tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/policing-in-america-29159/articlesPolicing in America – The Conversation2020-08-27T13:04:08Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1441542020-08-27T13:04:08Z2020-08-27T13:04:08ZPolice legitimacy: how it can be regained once lost<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355061/original/file-20200827-18-aqsh4d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=571%2C416%2C7237%2C4880&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/portland-usa-june-1-2020-female-1747110971">Shutterstock/Alexander Oganezov</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There is a well-known phrase that describes a certain view of police officers. Often abbreviated in graffiti and on placards to “ACAB”, the words “all cops are bastards” have <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/akzv48/acab-all-cops-are-bastards-origin-story-protest">been widely adopted</a> as a response to the way police forces operate. </p>
<p>Whatever you think of the sentiment behind it, the phrase highlights an important aspect of the policing model used across the world – the idea of police legitimacy.</p>
<p>This legitimacy – a sense that the public and the police are “<a href="https://whatworks.college.police.uk/Research/Documents/Fair_cop_Full_Report.pdf">on the same side</a>” underpins support and faith in policing, and cannot be taken for granted. It is a key concept and a foundation stone for modern democratic policing that goes back almost 200 years.</p>
<p>Although police development has varied according to the social and political journey of individual countries, a model for many can be found in a piece of <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo4/10/44/contents">English legislation</a> from the 19th century. It established the first modern police force in London and was based on <a href="https://lawenforcementactionpartnership.org/peel-policing-principles/">principles</a>, named after the politician <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/peel_sir_robert.shtml">Robert Peel</a>, the “father” of British policing. </p>
<p>Peel’s principles provide an insight into what makes the police legitimate in the eyes of the public. Essentially, it comes down to a combination of public consent and a legal system, which means the police are ultimately answerable in court for their actions. </p>
<p>Legitimacy also implies that the police are granted the power to use force. Again, legitimate use of force requires it to be closely examined to make sure it is necessary, legal and appropriate. </p>
<p>The response to the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-52861726">killing of George Floyd</a>, and the many Black Lives Matter <a href="https://www.euronews.com/2020/06/15/in-pictures-black-lives-matter-protests-taking-on-the-world">demonstrations</a>, are a reminder of just how fragile the legitimacy enjoyed by some police agencies is. Abuse of power, corruption, and a lack of transparency and accountability are all factors that contribute to its erosion. </p>
<p>But that erosion need not necessarily lead to a complete collapse of legitimacy. In 2015, for example, the police in New Zealand realised they needed to become more open and honest to improve their relationship with the public. This was driven by the experiences of the <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/%7E/media/McKinsey/Industries/Public%20and%20Social%20Sector/Our%20Insights/Transforming%20policing%20An%20interview%20with%20Mike%20Bush%20New%20Zealand%20police%20commissioner/Transforming-policing-An-interview-with-Mike-Bush-New-Zealands-police-commissioner-vF.pdf">newly appointed police chief, Mike Bush</a>, and partly involved greater focus on crime prevention rather than pure law enforcement, and more time working with various local communities. </p>
<p>The change resulted not only in a <a href="https://www.policeprofessional.com/feature/back-to-basics/">perceived increase</a> in police legitimacy, but was also considered at least partially responsible for a subsequent <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/transforming-policing-an-interview-with-mike-bush-new-zealands-police-commissioner#">reduction in crime</a>.</p>
<p>This refocus, involving a change in attitude of a police culture that often favours action and excitement over more “mundane” work, is a <a href="https://arizonalawreview.org/pdf/60-4/60arizlrev987.pdf">difficult one</a>, but it can be achieved. </p>
<p>As Bush <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/transforming-policing-an-interview-with-mike-bush-new-zealands-police-commissioner">explained</a> :</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Getting the messages right meant trial and error, and our messages evolved over time. At the start, people thought we meant enforcement and investigations were now less important than prevention work. We had to change tack, to make them understand that we know all the components of policing are important. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>He added: “It is just the order in which you think and act that makes the difference, putting prevention at the front and victims at the centre.”</p>
<p>A similar kind of turnaround in the US is one that will require much consideration and effort. Just a couple of statistics illustrate the challenge, like the fact that <a href="https://www.statista.com/chart/21857/people-killed-in-police-shootings-in-the-us/">28% of people killed by the police</a> in since 2013 are described as “ethnically black” even though only <a href="https://www.statista.com/chart/21857/people-killed-in-police-shootings-in-the-us/">13% of the population</a>
fit into that category. Or that <a href="https://www.statista.com/chart/21857/people-killed-in-police-shootings-in-the-us/">99% of killings by police</a> from 2013 to 2019 have not resulted in officers being charged with such a crime. </p>
<p>Also, until recently in the US, there have been no nationally published statistics relating to excessive use of force used by police officers. Even a recent decision to start doing so has led to only a <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2020/06/17/fbi-launched-database-police-use-force-last-year-but-only-police-participated-low-numbers/CG9BOnAcx3d1xDjNePl08H/story.html">minority of police forces</a> agreeing to share their data.</p>
<p>It may be no surprise then that there is a disconnect <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/survey-reveals-disconnect-between-police-and-public-attitudes/2017/01/10/65b24f3a-d550-11e6-a783-cd3fa950f2fd_story.html">between the American public</a> and the police who serve them. </p>
<h2>Community service</h2>
<p>Legitimacy entails a willingness on the part of the public to obey and cooperate with the police. But reliance on “order maintenance” policies, including the widespread use of stop and search, and excessive use of violence (so easily captured on social media) considerably reduces that level of cooperation.</p>
<p>Accountability for police activity is also vital, and, as <a href="https://policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/plural-policing-1">my own research has shown</a>, has been a problem for policing activities undertaken by private companies in some countries.</p>
<p>But fairness and transparency, and a willingness to work with – rather than against – communities will go a long way in restoring legitimacy across all sections of the population. </p>
<p>And while acknowledging that policing is sometimes a dangerous occupation, and police officers risk their lives to protect citizens, there needs to be a realisation of how important legitimacy is to modern policing. That rather like beauty, it remains in the eye of the beholder.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144154/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Colin Rogers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Trust, accountability and communication are key.Colin Rogers, Professor of Policing and Security, University of South WalesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1438782020-08-20T12:18:25Z2020-08-20T12:18:25ZPolice solve just 2% of all major crimes<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/351154/original/file-20200804-24-1q4j8a0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4183%2C3030&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Research shows that arrests for serious crimes are quite rare.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/masked-officers-of-the-chelsea-police-department-help-a-news-photo/1209598810">Blake Nissen for The Boston Globe via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As Americans across the nation protest police violence, people have begun to <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2020/06/19/what-does-defund-the-police-mean-and-does-it-have-merit/">call for cuts</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abolish-defund-police.html">or changes</a> in public spending on police. But neither these nor <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/12/implicit-bias-training-salt-lake/548996/">other</a> <a href="https://trustandjustice.org/resources/intervention/procedural-justice">proposed</a> reforms address a key problem with solving crimes.</p>
<p><a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3566383">My recent review</a> of 50 years of national crime data confirms that, as police report, they don’t solve most serious crimes in America. But the real statistics are worse than police data show. In the U.S. it’s rare that a crime report leads to police arresting a suspect who is then convicted of the crime.</p>
<p>The data show that consistently over the decades, fewer than half of serious crimes are reported to police. Few, if any arrests are made in those cases.</p>
<p>In reality, about 11% of all serious crimes result in an arrest, and about 2% end in a conviction. Therefore, the number of people police hold accountable for crimes – what I call the “<a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3566383">criminal accountability</a>” rate – is very low.</p>
<h2>Many crimes aren’t reported</h2>
<p>Police can only work on solving crimes they are aware of, and can only report statistics about their work based on criminal behavior they know about. But there is a huge slice of crime police never find out about.</p>
<p>By <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/03/01/most-violent-and-property-crimes-in-the-u-s-go-unsolved/">comparing surveys of the public with police reports</a>, it’s clear that less than half of serious violent felonies – crimes like aggravated assault and burglary – ever get reported to the police.</p>
<h2>Real arrest rates</h2>
<p>In 2018, the rate of arrest for serious felony crimes reported to police <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3566383">was about 22%</a>. But because twice as many crimes happen as the police are told about, the arrest rate for all crimes that happened was <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3566383">half what police reported</a> – just 11%.</p>
<p><iframe id="EjYbT" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/EjYbT/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Real conviction rates</h2>
<p>The official percentage of serious crimes where a person is actually convicted is even lower, though data is hard to confirm. The Bureau of Justice Statistics has not reported national conviction rates for serious crimes since 2006 – but <a href="https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/html/fjsst/2006/fjs06st.pdf">in that year</a>, out of all serious crimes <a href="https://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2006/data/table_25.html.">reported to the police</a>, <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3566383">only 4.1%</a> of cases ended with an individual convicted in the wake of a reported crime.</p>
<p>Again, taking into account the fact that twice as many crimes happen, the national conviction rate in 2006 was actually closer to 2%. </p>
<h2>Resolving crimes without arrests</h2>
<p>There are ways police resolve conflicts and crimes without arresting people – for instance, by mediating neighborhood disputes and directing <a href="https://www.nlc.org/alternatives-to-arrest-for-young-people-0">wayward young people</a> to social services and <a href="https://www.ojjdp.gov/mpg/litreviews/interactions-youth-law-enforcement.pdf">community programs</a>. But so long as police departments <a href="https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/412040-former-cop-says-many-officers-are-time-bombs-waiting-to-explode">measure success by arrests</a>, that won’t happen more widely.</p>
<p>When considering approaches to police reform, it’s important to remember that Americans still don’t report about half of major crimes – and police don’t solve very many of the cases that do get reported. Truly improving policing will require addressing these two gaps.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/143878/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shima Baughman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When police arrest a suspect who is then convicted of the crime, it is a rare exception rather than the rule in the US.Shima Baughman, Professor of Criminal Law, University of UtahLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1418492020-07-09T12:17:31Z2020-07-09T12:17:31ZVigilantism, again in the news, is an American tradition<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345820/original/file-20200706-3980-1q7hz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3789%2C2518&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Armed white citizens and police have historically worked together in the U.S., though it's not clear whether that's what's happening here.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/armed-counter-protesters-and-a-police-officer-stand-watch-news-photo/1223867050">George Frey/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s a contentious time in the U.S., with a pandemic, racial equality, police violence and a presidential election all occupying people’s attention. Given all that stress, it can seem like people are <a href="https://www.salon.com/2020/06/17/how-and-why-fox-news-is-encouraging-right-wing-vigilante-violence-toward-protesters/">taking the law into their own hands</a> more often.</p>
<p>It’s not just <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/26/us/kenosha-shooting-protests-jacob-blake.html">in Kenosha, Wisconsin</a>. In recent weeks, there have been confrontations over removing <a href="https://www.wsoctv.com/news/local/protesters-morganton-clash-over-confederate-monument/OUIM3VGQFRC33MRAFRLDBE7IIY/">monuments to the Confederacy</a>, clashes over the use of <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/incomprehensible-confrontations-masks-erupt-amid-covid-19-crisis/story?id=70494577">face masks</a>, attempts to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/national/after-nights-of-violence-in-minneapolis-locals-take-up-arms-to-defend-their-community/2020/06/06/334d69d8-f7c4-44ee-b776-9e3d376bcbab_video.html">protect</a> – or <a href="https://theworldlink.com/news/local/hundreds-turn-out-to-stop-rumored-riot/article_b58d6386-a59b-11ea-90f0-7f3504c58c5d.html">intimidate</a> – Black Lives Matter protesters and even a renewed interest in “<a href="https://theconversation.com/ahmaud-arberys-killing-puts-a-spotlight-on-the-blurred-blue-line-of-citizens-arrest-laws-139275">citizen’s arrests</a>.” Some of these events have turned <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/06/28/1-dead-after-man-shoots-into-crowd-breonna-taylor-protest-louisville/">tragically</a> <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/06/albuquerque-new-mexico-statue-protest-armed-militia-group.html">violent</a> and deadly.</p>
<p>These events show Americans moving beyond differences of opinion and free speech into private displays of force. Their participants may be trying to <a href="https://www.kcur.org/2020-06-30/bolstered-by-lax-gun-laws-armed-protesters-confront-anti-racism-rallies">enforce their own ideas of what the law is</a>, or <a href="https://www.redlandsdailyfacts.com/2020/06/06/yucaipa-councilman-armed-business-owners-were-just-protecting-city/">protect property</a> or <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/06/24/rayshard-brooks-armed-atlanta-protesters/">defend their communities against threats</a> – especially in light of the failures of police to provide a fair system of justice. </p>
<p>Attorney General William Barr has claimed, by contrast, that this vigilantism might be a <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/barr-claims-defunding-police-would-lead-vigilantism-major-american-cities-n1227866">premonition of the disorder yet to come</a> if police funding is in fact slashed in communities nationwide.</p>
<p>As a scholar of vigilantism in U.S. history and a political scientist interested in how the state and law develop over time, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/sixshooter-state/FC6F8BECEE8677B11A1656B42C1F291D">I have found</a>, as have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/hic3.12121">others</a>, that for many Americans, law and order has long been as much a private matter as something for the government to handle.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345812/original/file-20200706-3943-rzldfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345812/original/file-20200706-3943-rzldfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345812/original/file-20200706-3943-rzldfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345812/original/file-20200706-3943-rzldfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345812/original/file-20200706-3943-rzldfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345812/original/file-20200706-3943-rzldfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345812/original/file-20200706-3943-rzldfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345812/original/file-20200706-3943-rzldfa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A warning on a fence around a Florida home implies its occupants will take the law into their own hands.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sign-hangs-on-a-fence-surrounding-a-large-mansion-on-news-photo/466857317">Charles Ommanney/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Two sparks for vigilantism</h2>
<p>Vigilantism – the private, violent enforcement of public moral or legal standards – tends to rise in two types of situations, neither of which may be what people expect. It doesn’t come from a government being weak or absent, leaving citizens on their own, but rather when <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/contradictions-of-democracy-9780190847197?cc=us&lang=en&">the very principles that make up a government and its people themselves seem to be changing</a>.</p>
<p>And it doesn’t necessarily come from situations where one ethnic or racial group clearly dominates others – but rather in times and places where <a href="https://whyy.org/articles/why-didnt-philly-police-respond-to-white-men-with-bats-fishtown-neighbors-wait-for-answers/">who belongs</a> to a particular community is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S153759271800107X">up for debate</a>. Vigilantism is often about the attempt to establish power rather than a reflection of preexisting hierarchies.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Many Americans are feeling like the rules of the game are changing in <a href="https://www.people-press.org/2019/04/11/public-trust-in-government-1958-2019/">unfair ways</a> and have a sense of <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/1669/general-mood-country.aspx">unease</a> about what the nation is going to look like in the future. As <a href="https://time.com/5852397/turchin-2020-prediction/">scholars</a> and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/press-releases/archive/2019/11/atlantics-december-2019-issue/601795/">pundits</a> opine about the serious possibility of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-america-talk-turns-to-something-unspoken-for-150-years-civil-war/2019/02/28/b3733af8-3ae4-11e9-a2cd-307b06d0257b_story.html">another American civil war</a>, the grave implications of domestic political violence loom more than at any point in the past 50 years. </p>
<p>These fears are reinforced by a president who seems to <a href="https://thebulwark.com/donald-trump-is-americas-first-vigilante-president/">encourage</a> <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/155579/trump-vigilante-president-supporters-violence">division</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/29/st-louis-couple-point-guns-at-protesters">fear</a> between Americans, even as Black people’s voices are attracting more attention in the public and the halls of power.</p>
<h2>Vigilantism is American law enforcement</h2>
<p>Through U.S. history, the distinctions between vigilantism and lawful arrest and punishment have always been <a href="https://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/cjlpp/vol25/iss3/1/">murky</a>. Frequently, vigilantism has been used not in opposition to police efforts, but rather with their <a href="http://doi.org/10.15195/v3.a37">active encouragement</a>. Indeed, in some <a href="https://whyy.org/articles/why-didnt-philly-police-respond-to-white-men-with-bats-fishtown-neighbors-wait-for-answers/">recent protests</a> that still <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/06/19/militia-vigilantes-police-brutality-protests/">seems to be the case</a>.</p>
<p>Before police departments existed, arrests were made under traditional common law, which depended on <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=159070">private participation</a> in legally organized <a href="http://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.013.451">posses</a> and serving as <a href="https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/jclc/vol104/iss4/3/">deputies</a>. Institutions like <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674012349">slave patrols</a> required that non-slave owners were willing to use, or at least permit, violence to maintain white supremacy. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, private detectives and security guards also possessed <a href="http://doi.wiley.com/10.1111/lsi.12285">powers of arrest</a> similar to those of police officers.</p>
<p>Even the spate of “<a href="https://repository.law.miami.edu/umlr/vol67/iss4/6/">stand your ground</a>” laws passed in the last 15 years borders on vigilantism, giving private citizens lots of freedom about how to use force to protect themselves. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345823/original/file-20200706-3962-z84mji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345823/original/file-20200706-3962-z84mji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345823/original/file-20200706-3962-z84mji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345823/original/file-20200706-3962-z84mji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345823/original/file-20200706-3962-z84mji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345823/original/file-20200706-3962-z84mji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345823/original/file-20200706-3962-z84mji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345823/original/file-20200706-3962-z84mji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">American vigilantism often has racist overtones, such as the self-appointed citizen patrols monitoring the U.S.-Mexico border.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/member-of-united-constitutional-patriots-new-mexico-border-news-photo/1132938325">Paul Ratje/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Vigilantism is also American culture</h2>
<p>American vigilantism is primarily associated with the terrible <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/14975/14975-h/14975-h.htm">lynching campaigns</a> of the late 19th and early 20th centuries that <a href="https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/54cey8st9780252036132.html">targeted Black Americans and other racial minorities</a>. But that isn’t the whole story. </p>
<p>Political scientist <a href="https://www.eleonoramattiacci.com/">Eleonora Mattiacci</a> and I studied what were called “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S153759271800107X">vigilance committees</a>,” private groups organized in the decades before the Civil War that typically promoted anti-immigrant sentiment in areas, including cities, precisely as the laws concerning the powers of local governments were rapidly changing.</p>
<p>In fact, though it has been most often used to try to <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/strain-of-violence-9780195019438">establish racial and economic hierarchies</a>, vigilantism – including <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/history/african-american-histor/beyond-rope-impact-lynching-black-culture-and-memory">actual lynching</a> – has also, at times, been used by disadvantaged communities for self-defense. </p>
<p>Take recent events in Milwaukee, for instance: A small gathering of people in a predominantly African American neighborhood <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/3-shot-amid-unrest-at-milwaukee-police-investigation-scene/2020/06/24/c7770c86-b613-11ea-9a1d-d3db1cbe07ce_story.html">violently confronted residents</a> of a house where two girls were believed to be held in a sex-trafficking ring. This follows a <a href="https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15965.html">long tradition</a> of people of color using private force to <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/this-nonviolent-stuffll-get-you-killed">protect</a> <a href="https://www.wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/negroes-guns">themselves</a> and defend their <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10999949.2013.838857">communities</a>.</p>
<p>Vigilantism has often abetted the worst instincts in the politics of crime in the U.S., making justice appear to depend on what the people want rather than the rule of law.</p>
<p>But it is also evidence of the complicated relationship between violence and justice at the core of American democracy. The founders <a href="https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/yjlh/vol2/iss1/9/">thought seriously</a> about self and community protection and believed that <a href="https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/ylj/vol101/iss3/1/">popular participation in law enforcement and defense</a> could be an important corrective to an unresponsive and oppressive legal system. </p>
<p>But allowing the majority to impose justice can have unequal effects on disadvantaged members of the nation, granting the police a mandate to act violently precisely because that seems to be <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/popular-justice-9780195074512?cc=us&lang=en&">what the people want</a>.</p>
<p>As Americans focus on the way in which people of color, in particular, have been policed in this country, they should disentangle the damaging forms of vigilantism from a deeper notion that democracy might require ordinary citizens to rely at least partly on themselves to enforce the law. </p>
<p>Democracy requires Americans to somehow be vigilant over the use of force in their midst – without themselves becoming vigilantes.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This is an updated version of an article first published July 9, 2020.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141849/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Obert does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>For many Americans, law and order has long been as much a private matter as something for the government to handle.Jonathan Obert, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Amherst CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1414212020-07-02T12:27:57Z2020-07-02T12:27:57ZPolice with lots of military gear kill civilians more often than less-militarized officers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344824/original/file-20200630-103661-1q6mq18.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C5%2C3473%2C2277&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A police tactical team in Ferguson, Mo., responds to 2014 protests against a white officer's killing of Michael Brown, a young Black man.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Trump-Police-Military-Gear/5e071ec6710d4ec3a876fdec7cb13b78/2/0">AP Photo/Jeff Roberson</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Police departments that get more equipment from the military <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/2053168017712885">kill more civilians</a> than departments that get less military gear. That’s the finding from research on a federal program that has operated since 1997 that I have helped conduct as a scholar of police militarization. </p>
<p>That finding was recently <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912918784209">confirmed and expanded by Edward Lawson Jr.</a> at the University of South Carolina.</p>
<p>This federal effort is called the “<a href="https://www.dla.mil/DispositionServices/Offers/Reutilization/LawEnforcement/JoinTheProgram.aspx">1033 Program</a>.” It’s named after the section of the <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/104/hr3230/text">1997 National Defense Authorization Act</a> that allows the U.S. Defense Department to <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90513061/eliminating-this-federal-program-would-play-a-major-part-in-demilitarizing-the-police">give police agencies</a> around the country equipment, including weapons and ammunition, that the military no longer needs. </p>
<p>Much of the equipment is <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2014/09/11/40-percent-of-used-military-equipment-given-to-police-is-brand-new.html">brand new</a> and some is innocuous – like file cabinets and fax machines. But the program has also equipped local police with <a href="https://www.npr.org/2014/09/02/342494225/mraps-and-bayonets-what-we-know-about-the-pentagons-1033-program">armored vehicles and helicopters</a>, as well as weapons meant to be used against people, like bayonets, automatic rifles and grenade launchers used to deploy tear gas.</p>
<p>The seeds of this program came in 1988 as the Cold War was ending. The military was shrinking, while police were feeling overwhelmed fighting the drug war. A <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/101/hr2461/text">provision in the National Defense Authorization Act</a> allowed military surplus to be distributed to state and federal agencies combating drugs. In 1997, the program was expanded to include all law enforcement agencies – <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/09/13/348242448/san-diego-school-district-s-new-15-ton-armored-vehicle-creates-stir">including school districts</a>. That additional eligibility led to a dramatic expansion in the program, and over the past 23 years police all across America received billions of dollars in military-grade hardware often <a href="https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a502075.pdf">designed specifically to fight in the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq</a>.</p>
<p>And yet, all that equipment has done more harm than good. Militarization of police <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1805161115">doesn’t reduce crime or improve officer safety</a> – but it does make civilians less trusting of the police, with good reason.</p>
<p>In our study, my coauthors and I found that the police agencies who <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/06/30/does-military-equipment-lead-police-officers-to-be-more-violent-we-did-the-research/">received the most military gear</a> had, in the year after getting the equipment, a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/2053168017712885">rate of civilian killings more than double</a> that of police departments that had received the least amount of military equipment through the 1033 Program. While data limitations limited our analysis to four states, our findings were replicated with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912918784209">nationwide data</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344652/original/file-20200629-155322-1kb1rba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C13%2C2995%2C2056&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344652/original/file-20200629-155322-1kb1rba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344652/original/file-20200629-155322-1kb1rba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344652/original/file-20200629-155322-1kb1rba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344652/original/file-20200629-155322-1kb1rba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344652/original/file-20200629-155322-1kb1rba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344652/original/file-20200629-155322-1kb1rba.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The police chief of Sanford, Maine, population 21,000, climbs into his department’s mine-resistant ambush protected vehicle, one of five in the state obtained from military surplus.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sanford-police-chief-thomas-connolly-steps-into-the-news-photo/454140118">Carl D. Walsh/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>On a wartime footing</h2>
<p>Federal records of how much <a href="https://www.dla.mil/DispositionServices/Offers/Reutilization/LawEnforcement/PublicInformation/">military gear has actually been given</a> to local police are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12212">inconsistent, poorly maintained and sometimes missing altogether</a>. But between 2006 and 2014, the available records reveal that <a href="https://www.npr.org/2014/09/02/342494225/mraps-and-bayonets-what-we-know-about-the-pentagons-1033-program">more than US$1.4 billion worth of equipment was distributed</a>. While the 1033 Program is the most significant source of military gear for police in general, it is not the only source of military equipment for police: There are other similar federal and state grant programs, and many big-city police departments have <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/06/23/metro/boston-police-spent-more-than-200000-militarized-equipment-during-first-five-months-this-year/">massive equipment budgets</a> of their own with which they can purchase military-grade hardware.</p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>The 1033 Program often requires receiving agencies to <a href="https://www.aclu.org/report/war-comes-home-excessive-militarization-american-police">use the equipment within the first year</a> after getting it, according to research done by the American Civil Liberties Union, even if a situation may not truly need it. That requirement exists alongside the proliferation of <a href="https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/content/the-rise-of-swat-sources/">heavily armed SWAT teams</a> and other military-style units <a href="https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/balko_whitepaper_2006.pdf">in U.S. police departments</a>, officers’ veneration of the revenge-killing comic-book character “<a href="http://archive.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/112982324.html">The Punisher</a>” <a href="https://www.inverse.com/article/39633-marvel-netflix-punisher-skull-meaning-cops-soldiers">and adoption of its logo</a>, as well as militaristic training programs such as “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2017/02/14/a-day-with-killology-police-trainer-dave-grossman/">killology</a>.”</p>
<p>Together, research has shown, those influences lead <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/police/pam065">police to emphasize the use of force</a> to solve problems they encounter in the community. The equipment comes at no cost to the departments, but they have to pay to maintain it, which can be <a href="https://www.nwherald.com/2014/09/24/mchenry-county-police-deal-with-hidden-cost-of-government-surplus-of-military-supplies-vehicles/axo0yhn/">very expensive</a>. To justify the costs, and help defray them, police often use the gear to serve search warrants targeting drug crimes. That can make the departments <a href="https://www.salon.com/test2/2013/07/13/radley_balko_once_a_town_gets_a_swat_team_you_want_to_use_it/">eligible for additional federal grants</a> – and for a <a href="https://www.drugpolicy.org/issues/asset-forfeiture-reform">share of the value</a> of any property and money seized during drug raids.</p>
<p>As a result, supposedly free weapons and vehicles can lead some police to use aggressive deployment strategies that make civilian casualties more likely. Other departments may <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-militarization-of-local-police-has-been-decades-in-the-making/ar-BB14WA8H">already have a military-style mindset</a> and are taking advantage of an opportunity to stockpile more equipment.</p>
<p>These increasingly aggressive deployment strategies of militarized police disproportionately harm communities of color, for instance in Maryland, where <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1805161115">SWAT raids consistently target majority-Black neighborhoods</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344656/original/file-20200629-155308-7mkw7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344656/original/file-20200629-155308-7mkw7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/344656/original/file-20200629-155308-7mkw7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344656/original/file-20200629-155308-7mkw7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344656/original/file-20200629-155308-7mkw7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344656/original/file-20200629-155308-7mkw7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344656/original/file-20200629-155308-7mkw7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/344656/original/file-20200629-155308-7mkw7u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Many police, including these officers in the Boston area, have military-like weapons and gear.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/heavily-armed-police-officers-belonging-to-the-metropolitan-news-photo/1196861989">Jonathan Wiggs/The Boston Globe via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Tragic, and deadly, results</h2>
<p>While police often claim that militarized gear is a necessity in order to prepare for “<a href="https://www.newsobserver.com/news/state/north-carolina/article243766852.html">worst-case scenarios</a>,” there is ample evidence that receiving agencies use military gear in inappropriate situations. While the killing of <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/05/14/breonna-taylor-what-know-louisville-emt-killed-police/5189743002/">Black EMT Breonna Taylor</a> in her home in March grabbed headlines, she is but one of <a href="https://reason.com/2020/03/16/maryland-man-killed-in-no-knock-swat-raid-was-shot-while-asleep-family-says/">many civilians</a> <a href="https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Court-filing-raises-more-questions-about-official-14131979.php">killed by police</a> <a href="https://www.kwtx.com/content/news/Family-files-lawsuit-in-no-knock-raid-that-left-local-man-dead-570853461.html">under</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/12/31/a-drug-informant-lied-swat-pounced-a-man-died/">questionable</a> <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/jose-guerena_n_3988658?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly90aGVhcHBlYWwub3JnL2hvdy1hLW5vLWtub2NrLXJhaWQtaW4tYXVzdGluLXR1cm5lZC1pbnRvLWEtbGV0aGFsLXNob290b3V0Lw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAADAluqwD7seYf7ux8B92E92KoRpOD8GScYMNHrr0fHOTagQMB8CfQGupyafOdwTBg6QfVhNOD-nTDfLxu7slFtO4kaRSJXgmOoy9qg88OTMcfPDaqcUs7wLehOEyzFVMSspso7hqOw2NOD-cgUqM6JH0fazYZntZANkJPLQwUNU6">circumstances</a> <a href="https://github.com/newsdev/nyt-forcible-entry">during no-knock raids</a>, when police force entry into a building or home without announcing themselves. </p>
<p>For obvious reasons, such raids carry an unreasonably high probability of death in a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/06/19/there-are-more-guns-than-people-in-the-united-states-according-to-a-new-study-of-global-firearm-ownership/">country with more guns than people</a>. These and other overaggressive deployments are the direct result of public policy that gives militarized gear to local police, with little training or oversight. </p>
<p>In our research, we don’t make any determination of whether specific killings by police were justified or not. In our view, too often the question of legal justification <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/29/us/tamir-rice-police-shootiing-cleveland.html">takes a very narrow look at the few seconds just prior to a lethal interaction</a>. We believe that a wider perspective is useful: Local, state and federal rules and training influence the behavior of police agencies across the country. When policing strategies are overly aggressive, an increase in civilian casualties tends to follow. While the resulting killings are often called “justified,” they’re more often the avoidable result of policy decisions made well before the incident in question.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141421/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Casey Delehanty does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Giving police military gear doesn’t reduce crime or keep officers safer – but it does hurt citizens’ trust of the police, and for good reason.Casey Delehanty, Assistant Professor of Global Studies, Gardner-Webb UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/799652017-07-17T00:38:08Z2017-07-17T00:38:08ZWhy police reforms rarely succeed: Lessons from Latin America<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178326/original/file-20170715-14254-18b221a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Riot police in Buenos Aires, Argentina.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Victor R. Caivano</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Donald Trump’s appointment of Attorney General Jeff Sessions has led people to <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/will-trump-reverse-obamas-push-for-greater-police-oversight/">speculate</a> about the fate of recent police reform efforts. </p>
<p>Early into his tenure, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/28/us/politics/jeff-sessions-crime.html">Sessions said</a> he intended to “pull back on” the Justice Department’s investigations of police department abuses, saying they diminish effectiveness.</p>
<p>Americans have mobilized extensively in the past three years against police brutality, militarization and corruption through the Black Lives Matter and related movements. Government officials at the federal level have responded to these demands by creating <a href="https://cops.usdoj.gov/pdf/taskforce/Implementation_Guide.pdf">specialized task forces</a> to recommend best practices, and investigating troubled police departments and <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/justice-departments-review-police-agreements-matters/story?id=46566294">enforcing reforms</a>. Courts have also worked to roll back <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/13/nyregion/stop-and-frisk-practice-violated-rights-judge-rules.html">unconstitutional stop-and-frisk policies</a>, while city governments have created <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/philip-eure-picked-nyc-inspector-general-nypd-article-1.1737785">independent oversight agencies</a> and enacted robust <a href="http://www.governing.com/topics/public-justice-safety/gov-how-cincinnati-got-its-cops-on-board-with-community-policing.html">community policing</a> programs. </p>
<p>But will it stick?</p>
<p>My research on police reform in Latin America shows that such reforms are highly vulnerable to political reversals. These cases reveal how they can be quickly rolled back before they can take hold and demonstrate results.</p>
<p>Understanding the politics of police reform in Latin America may be informative for those who hope for changes in policing in the U.S.</p>
<h2>Police reform and politics</h2>
<p>Leaders in <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267833394_La_reforma_de_la_policia_Colombiana_Esperanzas_o_frustraciones">Colombia</a> and <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Seguridad_democracia_y_reforma_del_siste.html?id=8KwEAQAAIAAJ">Buenos Aires Province, Argentina,</a> overhauled their police institutions in 1993 and 1998, respectively. These reforms were a response to rising crime rates, as well as pervasive police violence, corruption and ineffectiveness in fighting crime.</p>
<p>Comprehensive <a href="http://www.alcaldiabogota.gov.co/sisjur/normas/Norma1.jsp?i=6943">police reform</a> <a href="http://www.gob.gba.gov.ar/legislacion/legislacion/l-12154.html">laws</a> were crafted through broad political consensus. Lawmakers in the Colombian congress and the Buenos Aires provincial legislature enacted sweeping legislation to demilitarize, decentralize and professionalize Colombia’s National Police and the Police of Buenos Aires Province. The reforms also improved recruitment standards and training, strengthened oversight agencies and created formal spaces for community participation. </p>
<p>Only one year after reforms were passed, however, Ernesto Samper was elected president of Colombia. He vowed to undermine his predecessor’s dramatic overhaul of the National Police, saying his government would “<a href="http://www.eltiempo.com/archivo/documento/MAM-500653">let the police regulate itself</a>.” </p>
<p>Similarly in Buenos Aires Province, Carlos Ruckauf was elected governor in 1999. He left his predecessor’s police reform legislation intact. However, he made his preferred approach to crime-fighting clear: “<a href="https://www.clarin.com/politica/seguridad-desato-debate-duhaldismo_0_S12g6lRte.html">we have to hit the criminals with bullets</a>.” </p>
<p>Both politicians used citizens’ concerns over rising crime to lead calls for greater police autonomy, in order to be “tougher” on crime. Under their administrations, hard-fought police reform gave way to periods of “<a href="http://pdba.georgetown.edu/Security/citizensecurity/Colombia/evaluaciones/reformasycontrarreformas.pdf">counter-reform</a>.” These were <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/20488148?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">characterized by</a> increased police autonomy, weakened accountability, militarization, unchecked corruption and <a href="http://www.cels.org.ar/web/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/IA2000.pdf">extrajudicial killings</a>.</p>
<p>Other research on policing in Latin America has provided compelling evidence of the impact of such <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1470-9856.2008.00270.x/abstract">political rhetoric</a>. When politicians promoting “tougher” police strategies are elected, <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/210702">police killings</a> and repression of citizens increase.</p>
<p>These examples reveal how the long-term aims of police reforms can be difficult to reconcile with the short-term goals of politicians. </p>
<h2>Police support for reform</h2>
<p>My research also demonstrates that police forces that are resistant to reforms have considerable power to undermine them. In Buenos Aires Province, police officials <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pad.1752/abstract">succeeded in dismantling</a> a system of neighborhood security forums that allowed citizens to conduct oversight of police. Police officials felt the forums gave citizens too much control over police affairs. As a result, they lobbied the governor and security minister to reduce the funding and staff needed to implement them. </p>
<p>By contrast, <a href="http://www.conseg.sp.gov.br">a similar participatory system</a> in São Paulo, Brazil, has endured for three decades. There, police are incorporated into the governance structure of the community councils, allowing for a more collaborative relationship. As a result, many police officers have come to see forum members as their advocates. Although citizens in São Paulo do not have oversight authority, the police’s cooperation has contributed to the persistence of these participatory spaces. </p>
<p>Thus, reformers must identify and bolster police officials with a stake in sustaining reforms. Without support from insiders, reform is unlikely to last.</p>
<h2>Sustaining momentum</h2>
<p>Police reform is also made vulnerable by the fact that, after reform passes, its proponents demobilize. In Buenos Aires and Colombia, human rights and activist organizations remained active when politicians began to reverse reforms. But the broadly shared societal outrage that led to reform in the first place dissipated. With it went the momentum needed to sustain reform in the long term.</p>
<p>Research from both <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FB%3APOBE.0000035959.35567.16?LI=true">the U.S.</a> and <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/504728/pdf">Latin America</a> has shown that campaigning for “tough on crime” policies, or “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/penal-populism-and-public-opinion-9780195136234?cc=us&lang=en&">penal populism</a>,” is a highly successful strategy for winning elections. As scholars have shown, such policies can <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1462474503005001293">generate broad support</a> among a diverse set of voters. So-called <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Contesting_the_Iron_Fist.html?id=Sms2zfTVkLQC">“pro-order” coalitions</a>, the collection of civil society organizations, media outlets and politicians that advocate for “<a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/studies-in-american-political-development/article/frontlash-race-and-the-development-of-punitive-crime-policy/9744286F944F1A250B94CD3AFB1A6021">law and order</a>” policies, have similarly demonstrated great capacity to mobilize resources and public support. </p>
<p>Failing to sustain reform coalitions means there is little counterweight to these pressures.</p>
<h2>‘Counter-reform’ in the US?</h2>
<p>Is the U.S. entering a period of “counter-reform” similar to that observed in Colombia and Argentina? </p>
<p>Opponents of reform, <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/02/27/517583304/attorney-general-jeff-session-focuses-on-violent-crime-and-police-morale">including Sessions</a>, warn of “a longer-term trend of violent crime going up.” They have also <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/28/us/politics/jeff-sessions-crime.html">floated theories</a> such as the “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/07/20/the-ferguson-effect/?utm_term=.de83be86f565">Ferguson effect</a>,” the idea that growing scrutiny of police activity has made police more timid. Such arguments may scare voters into believing that police reform may make police less effective in fighting crime.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, President Trump has engaged in rhetoric similar to his Colombian and Argentine counterparts. As a candidate, he called on police to be “<a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-trump-chicago-police-crime-met-20160823-story.html">very much tougher</a>” in fighting crime. As president, he has said his will be “<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/law-enforcement-community">a law-and-order administration</a>” that will “empower” police.</p>
<p>It is too early to tell whether these police reform efforts will backslide. While the U.S. context differs in some ways from Latin America, these examples demonstrate that police reform is a continuous and contentious process that is difficult to achieve and highly prone to reversal.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79965/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yanilda González received funding for this research from the Social Science Research Council and Open Society Foundations.</span></em></p>Research shows how politics can easily halt reforms that require time to take effect.Yanilda González, Assistant Professor, School of Social Service Administration, University of ChicagoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/623772016-07-13T13:09:28Z2016-07-13T13:09:28ZI was a white police officer in the US – I know how deep the crisis of racism is<p>I served as an police officer and a detective for more than 12 years, and I have felt a particular connection to the the tragic events of recent weeks. There is clearly a massive gap between black Americans and the police departments that are supposed to serve them.</p>
<p>As a white American, I do not know what it’s like to be <a href="http://ocrdata.ed.gov/Downloads/CRDC-School-Discipline-Snapshot.pdf">three times more likely to be suspended in school</a> because of my skin colour, or to stand out in a crowd as a minority because of my skin colour. I do not know what it’s like to be <a href="http://cepr.net/documents/black-coll-grads-2014-05.pdf">twice as unlikely</a> than other Americans on average to get a job I apply for because of my skin colour. </p>
<p>I also don’t know what it’s like to be significantly more likely to be <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/11/18/ferguson-black-arrest-rates/19043207/">arrested</a> than people of other racial groups, or to be three times more likely than average to be <a href="http://mappingpoliceviolence.org/">killed by the police</a> because of my skin colour. I don’t know what it feels like to know that if found guilty of a crime, I could be given a <a href="http://sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Race-and-Justice-Shadow-Report-ICCPR.pdf">20% longer prison sentence</a> based on the colour of my skin. </p>
<p>This is, of course, the reality for 13% of the US’s population – the black population.</p>
<p>Yet I do know something about the strained relationship between black communities and American police officers, and I know it firsthand.</p>
<p>I know what it’s like when a community you serve declines to co-operate with you during a criminal investigation because of the uniform you wear. I know what it’s like to try your hardest to earn the trust of (understandably) untrusting communities to only see another member of the police community murder a black teen on national news. </p>
<p>I know what it feels like to respond to a 911 call only to have the caller request a black officer because “you can’t trust white cops”. I know what it is to be constantly told that I am a racist just because I am white and I wore a uniform. I know what it’s like to be hated because of the combination of my profession and the colour of my skin.</p>
<p>You see, no non-police member of a black community knows what it’s like to put on the most hated uniform in the country, just as a white police officer doesn’t know what it is to have the skin of an oppressed community. </p>
<p>This is the tragedy of our differences – but it also shows the immeasurable value of each personal experience when trying to bridge fractured relationships.</p>
<p>Americans need to know about and acknowledge these very observable gaps between themselves and their police. They need to openly discuss any intentional or unconscious discrimination that plagues all walks of society. Americans need to understand just how difficult policing is in a country where you are <a href="https://www.elsevier.com/about/press-releases/research-and-journals/gun-deaths-in-u.s.-remain-highest-among-high-income-nations">ten times more likely to be killed by a gun</a> than you would be in any other developed country. </p>
<p>But the implications of overlooking and denying racism needs to be openly examined and discussed too – and American police departments have specifically avoided doing that for far too long.</p>
<h2>Owning up</h2>
<p>To improve the lethally distrustful relationships between the black community and policing, there are several things that must be done. </p>
<p>First, the policing community has an obligation to be transparent with all communities regarding use of force and the impact that racism has upon it. The police must acknowledge that racism exists in American policing, just as with other professions. If a police force is aware that a shooting is unjust or an incident is tainted with bias, it must immediately acknowledge and denounce it, and see that those responsible are brought to justice. </p>
<p>This is a critical social obligation. This would entail effective prosecution in a swift manner for any criminal charges that might have occurred after a criminal investigation has been conducted. Police communities should focus more attention on community policing tactics so further personal attachments can be built to neighbourhood beat cops.</p>
<p>The policing community cannot lead this effort alone. Black communities will have a part to play in opening up better communication and reaching understanding with the forces they so distrust.</p>
<p>But there’s something more fundamental that needs to change too: white Americans must acknowledge that their country was built on the backs of subordinated black and Native American identities. We must acknowledge the mass of laws and practices that’s been called “<a href="http://newjimcrow.com/">the new Jim Crow</a>”, a system that perpetuates white social and political dominance while incarcerating black Americans in their hundreds of thousands. We must acknowledge and confront the effects of systemic and personal bias on real people and their communities.</p>
<p>After all, the first step towards overcoming structural racism within society and policing alike is to acknowledge that it exists. It’s long past time that all Americans did so.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62377/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Heather Panter does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The gap between American police departments and the black communities they’re meant to protect is huge – but it can be closed.Heather Panter, Senior lecturer, Liverpool John Moores UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/622592016-07-08T22:46:03Z2016-07-08T22:46:03ZWhy is it so hard to improve American policing?<p>The use of lethal force by police officers in Minnesota and Baton Rouge has once again sparked protests over the violent dynamic between citizens and the police.</p>
<p>The ideal today is “democratic policing,” a concept developed by scholars like Gary T. Marx at MIT. Broadly, this <a href="http://web.mit.edu/gtmarx/www/dempol.html">refers to</a> a police force that is publicly accountable, subject to the rule of law, respectful of human dignity and that intrudes into citizens’ lives only under certain limited circumstances. </p>
<p>Partly in response to this ideal, policing in America has evolved considerably over the past 50 years. There have been changes in hiring, how relations with civilians are managed and what technologies are used. </p>
<p>The 20th century has seen a slow but <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/racial-makeup-police-departments-331130">steady integration</a> of minorities and women within police forces. Different managerial models aimed at improving relations with citizens have also influenced policing over the last 40 years. The most prominent among these are <a href="http://www.ojjdp.gov/mpg/litreviews/Community_and_Problem_Oriented_Policing.pdf">community-oriented policing</a>, <a href="http://www.ojjdp.gov/mpg/litreviews/Community_and_Problem_Oriented_Policing.pdf">problem-oriented policing</a> and <a href="https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/bja/210681.pdf">intelligence-led policing</a>. </p>
<p>Policing has also been deeply transformed by the rapid integration of new technologies leading to computerization of police forces such as the profiling of crime hotspots, access to a broader range of weapons like tasers and the deployment of surveillance technologies like drones and closed circuit TV. </p>
<p>Some of these changes have been positive, but as recent events show, many problems remain. Why hasn’t more progress been made?</p>
<h2>Not all police forces are equal</h2>
<p>One problem is the inequality inherent in the system. For example, Washington, D.C. has <a href="http://www.governing.com/gov-data/safety-justice/police-officers-per-capita-rates-employment-for-city-departments.html">61.2 police officers</a> per 10,000 residents, while Baton Rouge has just 28.7.</p>
<p>Policing in America is not a standardized profession guided by an established set of procedures and policies. There are at least <a href="http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=71">12,000 local</a> police agencies in the United States, making it one of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/police/Decentralized-police-organizations">most decentralized</a> police organizations in the world. </p>
<p>There are more than 600 state and local police academies across the country delivering training programs that vary <a href="http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/slleta06.pdf">tremendously</a> in content, quality and intensity. This, inevitably, has an impact on the <a href="http://www.merlot.org/merlot/viewMaterial.htm?id=828673">skills</a> of their graduates. </p>
<p>Differences in policing also reflect the quality of leadership and the availability of resources. </p>
<p>Police chiefs and commanders represent a critical source of influence. They provide the doctrine by deciding whether to focus on prevention or repression of crime. They design strategies like police visibility or zero tolerance. And they identify the practice to be adopted – rounding up the usual suspects or systematic stop-and-frisk.</p>
<p>Often, however, these police practices are not aligned with public expectations. Citizen review boards – such as those in <a href="http://www.nyc.gov/html/ccrb/html/home/home.shtml">New York City</a> or <a href="https://www.sandiego.gov/city-clerk/boards-commissions/crb">San Diego</a> – are the exception rather than the norm. </p>
<p>And then there is the money issue. Police departments that are financially crippled are simply not able to provide regular training and therefore don’t have the expertise to pursue certain kinds of crime. The policing of fraud, for example, requires financial expertise and specialized units. </p>
<h2>From public relations policing to intensive policing</h2>
<p>Policing styles in America vary according to the targeted audience.</p>
<p>Police work in an affluent neighborhoods is often characterized by “soft” policing strategies. In other words, policing in those areas is more a question of making people feel secure than actual crime fighting. </p>
<p>However, in disadvantaged, multi-ethnic neighborhoods, police presence and activity are often <a href="http://amstat.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1198/016214506000001040#/doi/abs/10.1198/016214506000001040">more intense</a>. They are there to target crimes that have been identified as priorities by police leadership and elected officials. </p>
<p>In fact, one policing model, <a href="http://www.nij.gov/topics/law-enforcement/strategies/predictive-policing/Pages/welcome.aspx">predictive policing</a>, can <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Papers.cfm?abstract_id=2050001">exacerbate racial tension</a> between law enforcement and African-American communities. </p>
<p>Predictive policing is based on crime analysis and computerization. This model helps law enforcement mobilize their resources in places where crime tends to concentrate. These crime clusters tend to be located in poor and disadvantaged communities. However, trying to prevent crime by focusing police forces on some addresses, street corners and blocks increases police-citizens encounters. Some of these encounters – even between police and law-abiding citizens caught up in the dragnet – can turn violent.</p>
<p>Another noticeable trend that is front and center in the media today is the “militarization” of police. </p>
<p>This blurring of the distinction between the police and military institutions, between law enforcement and war, <a href="http://cjmasters.eku.edu/sites/cjmasters.eku.edu/files/21stmilitarization.pdf">began in the 1980s</a> and has only intensified since. It was reinforced by public policy rhetoric calling for a “war on crime,” “war on drugs” and “war on terror.” Police forces began to acquire military equipment and implement militarized training with little or no accountability. For instance, in the wake of 9/11, several local police departments received funding from the Department of <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/12/20/local-cops-ready-for-war-with-homeland-security-funded-military-weapons.html">Homeland Security </a>and Department of Defense with little or no guidance on how to spend the money. This led to the unnecessary purchase of military equipment including armored cars, bulletproof vests for dogs and advanced bomb-disarming robots.</p>
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<p>As a result, we have seen a booming of SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) teams: 80 percent of cities with 25,000 to 50,000 inhabitants now have a SWAT team. From the late 1990s, through the <a href="http://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R43701.pdf">1033 Program</a>, the Department of Defense has authorized the transfer of military equipment to police departments across the country. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/us/war-gear-flows-to-police-departments.html?_r=0">Since 2006</a> the police have bought 93,763 machine guns and 435 armored cars from the Pentagon. All this has only heightened the real and perceived potential for deadly force by police officers. </p>
<h2>Now I see you</h2>
<p>Another significant change in modern policing is the increasing capacity to monitor criminal activity and the population in general.</p>
<p>Police agencies now have access to a vast network of closed-circuit television (CCTV) monitors, allowing the surveillance of public and private spaces. Just to give a few numbers, the Chicago Police Department has access to 17,000 cameras, including <a href="http://vintechnology.com/2011/05/04/top-5-cities-with-the-largest-surveillance-camera-networks/">4,000 in public schools and 1,000 at O’Hare Airport</a>.</p>
<p>Drones, too, are increasingly in use. The U.S. Border Patrol deploys them to monitor smuggling activities. They have been purchased by <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/10/eff-and-muckrock-have-filed-over-200-public-records-requests-surveillance-drones">a number</a> of local police departments, including those in Los Angeles; Mesa County, Arizona; Montgomery County, Texas; Miami Dade; and Seattle. </p>
<h2>A mirror of society</h2>
<p>In many regards, police agencies are a mirror of our beliefs and values as a society. </p>
<p>When applying this assumption to the phenomenon of intensive policing, it is not surprising, I would argue, that a country that has the highest rate of gun ownership among Western countries, the highest <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/jul/22/gun-homicides-ownership-world-list">murder rate</a> by guns among advanced democracies and the largest military apparatus in the world would see a militarization of its police. </p>
<p>The same reflection can be made about the use of police surveillance technologies in a society where information technology increasingly defines our interactions. </p>
<p>Ultimately, policing is inseparable from politics. Police organizations are constantly influenced by political pressure, such as the nomination of a new chief of police or new laws that police must enforce. The state of our police system, in other words, for good or for ill, is an accurate proxy measure of the state of our democracy.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s Note: This story updates <a href="https://theconversation.com/democratic-policing-what-it-says-about-america-today-35066">Democratic policing: what it says about America today</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62259/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Frederic Lemieux does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>For 50 years, we have worked to make U.S. police more diverse and less intrusive. Why haven’t we made more progress?Frederic Lemieux, Professor and Program Director of Bachelor in Police and Security Studies; Master’s in Security and Safety Leadership; Master’s in Strategic Cyber Operations and Information Management, George Washington UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/622562016-07-08T19:52:46Z2016-07-08T19:52:46ZA tragic reminder that policing takes a toll on officers, too<p>The recent police shootings and the murder Thursday of five police officers put a spotlight on the troubled occupation of policing. Recent public perception of police has reached a 22-year <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/183704/confidence-police-lowest-years.aspx">low</a> in the United States, with a 2015 poll showing that about only 52 percent have a “great deal” of confidence in the institution. Among those who do not share that confidence, the view of the police seems to have shifted from from those who “serve and protect” to those who “unnecessarily kill.” </p>
<p>What are the circumstances that got us to this point? People come into police work with the goal of public service but often leave in state of <a href="https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=252927">cynicism</a>.</p>
<p>Contrary to public opinion that police work is “routine,” their job is very often filled with traumatic, dangerous and stressful occurrences. Suicide is a leading killer of police officers, with <a href="http://www.officer.com/article/12156622/2015-police-suicide-statistics">102 officers</a> taking their lives in 2015. That is in addition to the 51 officers killed while a felony was underway and 45 officers who were accidentally killed. Our recent study found that the police had a 69 percent greater risk for suicide than other working populations. </p>
<p>As a former police officer and now a professor of epidemiology and public health, I look at the toll that policing takes on mental and physical health. Police officers pay a high price for their work. </p>
<h2>A scary and sometimes sad job</h2>
<p>There are many facets of police work of which the general population is not aware. It is hard for non-officers to understand what officers experience on a daily basis and what the outcomes of these experiences might be. </p>
<p>With little or no warning, officers may find themselves responding to events ranging from domestic disturbances to involvement in complex, evolving natural disasters or acts of terrorism. Police officers experience these stressful incidents and conditions repeatedly over the course of careers that can span decades.</p>
<p>Events at the more challenging end of the critical incident spectrum (e.g., terrorist acts, shootings, assaults) result in officers encountering, over periods of several days or weeks, unpredictable, evolving and escalating demands. One may surmise, therefore, that police officers are often in a state of psychological overload, faced with a multitude of difficult and challenging work demands. </p>
<p>In one recent <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25830066">study</a> we did, the top five most <a href="http://www.academia.edu/2485669/Chouliara_Z._Hutchison_C._and_Karatzias_T._2009_Vicarious_traumatisation_in_practitioners_who_work_with_adult_survivors_of_sexual_violence_and_child_sexual_abuse_Literature_review_and_directions_for_future_research_Counselling_and_Psychotherapy_Research_9_1_47-56">stressful events</a> that police reported were, in this order: exposure to battered or dead children, killing someone in the line of duty, fellow officer killed in the line of duty, situations requiring the use of force and physical attack on one’s person. </p>
<p>Involvement with child crimes is an especially difficult task for police officers, and it requires a special ability and social support in order to avoid traumatization. Prior research regarding police investigations of children-related crimes such as neglect, homicide or sexual abuse suggests that officers are often at greater risk for developing secondary traumatic stress. Officers working these cases may also be at <a href="http://www.cap-press.com/pdf/9781611631111.pdf">risk for depression</a> and anxiety. </p>
<p>Police shootings are also very stressful events for officers. What you see on television, social media or the movies is not accurate. Shootings generally involve scrutiny by both the department and the judicial system concerning the legality of the shooting and the proper use of justifiable deadly physical force by the officer. Additionally, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may result from involvement in shooting incidents as a direct result of investigation and social media coverage for both officer and family. </p>
<p>In a pilot study, we found that officers with <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23528305">higher levels of PTSD</a> had difficulty in making decisions, which could affect decision-making on the streets.</p>
<h2>Physical health suffers, too</h2>
<p>Psychological health often affects physical health among officers as well. In our studies, we have found that the <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4734369/">average age of death </a>among police is 66 years of age, some 10 years sooner than the general U.S. population. Many police deaths attributed to causes such as cardiovascular disease are associated with stress. </p>
<p>About 30 percent of our police population had <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4734369/">metabolic syndrome</a>, an indicator of risk for future cardiovascular events. We have found associations of PTSD with impaired artery health and hormonal balance in police officers as well as with significantly higher rates of suicide among officers as compared to the general population. </p>
<p>Although policing is primarily a male occupation, gender does not prevent tragic outcomes. A recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on occupational suicides found that females who work in protective services had the <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/index2015.html">highest rate of suicide</a> compared to 30 other occupations. </p>
<h2>Solutions needed</h2>
<p>When considering the current level of mistrust of police, I am reminded of the experience of many post-Vietnam veterans of that war when they came home. Many were laden with <a href="http://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/research-bio/research/vietnam-vets-study.asp">post-traumatic stress disorder</a>, and they felt unappreciated for risking their lives in order to preserve our freedom. Many, too, had physical wounds. At that time, much of the country was anti-war, and soldiers were sometimes cast as “<a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/apr/25/50-years-later-vietnam-veterans-still-live-with-wa/">killers</a>.” </p>
<p>Some years later, depression and suicide skyrocketed among <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8932223">Vietnam veterans</a>. In context, although not at war, police officers feel the same way. The effect of an unappreciated, negative perception of police by society is in many ways similar to the Vietnam experience. This only adds to the stress of the job. </p>
<p>A solution to this societal problem is not close at hand. In my experience as an academic researcher who studies police health and stress, I can say that there is a paucity of work on the effect of present-day negative stereotyping of police officers. Thus, it is hard to know how current negative thinking about officers affects them and their ability to do their jobs.</p>
<p>We do know some things, however. Intervention needs to start at the police academy level, where education and training in how to deal with adverse traumatic situations is emphasized but should be emphasized more. <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8932223">Inoculation</a> is a proven method to prepare for future stress. Psychological support and timely interventions also are important to help officers deal with stress and possible biological consequences in the occupation of policing.</p>
<p>My thought is that police organizations had better start to pay more attention to the psychological health of these men and women who serve. Negative public image, chronic stress, trauma and physical health outcomes can only exacerbate this situation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62256/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Violanti does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The shooting deaths of five police officers in Dallas are a tragic reminder of the dangers that police face. They pay a price in mental and physical health.John Violanti, Professor of Epidemiology and Environmental Health, University at BuffaloLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/613362016-07-06T01:05:10Z2016-07-06T01:05:10ZHow video can help police – and the public<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/129022/original/image-20160701-18337-maby88.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The police accountability, or cop-watching, movement includes activists who go out on regular patrols to videotape arrests.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mary Angela Bock</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>With <a href="http://blogs.forrester.com/ted_schadler/16-01-05-three_billion_smartphone_customers_are_ready_now_go_make_them_successful">three billion camera-equipped cellphones in circulation</a>, we are awash in visual information. Cameras are lighter, smaller and cheaper than ever and they’re everywhere, making it possible for nearly anyone to watch, create, share and video.</p>
<p>One of the most dramatic ways camera proliferation is changing our lives is in the area of law enforcement. Dashcams have been around for years and are <a href="http://www.mobilecomputingtoday.co.uk/2796/global-dashcams-market-reach-5530-0-2022-credence-research/">increasingly popular</a>. President Obama called for local departments to <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-police-cameras-idUSKBN0NM3PL20150501">start equipping officers</a> with badge cams. Citizens, too, have cameras, usually in their smartphones, but <a href="http://lifehacker.com/will-a-dash-cam-actually-help-you-after-a-car-accident-1732054157">increasingly on their own dashboards</a>. Yet even with all this footage, we are often in the dark about what really happens during police encounters.</p>
<p>For the past three years I’ve been studying the <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12204">police accountability movement</a> and the role that video has played in fueling activism by citizens concerned about criminal justice policies in their communities. “Cop-watching,” as it’s known informally, cannot be understood without also studying the way the law enforcement community uses video. As a result, my work has taken me to courtrooms, police stations and city streets where citizens and police are watching each other through their camera lenses.</p>
<h2>Multiple perspectives, one timeline</h2>
<p>A recent research project I conducted with my husband, David Alan Schneider, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2016.1168474">showed how this worked in a courtroom</a>. We examined the way video evidence played out in a criminal courtroom. On January 1, 2012, as a woman under arrest by Austin, Texas, police called for help, an Iraq War veteran turned activist, Antonio Buehler, pulled his phone out to photograph the scene. He ended up getting arrested himself, and <a href="http://www.mystatesman.com/news/news/right-to-film-officers-at-heart-of-activist-antoni/nhrZm/#0091bc94.3708363.735531">put on trial for allegedly interfering with police work</a>.</p>
<p>The jury watched three videos and listened to multiple versions of what happened that night: police alleged that Buehler lunged at them menacingly; he argued that he was the one assaulted. Another bystander, across the street, had filmed the scene, too, showing officers throwing Buehler to the ground. Police dashcam video showed part of the start of the woman’s drunk-driving arrest and included some of the audio. A surveillance camera from the nearby convenience store bore silent witness and showed where Buehler’s car was in relation to the rest of the action.</p>
<p>Three videos, three narratives, but time passes along only one line. By incorporating the other evidence into what they saw, and tying everything to that one timeline, the jury came up with yet another, constructed narrative, <a href="http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2014-10-31/buehler-acquitted/">acquitting Buehler</a>.</p>
<p>The famous <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/lapd/race/king.html">Rodney King case</a> in 1991 that acquitted four officers and sparked riots in Los Angeles shows just how important the timeline is to our ideas of reality and truth. When the video is played in real time, the scene is devastating; officers are seen swarming the truck driver and striking him swiftly and repeatedly. </p>
<p>But defense attorneys for the officers never played the video straight through; instead they stopped and started it second by second. With the images taken out of context and isolated from the timeline, the moments shown seemed more defensible. The jury, left with competing narratives and a set of images detached from the timeline, found in favor of the officers.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sb1WywIpUtY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The full video of the Rodney King beating.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Documenting police work</h2>
<p>Video’s combination of timeline with visual information has significant implications for the current debate about badge-cams, dash-cams and cop-watching. When it comes to really figuring out what happened, more cameras are helpful; multiple perspectives tied to the timeline present a narrative that better mimics the way we move through the world. We don’t stand in one place, like a surveillance camera, nor do we hold our focus on one spot. We look close, we scan and move. For the sake of really understanding an event, the more video, the better.</p>
<p>From a public policy perspective, this is expensive and complicated. Much depends on who controls the cameras and the resulting videos. Dashcams only show what was in front of the car. Like most of the video from the drunk-driving arrest in Buehler’s case, the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/20/us/sandra-bland-arrest-death-videos-maps.html">confrontation between Sandra Bland and a Texas police officer</a> happened outside the camera’s range. Badge-cams can show what was in front of an officer, but they come with a long list of other considerations: <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/police-body-camera-policies-privacy-and-first-amendment-protections">privacy for certain kinds of crime victims</a> and the officers themselves; protocols for <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/police-body-camera-policies-recording-circumstances">when and how to turn them on</a> and off; <a href="http://time.com/4180889/police-body-cameras-vievu-taser/">storage and distribution procedures</a> for the millions of hours of video they will eventually collect.</p>
<p>Citizen videos have provided some of the most dramatic and troubling evidence of police misconduct, but by nature are happenstance and the result of being on location at a particular moment. Based on my own research, it’s clear that <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12204">cop-watching video only captures events of note</a> once in a while; their work is most effective as a preventative. This “<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/MCE.2015.2393006">sousveillance</a>” movement is conceived as a way for the public to monitor and keep a check on power, serving as a sort of democratized fourth estate.</p>
<h2>Do cameras lie?</h2>
<p>My interest in video has grown out of my first career as a TV journalist and a lifelong interest in how photography conveys reality, which is not nearly as simple as it seems. True, cameras perfectly capture the light waves from a scene in front of them in ways that we could never duplicate by drawing or painting. Cameras can provide extraordinary evidence, which is why police and crime scene investigators document everything, why journalists use cameras as documentary tools, and why citizen journalists are able to gain credibility for their own investigations.</p>
<p>Yet anyone who’s ever looked at photos someone else took of them at the party last weekend and thought to themselves “I don’t look like that!” can relate to the way a camera distorts and flattens a scene. There’s much more, though: Consider the way photographers work, using their own bodies to capture a particular perspective, with lenses that do what our eyes cannot, framing a scene in a way that captures certain elements but not others. Those are just some of the decisions that happen before the darkroom or Photoshop stage, when images are <a href="https://nppa.org/page/5127">cropped, enhanced and sometimes distorted</a> in misleading ways.</p>
<p>Then there are the ways our brains mislead us, because images work differently in our heads than language does. Pictures seem to take a faster highway, metaphorically speaking, <a href="http://www.sunypress.edu/p-2603-visual-intelligence.aspx">inspiring emotional responses faster than language</a> and its logical reasoning. They seem to <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/R/bo3637820.html">work in our memories differently than words</a> do. Add to this the way photographic images feel real, and it becomes easier to understand why <a href="http://hdl.handle.net/2152/30317">images can be very convincing even when we know we’re being manipulated</a> by special effects in a movie or an ad that shows a cupcake that’s simply too perfect to be true – but now we’re hungry.</p>
<p>Video offers up its own set of real and unreal characteristics. We’ve all seen the way editing can change the nature of a soundbite or a TV story; the <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2015/07/21/the_center_for_medical_releases_a_second_attack_video_on_planned_parenthood.html">now-discredited attack video about Planned Parenthood</a> is a perfect example of how scenes can be deliberately distorted. Yet unedited, raw video, while subject to all the limitations of cameras generally, usually adds not just images but also audio to the timeline. Still images offer up a form of visual reality. Raw, unedited video shows us what happened in what order – and that means it provides its own version of a story.</p>
<p>Un-edited, raw video is a “triple threat” for public safety. It has the visual presence of photography; the power of language in its audio; and the ultimate, unyielding evidence offered by the timeline. The public must demand transparency and input for the way police and any other branch of government creates, stores and distributes it. The public must exercise its right to video police and other public servants working in public spaces. Cameras may not lie, but people do all the time. While it’s not infallible, video offers an invaluable way to find the truth.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: an earlier version of this article mistakenly identified Antonio Buehler as a veteran of the war in Afghanistan. Buehler served in Iraq.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61336/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mary Angela Bock receives funding from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication organisation and has received past support from the Dechert Foundation. She is affiliated with the National Press Photographers Association.</span></em></p>With citizens filming police, and police recording public encounters, the key to the truth is establishing a clear timeline of events.Mary Angela Bock, Assistant Professor of Journalism, The University of Texas at AustinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/519832015-12-18T11:05:38Z2015-12-18T11:05:38ZTraining to reduce ‘cop macho’ and ‘contempt of cop’ could reduce police violence<p>It must be a terrible burden knowing that you might have to make a quick decision about whether to yell at someone, shock them, or shoot them dead. That is the weight inherent in the job of a police officer. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, we appropriately expect cops to maintain a peacekeeping mentality – to remain calm, patient and controlled even in life-or-death situations. Unfortunately, patient and nonaggressive policing will be rare unless we train officers to overcome the rules of what I call <a href="http://scholars.law.unlv.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1151&context=nlj">cop macho.</a></p>
<p>While recognizing that <a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/machismo">machismo </a>has special meaning in Latina/o culture, I use the term to describe a gendered, aggressive outlook that is at the heart of our current policing problems. Police officers, including women, are often particularly masculine and the culture of police departments promotes masculine responses.</p>
<p>Those masculine responses can prove deadly. Outrage over police slayings of unarmed black civilians – from Chicago to Baltimore to New York to Ferguson and beyond – has provoked <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-police-reform-20151213-story.html">a national debate</a> on what should be done about the use of deadly force by law enforcement. In Ferguson earlier this week, city officials and the US Department of Justice have worked out a preliminary <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/17/us/ferguson-nears-deal-with-justice-dept-to-overhaul-police-force.html?_r=0">agreement</a> to overhaul the city’s police department, which would include new training for police officers. While the debate over police abuses has focused on race, I argue we need to consider how the desire to act in ways society deems manly has influenced policing.</p>
<h2>The masculine imperative of demanding respect</h2>
<p>One imperative of masculinity is that you may not allow another person to show you disrespect. As I have demonstrated in my <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1257183">research</a>, police officers sometimes punish disrespect because they believe “a challenge to their respect is a challenge to their manhood.” For many police officers, disrespect requires an escalation in force. </p>
<p>Such escalation is commonly known as <a href="http://scholars.law.unlv.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1151&context=nlj">“contempt of cop.”</a> Being found in contempt of court is a punishment for disobeying a judge. “Contempt of cop” occurs when an officer punishes you for failing to comply with her request. </p>
<p>Sometimes the punishment takes the form of being charged with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest or a similarly amorphous crime simply for verbally standing up for your rights. Sometimes it takes the form of physical force. Two widely discussed incidents involving unarmed black civilians demonstrate this concept.</p>
<h2>Officer to Sandra Bland: ‘I will light you up.’</h2>
<p>In the July 2015 Sandra Bland case, the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpSEemvwOn4">dashcam video</a> records white male police officer Brian Encinia telling Bland, a black female, that he pulled her over because she “failed to signal the lane change.” When Bland declares that Encinia was tailing her, sped up toward her, then pulled her over for changing lanes to get out of his way, Encinia does not deny that description. Seemingly because Bland refuses to put out her cigarette, Encinia orders her out of the car at taserpoint, shouting, “I will light you up!” Encinia later slams Bland’s head into the ground. Three days later, Bland is found hanging dead in a jail cell. </p>
<p>We do not know whether a police officer physically killed Sandra Bland, but we do know that she would not be dead but for Officer Encinia’s strange decision to arrest her following a trivial traffic violation. That decision is not so surprising, however, when the encounter is viewed as an example of cop machismo. When Bland disrespected Encinia, he punished her for “contempt of cop.” </p>
<p>In the very same city of Prairie View, Texas, white police officer Michael Kelley tasered City Councilor Jonathan Miller, a young black male, for refusing to comply with another unnecessary order. In October 2015, Miller exits his apartment when police officer Penny Goodie, a black female, is asking black men who had been visiting him what they are up to. Officer Kelley arrives and, despite being told there is no crime afoot, orders Miller to his knees for questioning the police. Very quickly, Kelley <a href="http://www.npr.org/2015/10/21/450611772/prairie-view-texas-reflects-on-history-of-racism-after-police-incidents">asks </a>Miller, “Do you always start problems?” </p>
<p>When the obviously unarmed, still kneeling Miller is slow putting his hands behind his back, Kelley tases him, with the approval of officer Goodie. The police department detains Miller for allegedly “interfering with police” and “resisting arrest.” Those charges seemed to punish Miller for his disrespect. </p>
<h2>‘Contempt of cop’ is not solely about race</h2>
<p>One might claim that “contempt of cop” cases are primarily about race, but I believe they are at least as much about gender. Officer Kelley seems to have been upset that Miller challenged him by asserting his rights. The fact that officer Goodie and police chief Larry Johnson, who is also black, supported the tasing suggests something more than race was at play. </p>
<p>Likewise, Encinia became incensed when Bland refused to cooperate with his gratuitous orders. In both cases, refusing to comply with officers’ orders pricked their egos and resulted in physical abuse. In both cases, it seems that a well trained officer could have deescalated the situation. </p>
<p>Two major proposals commonly suggested to address police abuse are problematic. The emerging <a href="http://www.proceduralfairness.org/policing.aspx">procedural fairness</a> methodology of policing, which emphasizes real-time explanations to civilians of why police are taking particular actions, seems to be a superficial change that is consistent with present, race-based targeting of suspects. The push to have police officers wear <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-its-time-for-pervasive-surveillance-of-the-police-35134">body cameras</a> is a positive development but is likely to have less value over time as police officer criminal defense attorneys learn to discredit even the most powerful videos, as was done in the unsuccessful first <a href="http://scholar.valpo.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2316&context=vulr">Rodney King</a> trial. </p>
<p>Procedural fairness and body cameras do not reach the root causes of police abuse. If we are serious about reducing unnecessary police violence, we need to acknowledge the gendered aspects of police misuse of power. </p>
<p>The best method I have found for reducing cop macho is <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/28/us/long-taught-to-use-force-police-warily-learn-to-de-escalate.html?_r=0">deescalation training.</a> For instance, a method called “verbal judo” teaches techniques for verbally deflecting hostility and verbally manipulating civilians into compliance. That approach would allow police officers to deemphasize the masculine preoccupation with disrespect and play the peacekeeping role we admire them for.</p>
<p>I concede that many situations fall into a gray area where civilian disrespect seemingly conveys an actual physical threat. Consequently, an awareness of the way cop macho leads to “contempt of cop” punishments will not prevent all police uses of force. Training machismo out of police officers’ habits would be worth the effort, though, because it would allow the deescalation of many potential police-civilian conflicts.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: The language in the section about Sandra Bland has been corrected to make clear that she was forced out of her car at “taserpoint” not “gunpoint.”</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/51983/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Frank Rudy Cooper is affiliated with Black Lives Matter-Cambridge, Massachusetts. </span></em></p>After two more fatal shootings by police of black men this week, we republish one legal scholar’s argument that what needs addressing is the police’s culture of masculinity.Frank Rudy Cooper, Professor of Law, Suffolk UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/449472015-08-12T15:36:42Z2015-08-12T15:36:42ZPolice should put away the military gear and build connections with young people<p>The ongoing protests in Ferguson one year after the shooting of <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/michael-brown">Michael Brown</a> highlight the elevated risks that African Americans face when interacting with police in the US. </p>
<p>While the protests bring awareness to the crisis of police overreach and brutality, thousands of dedicated people are working for greater police accountability and more community involvement in shaping policing practices. </p>
<p>As a researcher and educator in the field of conflict resolution, I witness firsthand these efforts for change. Unfortunately, these positive steps are being squeezed by lack of funding and support and are harmed by a misguided emphasis on militarized policing.</p>
<h2>The numbers tell a story</h2>
<p>Police forces throughout the country have a <a href="http://thenewpress.com/books/new-jim-crow">disproportionate</a> rate of <a href="https://www.rienner.com/title/White_Supremacy_and_Racism_in_the_Post_Civil_Rights_Era">contact</a> with racial minorities compared to whites. </p>
<p>The United States has <a href="http://www.prisonpolicy.org/global/">more people in prison</a> per capita than any other country in the world. <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/09/06/incarceration-gap-between-whites-and-blacks-widens/">African Americans are incarcerated</a> more than six times the rate of whites.</p>
<p>We lack reliable data on police shootings, as there is <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/09/08/how-many-police-shootings-a-year-no-one-knows/">no official government database</a>. US record keepers now estimate <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/mar/04/police-killed-people-fbi-data-justifiable-homicides">an average of 928 people</a> were killed by police annually over the last eight years. That’s nearly double the numbers originally published by the FBI.</p>
<h2>The experiences of minority youth</h2>
<p>Many African-American youth are impacted by racially unequal school <a href="http://nyupress.org/books/9780814748206/">discipline practices</a>, <a href="http://newjimcrow.com/">mass incarceration</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/urban-combat-ferguson-and-the-militarisation-of-police-30568">militarized policing</a> and poverty. </p>
<p>On numerous occasions, I have had the honor to witness young women and men who have experienced lifetimes filled with violence step into leadership roles as they work for economic and racial justice in their communities. These moments provide inspiration. </p>
<p>However, for too many children and youth of color, the relentless fear of possible police harassment and violence can have devastating effects. A perceived lack of accountability of police for acts of brutality can lead to a sense of powerlessness. Those tasked with protection are seen as a source of torment, not solace. </p>
<p>Many of the community members and law enforcement leaders I meet are concerned about developing ways of policing that support positive youth development. </p>
<p>They face an uphill battle. Momentum has been moving in the opposite direction. <a href="http://www.ncja.org/sites/default/files/documents/NCJA-VERA-Summar-of-Sequestration-Survery-2012.pdf">Community policing</a> and professional development budgets have been cut in many departments. There is currently <a href="http://www.justice.gov/opa/blog/importance-preserving-critical-funding-community-policing">debate</a> in Congress about further cuts. </p>
<h2>The impact of the war on drugs and 9/11</h2>
<p>While money is tight for community policing programs and training, the post-9/11 context has added to the militarization of our police practices in the US. </p>
<p>The federal government has distributed more than <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/12/20/local-cops-ready-for-war-with-homeland-security-funded-military-weapons.html">US$34 billion</a> through “terrorism grants.” These grants empower local police departments to obtain military equipment including <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/15/opinion/ferguson-shows-the-risks-of-militarized-policing.html?_r=0">high-powered weapons, tanks and drones</a>.</p>
<p>Law enforcement agencies have for the past several decades been <a href="http://billmoyers.com/2014/08/13/not-just-ferguson-11-eye-opening-facts-about-americas-militarized-police-forces/">increasingly incentivized</a> to engage in paramilitary tactics used by SWAT and undercover units as part of the “war on drugs.” </p>
<p>Racial profiling practices such as <a href="http://www.nyclu.org/issues/racial-justice/stop-and-frisk-practices">“stop and frisk”</a> are now considered ineffective and violent to youth of color. </p>
<p>This militarization put youth of color at greater risk of police brutality, persistent surveillance and harassment.</p>
<p>So how can police work more effectively to solve juvenile justice challenges? </p>
<h2>In New Haven</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/91641/original/image-20150812-12348-kxm0op.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/91641/original/image-20150812-12348-kxm0op.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91641/original/image-20150812-12348-kxm0op.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91641/original/image-20150812-12348-kxm0op.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91641/original/image-20150812-12348-kxm0op.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91641/original/image-20150812-12348-kxm0op.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91641/original/image-20150812-12348-kxm0op.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Building understanding Connecticut-Center-for-Nonviolence.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.ctnonviolence.org/">Connecticut Center for Nonviolence</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>Some law enforcement agencies have taken the important step of expanding their training to address blind spots in the ways they understand youth of color. That work often requires critically evaluating ageist and racialized frames of threat that often are <a href="http://iseeed.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Akom_Youthtopias-YMR-Article.pdf">not conscious</a>. </p>
<p>In New Haven, Connecticut, for example, police officers are being trained in the nonviolent philosophy and practice of Martin Luther King Jr alongside other community members.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/91474/original/image-20150811-11091-hbeu0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/91474/original/image-20150811-11091-hbeu0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91474/original/image-20150811-11091-hbeu0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91474/original/image-20150811-11091-hbeu0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91474/original/image-20150811-11091-hbeu0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91474/original/image-20150811-11091-hbeu0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91474/original/image-20150811-11091-hbeu0c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A New Haven police officer is armed with history.</span>
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<p>This Kingian Nonviolence Training was originally developed by <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/freedomriders/people/bernard-lafayette-jr">Bernard LaFayette</a>. Dr Lafayette, a world-renowned civil rights leader and freedom rider, personally mentored the senior leadership of <a href="http://www.ctnonviolence.org/">Connecticut Center for Nonviolence (CTCN)</a> to design these training programs. </p>
<p>Kingian nonviolence offers a process in which community members and law enforcement learn ways to address conflict without resorting to violence. It also provides participants an important historical perspective on the civil rights campaigns that challenged institutional racism in the US. </p>
<p>Lieutenant Sam Brown of New Haven explains the impact of the training.</p>
<p>“We all have an inherent sense of justice and we all want to help,” Lt Brown <a href="http://www.ctnonviolence.org/news-events/kings-message-renewed-at-training-session-in-hamden/">said</a>. “It’s what brings us here, to get knowledge and make a difference in the lives of the community.”</p>
<h2>In Gainesville</h2>
<p>In Gainesville, Florida, the <a href="http://www.centerforpeacebuilding.org/home.html">River Phoenix Center for Peacebuilding</a> is working with the city’s Police Chief Tony Jones to bring together African-American youth and police to discuss critical issues. </p>
<p>Over meals and in difficult conversations, the program strives to generate honest discussion about how youth and police view each other. </p>
<p>In one activity, the young people and officers meet separately and go through the alphabet from A to Z, sharing the first words that comes to mind for each letter when thinking of the other group. The words they come up with are at times insulting and reflect back the stereotypes, tension and anger that exists between youth and police. </p>
<p>The youth often describe police as “killers” and “bullies,” and that they “can’t be trusted.” Police refer to the youth as “arrogant,” “belligerent,” “cocky” and “defiant.” When they meet together, they look at each other’s lists of words and begin a difficult task of examining the causes of the tension and considering ways of shifting these negative relationships. </p>
<h2>Searching for a way forward</h2>
<p>These programs and many others like them across the country are positively impacting the lives of young people and police officers. Importantly, they are being initiated and led by community groups. While community consultation is an important aspect of improving policing, partnerships with people of color and other groups most negatively impacted by police violence is critical to reform efforts moving forward.</p>
<p>We are at an important crossroads as people across the country are taking to the streets to voice their discontent with police brutality and working to make changes at the local level. The gains are fragile, as the good work that these programs do to build trust and strengthen relationships over time can quickly be undermined by paramilitary police work.</p>
<p>That’s why a growing number of stakeholders, from activists in the #BlackLivesMatter movement to violence prevention experts, community health workers, clergy and many others, are calling for a shift in funding priorities away from paramilitary approaches toward strengthening community consultation, community-led prevention efforts and long-term partnerships with at-risk communities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/44947/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Arthur Romano has consulted with the Connecticut Center for Nonviolence and River Phoenix Center for Peacebuilding. </span></em></p>Community policing efforts in New Haven and Gainesville offer a stark contrast to military-style policing.Arthur Romano, Assistant Professor, School of Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/400412015-04-20T05:04:46Z2015-04-20T05:04:46ZEmpathy on the street: How understanding between police and communities makes us safer<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78075/original/image-20150415-31660-ufi6v7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The meaning of empathy</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/en/pic.mhtml?id=183938684">Feng Yu/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>By now, no one is insulated from hearing about incidents of police shootings or violence against police officers. While fatal shootings are thankfully still rare events, this does not diminish the emotional impact of hearing about a violent death. </p>
<p>All of us want to see our law enforcement officers come home to their families and friends at the end of the day – and we want to see our citizens come home to theirs.</p>
<p>In the most recent incident, which was caught on camera, we see the tragic last moments of one man’s life as he <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/10/us/south-carolina-police-shooting/">flees</a> the police. Walter Scott of Charleston, South Carolina, ran from the police after a traffic stop. Presumably, Scott took off because he was wanted on a bench warrant for outstanding child support. As he was fleeing, a bystander caught Officer Michael Slager fire eight times - hitting and killing Scott. Walter Scott did not come home. </p>
<p>In the recent past, Michael Brown and Tamir Rice did not come home to their parents and Eric Garner did not return to his family. New York City police officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, killed on duty, did not go home at the end of the day. Along with Walter Scott and the individuals in these other notable incidents, the FBI reports that almost <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/11/11/police-killings-hundreds/18818663/">100 African-Americans</a> and <a href="http://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-releases-2013-statistics-on-law-enforcement-officers-killed-and-assaulted">30 officers</a> are killed each year (in recent years) during police-citizen encounters.</p>
<p>Right now, it might seem impossible to eliminate the us-versus-them mindset that permeates society, but optimistically, I do not think that we are at an impasse. </p>
<p>What we have to do is look at a trait that all humans already possess: empathy. </p>
<h2>Empathy: A basic human tool with great potential</h2>
<p>Empathy has evolved in humans and other mammals over <a href="http://www.emory.edu/LIVING_LINKS/empathy/">time</a>. It allows us to understand the emotions of others and share in those emotions. Expressing empathy has many advantages: it increases cooperation (we like to help each other out when we feel that we are understood), reduces stress and it may even feel good. </p>
<p><a href="http://ijo.sagepub.com/content/early/2012/11/26/0306624X12465411.full.pdf">Recent research</a> has examined the role of empathy in police-community relations and reveals that when officers listened and expressed understanding during their interactions with citizens, they were more likely to be trusted, legitimized and deemed effective in protecting the community. </p>
<p>Citizens with whom police empathized were also more likely to believe that the outcome of their interaction was deserved and fair, even if they eventually received a ticket. This was especially true for those who were highly emotional during and after their encounter with the police.</p>
<p>A lack of empathy can also have many undesirable consequences. </p>
<p>Neuroscientist Tania Singer <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v439/n7075/full/nature04271.html">shows</a> that empathy is greatly reduced when someone believes that he or she has been treated unfairly (especially males). Subsequently, the individual is much less likely to cooperate with the person who has wronged them. This is easily translated to findings from police studies which show that when police are unempathetic during encounters, citizens believe that they were treated unfairly. </p>
<p>Over time, the belief that the police are unfair and untrustworthy leads citizens to begin to view the police as less legitimate, making cooperation less likely. What remains from these encounters is an us-versus-them mentality with police on one side and citizens on the other. It is hard to imagine a world where public safety is achieved this way.</p>
<h2>Walter Scott’s action warrants understanding</h2>
<p>It might be hard to imagine why someone would run from the police, as Walter Scott apparently did, or resist arrest or disobey an officer’s orders. An understanding of the history of police-community relations is required in order to comprehend recent incidents. Running from the police is not acceptable, but it is understandable.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78074/original/image-20150415-31660-13hfeyq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78074/original/image-20150415-31660-13hfeyq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78074/original/image-20150415-31660-13hfeyq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78074/original/image-20150415-31660-13hfeyq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78074/original/image-20150415-31660-13hfeyq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78074/original/image-20150415-31660-13hfeyq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78074/original/image-20150415-31660-13hfeyq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/78074/original/image-20150415-31660-13hfeyq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Screen.
capture of video of shooting of Walter Scott</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Shooting_of_Walter_Scott.jpeg">The Guardian</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>Walter Scott was stopped for a broken taillight – something both white and black drivers have likely experienced, but this type of zero-tolerance policing is much more common in poor, minority communities. </p>
<p>The video of Eric Gardner being questioned by officers for selling loose cigarettes on Staten Island demonstrates that over-policing (perhaps with little empathizing) ignores a long history of abuse and neglect in poor minority communities. </p>
<p>One must put oneself in another person’s shoes to understand the fear and dread that is felt when being stopped by a police officer. It takes a little bit of empathizing to understand the challenge of replacing a taillight without money to do so or to pay the ticket that is sure to come.</p>
<p>We can criticize Walter Scott’s actions and even his failure to pay child support which led to his warrant. Or we can put ourselves in his shoes – or in those of someone like him – and try to understand what it’s like being in tough times and why we too might try to evade the police. </p>
<p>Alice Goffman, in her book <a href="http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/O/bo18039324.html">On the Run</a>: Fugitive Life in an American City writes that “The police and courts become dangerous to interact with” …leading citizens to “avoid dangerous places, people, and interactions entirely.” </p>
<p>This is all too common. Without understanding the context in which many people live, there is little hope we can emerge from these incidents as a stronger society.</p>
<h2>Taking simple steps to start</h2>
<p>Simple steps, such as listening and communicating, can help transform stressful situations into community-building exercises. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.scholarsstrategynetwork.org/content/role-empathy-crime-policing-and-justice">Police training</a> should take seriously the importance of empathy and incorporate it into their core curricula. Officers should be trained to recognize and respond appropriately to concerns expressed by citizens and communities. </p>
<p>Such a process should not replace traditional safety and enforcement training, but rather should be a focal point of additional <a href="http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2014/05/empathy-police-training">training</a>. </p>
<p>As David Fallon, a deputy chief of police in Somerville, MA, told a reporter:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Officers need to have empathy today — that’s what society expects from officers and it’s what they deserve, and it’s what people need.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Civilians should also be encouraged to empathize with officers. Police jobs are potentially dangerous and officers face difficult decisions about the use of force. </p>
<p>It is through this mutual understanding that we can build a society together that is less dangerous, less violent and more equitable.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40041/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chad Posick does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Empathy, a trait built into the human character, can be taught and practiced by both police and communities to improve relations.Chad Posick, Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice, Georgia Southern UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.