Ferguson Police and Racial Discrimination
Preface
Before I begin, please understand that I am not defending Officer Wilson in the shooting death of the young black man in Ferguson. None of us has all the facts.
Introduction
The Reverend Al Sharpton and others in their rush to judgment in the events that recently took place in Ferguson, Missouri, were quick to note that the Ferguson Police Department is racist. Racism had to be behind the shooting of the unarmed black man and it had to be stopped! Oh, that it could be so simple. And of course now, as I earlier predicted, the Justice Department has begun a civil rights investigation into the Ferguson Police Department. No doubt they will find complaints. Every police department receives citizen complaints about police behavior. The Ferguson Police Department acknowledges their complaints openly. Everyone should keep in mind though that even if there is a finding that discriminatory practices are tolerated or even encouraged in this department, that does not mean that Officer Wilson holds those same prejudicial thoughts or engages in racially biased practices. Also, even if there is a finding that Wilson engages in discriminatory practices it does not necessarily hold true that racial bias was a factor in this incident.
Discussion
Commentators have correctly noted that the predominately black community of Ferguson (67%) is policed by a predominately white department. Only three of the 54 or so police officers in that community are black (about 5.5%). Reverend Sharpton and others point to that statistic as evidence of racism. There are three primary flaws in this reasoning. First, in order for there to be more black officers on a department, more black men and women must apply for those open positions. Secondly, in order for the black men and women to be hired on police departments they must meet minimum hiring standards, which in most police departments is a high school diploma, a background clear of criminal wrongdoing, and reasonably good health. Thirdly, Sharpton and others assume that they can read the minds of others. I’ll not discuss the third flaw.
I.
Let’s begin with high school education rates. According to Education Secretary Arne Duncan, a record 80% of students graduated from high school in 2102. Nationally, black students had a 69% graduation rate. Eighty-nine percent of Missouri white students graduated from high school while 73% of black Missouri high school students graduated: rates well above the national norm (governing.com). Moving on to higher education, of students graduating from college in the 2011-2012 school year, nationally 73.7% of the associate degrees went to whites while 10.9% went to blacks; of bachelor degrees awarded, 77.5% went to whites and 9.0% went to blacks. The U.S. Census Bureau estimated that 77.7% of the 2013 U.S. population is white and 13.2% is black (quickfacts.census.gov).
For various reasons that are well beyond time and space here, blacks already find themselves at an education level disadvantage. When you consider the fact that more and more police departments are requiring at least two years of college, blacks self-eliminate from the competitive hiring applicant pool.
By now, some of you are on the same page with me, but others are beginning to think that I am merely making excuses to justify racist practices. Please bear with me as I am well aware that population distribution is not the (only) factor at work here. However, you should know that there is a long-standing and continuing debate in law enforcement circles about the need for higher education in the profession. Some even wonder if policing is a vocation rather than a profession. My comments here are not about this debate, but I should point out that policing has become even more technical and legalistic since a published article I wrote over 20 years ago about the need for higher education for those entering the law enforcement profession. Meanwhile, one must ask if we should require police to be able to read, write, and speak the English language in order to effectively communicate on paper, with the public, over police radios, with government and industry officials, and in court. Should police be able to do simple arithmetic or even more complex math to understand how breathalizers or police radar and laser speed monitoring devices work? Should we require police to be able to take precise measurements at crime and accident scenes when it is impossible to use a tape measure? Would police benefit from being able to communicate in a second language such as Spanish in an ever increasing Hispanic population in the United States? Would police and the public benefit from police being able to communicate with the deaf? Should we expect police to use critical thinking and problem-solving skills in such mundane tasks as interacting with the public, crime-solving and crime prevention? These are the skills, knowledge, and abilities that are at work in our post-secondary institutions of higher education.
II.
I have gone beyond the reach of my initial intent, but the above comments are relevant to the question of alleged racism as they point to a glaring problem in hiring minorities, which goes to my second point, which is self-selection.
Any person making a career choice must weigh the pros and cons of career paths. Indeed, in many cases the choice is not between two or more good options, but is often a choice of lesser options, if any. Sometimes, the best scenario is between a good or bad options, but often it is either no choice or a choice between two or more poor options. Police jobs are highly competitive in many markets. No longer is a police job a poor option or a last choice. Policing has moved from the job that you took when you got out of the military because that was the only thing you were suited for, to the job you sought to move to in order to get off the assembly line, and finally to a career that positions you to assume a white collar profession. People now actually self-select policing and corrections careers. One must actually “want” the job and not look at it as a default paycheck.
I’ve made some anecdotal observations that have caused me to do some further research. As I taught criminal justice on the college level I saw black students again and again enrolling in college to play sports – primarily basketball. Education was secondary to sports for many of these first-time students. Please note that I said “many”, which means that there were others who were there for the education and truly excelled in their studies. Unfortunately, these students were outnumbered by the students who came to play basketball. In working with these students who came to play basketball I found that class schedules had to be arranged around practices and away games. Classes also had to be relatively easy and there had to be a sufficient number of credits in the course schedule to make the student a full-time student. (The same considerations for class schedules had to be made for white student athletes.) What I discovered was that most of these black students would have an abysmal first semester and would be placed on academic probation and would be academically dismissed after the second semester. We can have all sorts of discussion as to why these students made the choices they made and why they failed, but the bottom line is that these students made career choices (and not just sports) early on by choosing an option that appeared desirable but in all candor was a poor choice. They chose career paths they believed and/or had been led to believe were optimal for them.
Now, for the research, which is not exhaustive here, but is reflective of what is out there and is illustrative of my point. This is not a dissertation.
Research by Cynthia Gordy of the University of Central Florida showed that of the 2011 NCAA men’s basketball tournament teams, only 59% of the black players graduated compared to 91 percent of the white players. Richard Lapchick in reviewing the 2011-2012 bowl bound college football teams found that less than half of the black football student athletes graduated from college while all the schools graduated more than half of their white student athletes.
Now consider a study by the Clark Science Center of Smith College for the next part of the discussion. In 1949 there were no black NBA players. In 1958 the proportion of blacks in the NBA was proportionate to the general population and in 1998 77% of all pro basketball players were black. Lapchick (University of Central Florida, The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports, 2013) reported that 13% of professional basketball players in 2012 were white and 76.3% were black. According to the Clark Science Center, similar figures are found with the NFL. The first black football player in white professional football showed up in 1946. Proportion equality of blacks and whites in professional football to the general population was reached in 1960. By 1998 65% of all professional football players were black. Lapchick (University of Central Florida, The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports, 2013) reported in 2012 that 30.1% of NFL players were white and 66.3% of NFL players were black. Now, if you return to the fourth paragraph that I wrote here, you will see that the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that 77.7% of the 2013 U.S. population is white and 13.2% is black (quickfacts.census.gov).
Now, not every young black man wants to be a professional basketball or football player; however, professional sports serve as an unrealistic allure to many of these youth. A good research project would be to determine what percent of their respective racial backgrounds of young white men and young black men want to pursue professional sports as a career. Frankly, focusing on professional sports may distract us from the real discussion here, which is to ask why young black men and women are self-selecting preparation for other professions, professions they see as more beneficial to them than policing. Do they see policing as inherently discriminatory against their race? If so, wouldn’t a better option be to work toward employment in policing in order to serve as a catalyst for change in prejudicial practices? Do they see other career paths as more promising? Is there a greater allure to other careers than the “prestige” of law enforcement? Is it possible that young black men (and women) have a sense of hopelessness? If so, is it justified? If it is justified, then there are deeper societal problems than what goes on in a police department and we should not be pointing a judgment finger at police as the problem but pointing the finger at policing merely as a symptom of the problem. Until sufficient research is conducted into these areas of interest, we will not know, but in the meantime we do know that many young black men and women self-select out of pursuit of policing careers in spite of the fact that police departments actively recruit minorities and women. Just because they self-select out does not mean that any police department or any police officer demonstrates racial prejudice.
Conclusion
Meanwhile, it is safe to say that there are two primary reasons why we don’t see more minorities in law enforcement. Many simply do not meet minimum hiring requirements. There could be any number of reasons for this including a racially prejudiced educational system. Many who could meet the minimum hiring requirements self-select out of policing careers for what appears to be more enticing and lucrative pursuits. Stating that the police department is the source of discrimination completely misses the bigger point as to why. If there is discrimination then we should address the culturally systemic issues rather than say that the police are the problem. Biased policing is a symptom of the problem, not the problem. There is no doubt that there are police departments and police officers who engage is racially discriminatory practices, but to assume that a police department has not met its presumed quota of minorities because it is racially biased is simply ludicrous. Making such assertions without requisite evidence can only add to hostility and even stimulate and create racially discriminatory practices where there once may not have been any.
