontation. 

While Balko’s book is a very worthwhile read, I really urge you to read Tangled Up in Blue: Policing the American City by Rosa Brooks. Brooks, a law professor at Georgetown University with a distinguished resume, decided to become a Reserve Force Officer with the Metropolitan Police Department in the District of Columbia in her mid-40s. The book is an account of her experience from the “boots on the ground” perspective, well written, thoughtful, poignant and often witty. She describes multiple factors that produce a problematic police culture. They include much that is instilled into recruits at the police academy, such as the danger imperative (police are in danger always from everybody and should be perpetually hypervigilant) and the complex set of laws that are often poorly understood or used inappropriately to stop people in vehicles or on foot. She details the blue wall of silence that police use. 

It would be easy to demonize the police. As Brooks explains, most of her fellow officers were good people doing a difficult job. Police do the dirty work that society loves to otherwise ignore – overdoses, domestic disputes, mental health breakdowns, all with the possibility that things could turn violent at any time. Cynicism provides many police with armor against the world they encounter daily. It reinforces implicit biases and degrades the mental health of the officers themselves. There are solutions if only we would have the will to apply them. 

I would never want to be a policeman. As an elderly white male I feel less threatened when a police car appears in my rearview mirror. Black people feel otherwise because they know that racism is one of the innate biases that the officer behind the wheel is likely to have. Read the books and articles hyperlinked in this post. Our society would be materially improved if we would actually tackle the factors that contribute to flawed police culture. Start by demilitarizing the police. Improve training and accountability. Stop criminalizing minor traffic infractions. And remember, we are all in this together.