The Problem with
Police
Preliminary Remarks
The current discussion about police and what is reported as
racism and police brutality is largely based upon two incidents involving six
officers currently under the microscope.
Needless to say, there has been a history of isolated incidents of this
nature in the past that has led to the buildup of frustration and tension. Incidents of this nature in the distant past
have not been so isolated. The cell
phone videos are clearly damaging. They
may or may not be the whole story in either or both incidents. Please keep in mind that there are 686,659
other sworn police officers that didn’t make the news in the last month. Remember also that over the last 20 years an
average of 170 police officers have been killed in the line of duty each
year. There has been no rioting.
That does not mean that there isn’t a problem, but fixing
the problem by focusing on the police is like swatting a mosquito while
overlooking the swamp where the mosquitoes breed.
We need to remember that both incidents under a microscope
come as a result of a called-in complaint to the police about a crime and
suspicious activity. Though both
incidents will be handled as having occurred under “color of law,” one of the
incidents might have been a personal attack.
The problem we face is a complex, complicated one. What has taken us years to create cannot be
successfully remedied overnight but will take as long to fix as it did to
create it. There are no quick fixes.
I loved my policing career.
I would not go back and do it today for anything and I cannot in good
conscience encourage young people to enter the field today. It’s a shame because we need good people in
the profession. I don’t know of any of
my retired friends who feel differently.
Introduction
I want first of all to get my biases out of the way. Crime theorists, criminologists, fall into
two major camps: Classical Theorists and Positivist or Positive Theorists. In very general terms, a classical
criminologist believes people commit crimes as a result of free will. It is sometimes referred to as Choice
Theory. To them, crime is a choice. The Positive Criminology camp says that a
person commits crimes because of influences beyond that person’s control. This theory includes biological,
psychological, economic, sociological, intellectual, learning, medical, and
other perspectives of crime causation.
They espouse crime in terms of Strain, Learning, Social Control,
Conflict, Radical, Marxist, Critical, Social Justice Theories to name only a
few.
I fall into the Classical or Choice Theory camp, though I
believe choice is affected to some degree by positivist influences.
Three things need to exist at the same time in order for a
crime to occur: a motivated offender, a suitable target, and the lack of a
capable guardian. Remove any one of the
three and you will not have a crime.
Period. This simple little
equation is important because most police and citizen interactions occur
because some violation of the law has occurred or has been reported as having
taken place or is taking place at the time of the report.
Secondly, police candidates have normally gone through a
very intense screening process that includes physical testing, a medical
examination, psychological screening including appropriate sections of the MMPI
and a one-on-one psychological examination, an oral board composed of seasoned
police officers, credit history check, a criminal history check, and an
extensive background investigation.
Until 20 or 30 years ago, a single experimental use of marijuana could
disqualify an applicant from consideration as a police officer. Some departments disqualified applicants from
consideration for visible tattoos. This,
of course has changed over the years and employment of officers who have
visible tattoos and have a history of recreational use of marijuana is not at
all uncommon. There is a reason for
this, which will be discussed later.
Next, I believe it is important to understand that today’s
police academies run anywhere from six months to a year, and focus more on classroom
education than hands-on training. They
receive between 120 and 150 classroom hours (the equivalent of 8 to 10 college
credit hours) of topics related to criminal law (basic criminal law, statutory
law, criminal procedure, evidence).
Police officers are often left to fend for themselves in the courtroom
and frequently face defense attorneys in the process. At the very least, they need to be able to
communicate effectively with prosecuting attorneys. Their academy training, which lasts anywhere
from six months to a year, is generally followed by lengthy amount of time,
anywhere from six months to two years, with a field training officer. Occasionally, academy training takes place at
a community college or university campus.
Regardless of where their academy is, the training would be the
equivalent of 70 to 140 credit hours, sufficient for an associate or bachelor
degree. Seldom are those degrees
conferred upon academy graduates because their classroom experience is treated
as training and not education. Unlike
many other “jobs,” the probationary period for a police officer can last up to
a couple of years or more. That means
they can be terminated at any time for any reason without the rights that are
given to officers off probation. States
require annual re-training of around 40 classroom hours. Annual or bi-annual recertifications are
required for various levels of First-Aid, firearms proficiency, radar/laser
operation, breath alcohol testing,
Police departments typically foot the bill for an officer’s
training, though some states allow a person to put himself/herself through an
academy. When a department puts an
officer through an academy, that department will see no return on its
investment for at least a year even if the academy training is only six months
long.
Contrary to popular opinion today, there is not systemic
(universal, complete, total) racism in policing today. Such a position is insulting and demeaning. Indeed, there are those in the profession who
tarnish the badge by acting on their racist ideas, but they do not represent
today’s police officers, their command structures, or their organizations. Racism is no more prevalent in law
enforcement than it is education, medicine, communications, journalism,
masonry, religion, law, plumbing, accounting, banking, carpentry, or any other
profession, vocation, or occupation.
Finally, it is easy to look at statistics and point out that
blacks commit a disproportionate amount of street crime. However, race has nothing to do with
crime. More than anything else, crime is
an outcome of absentee fathers, poverty, and lack of education or vocational
training. Put whites in those same
conditions and you will find that criminal and deviant behavior is
indiscriminate. You cannot merely place
people into President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and expect crime to go
away.
The Problem
I.
Part of the problem with policing today is the
megalopolis. The fact of the matter is
that as our cities have grown, government has become too big. In particular, local government in some
cities has become too big. In the
process, we have forgotten the basic foundation of modern policing and of
organizational structure. The basic foundation
of modern policing has its origin in the Peelian (Sir Robert Peele) principle
that the police are the people and people are the police. Effective organizational structure requires
chain of command, span of control, and unity of command. The span of control has become unwieldly and
totally out of control in large cities.
And in some cases, the principle of unity of command (a subordinate
reporting to only one supervisor) has been violated.
The development of the megalopolis has led to a dysfunctional
police organization. There is greater
accountability in smaller agencies because of the closeness of the top
commanders in the department to the officers on the department and the
community as well as the governing officials in that community. For example, a police chief in a community of
30,000 citizens knows the name of every police officer on the department. That same police chief has an open-door
policy to the public. Likewise, the
mayor, city manager or administrator probably knows every police officer
(probably every employee on the city payroll) and also has an open-door policy
to the public. A police chief with 500
officers and 50 civilians will know the names of command officers perhaps down
to the sergeant level and supervisors of the civilian staff. This police chief will probably refer to a
sergeant as “what’s his name.” The
probability of a civilian walking into the office of that police chief is slim.
All of this begs the question as to why there is a New York
City Police Department, a Los Angeles Police Department, a Detroit Police
Department, an Atlanta Police Department, a Dallas Police Department,
Minneapolis Police Department, and so forth.
It also begs the question as to why there are mayors for New York City,
Los Angeles, Detroit, Atlanta, Dallas, Minneapolis, and so on. Some of these cities’ populations overshadow
the population of some states in the nation.
Their jobs are so big that they are removed from the public and
surrounded by deputy mayors, assistant mayors, executive assistants, directors,
and walls. Regardless of city size, mayors
and their functional equivalents are more concerned with influences outside
their city than they are directly with the city and its employees. Their roles are political. They look to state and federal governments
for resources. Their associations and
relationships are with other mayors, governors, and legislators for the benefit
of their cities. The real work of
running a city rests with a mayor’s subordinates. The only time the mayor of New York City has
knowledge of a police officer is when that officer shoots and kills
someone. It should not be so. Some of these mayoral jobs are such that they
eclipse the jobs of governors and have political clout that matches that of the
President of the United States.
Likewise, police chiefs in large departments spend their
time coordinating with other city department heads, mayors and deputy mayors, other
police chiefs, and lobby legislators for resources. Day-to-day operation of law enforcement
agencies with more than a couple dozen officers, rests with deputy or assistant
police chiefs, undersheriffs, and operational and administrative
commanders. The rubber meets the road
with shift commanders, sergeants, and lieutenants. Police chiefs in larger departments are seen
at public functions and ceremonies and speak on camera when a police officer
has been killed in the line of duty or has been fired for using deadly force.
II.
Years ago, a major shift in the way police could do their
work, identified as community policing and problem-oriented policing, were
supported by leading policing scholars such as Robert Trojanowicz and Herman
Goldstein. Many communities adopted
these policing strategies, primarily on a limited scale and met with success
where it was adopted and applied. The
premise behind these models was that it was a proactive approach focusing on
crime prevention and intervention and relying upon the community for input when
policing had to resort to reactive criminal apprehension. Both community-oriented and problem-oriented
policing relied upon (1) the police as being part of the community, (2) the
police identifying concerns with citizens within the community (not just crime)
in the community, (3) and marshaling resources to solve the problems identified
by the community. The net result was a
reduction and sometimes the relocation of crime.
Several obstacles stood, and continue to stand in the way of
these two linked strategies of Community Policing and Problem Oriented Policing,
which are listed below.
·
Implementation of these strategies was adopted
by police departments in a limited way, assigning only some officers to the
task of community policing.
·
The federal government pumped hundreds of
millions of dollars into community policing activities. Departments were awarded millions of dollars
to hire and support officers dedicated solely to community policing, but had to
guarantee that state and local governments would continue to fund those
officers once grant money was expended.
Law enforcement agencies were incapable of finding the funding after the
federal dollars dried up and therefore either did not apply for funding,
refused funding that was extended, or failed to keep their commitment of
continuing the funding. Therefore,
community policing activities were either short-lived or non-existent in many
communities. This is not to say that it
does not continue to exist in many other communities.
·
Police officers saw themselves in the role of
crime-fighters and law enforcers as opposed to community problem-solvers.
·
Since these strategies focused on community and
social problems and not necessarily crime problems, officers assigned to these
strategies had to have a full range of knowledge of resources available to
address the problems and have access to those resources.
·
Crime, ranging from petty offenses to major
felonies continued to take a major part of police departments’ time and
resources, thus diverting proactive community policing tactics to reactive crime
fighting.
·
The individual crime victim views his or her
victimization as a crime deserving of being solved while at the same time a
sense of hopelessness of it ever being resolved exists.
·
The inherent lack of trust between the police
and the community (and the community and the police) persisted since community
policing is a process, not an end that takes place within a short period of
time.
·
Community members where problem-solving or
community policing was not implemented wondered where their community officers
were. Why, they asked, had they been
left out of the mix?
·
The definition of community had been too narrow
and had not been expanded to include the business community in particular.
·
Police officers who were assigned to community
policing were viewed by other officers as not real police officers, yet
community officers/problem-oriented policing officers required as much street
smarts, if not more, as beat officers.
·
Problem-oriented policing and community policing
are time-consuming, require the personal involvement of the officer, and often
becomes as emotionally draining as it is personally rewarding.
III.
A social-political movement to discredit police has led to
decimation of the ranks of police forces.
In today’s climate, police are of the opinion that they are an open
target. This opinion is validated by the
fact that officers were murdered by ambush at a rate of 7.6 officers per year
during the Obama Administration compared to an average of 3.8 officers per year
prior to his administration. (It has
fallen below three officers per year in the first three years of the Trump
Administration.) This social-political movement
takes the form of progressivism and so-called social justice (a subset of
Critical, Radical, and Marxist Theories) and comes from national leaders
accusing police departments of systemic racism and painting police with a broad
brushstroke as a result of isolated incidents.
Police are further vilified by “journalists” who have taken it upon
themselves to report opinions and facts not in evidence – and never will be –
instead of known, verified facts. Just
as the university is the essence of publish or perish, some “journalists” look
to the next story as being their Pulitzer Prize winning scoop. Consequently, we have trial by media and
settle for conjecture rather than truth.
Interpretation of the First Amendment is partially responsible for this
as we have decided to sacrifice impartial investigations for the public right
to know bits and pieces of information that when not properly assembled present
a false picture of reality. But it is
what it is.
For example, suggesting that a police officer has had 18 or
19 citizen complaints filed against him does not mean that a finding of “guilt”
was ever determined in those complaints.
It simply means that 18 or 19 people complained about a police
officer. As a police executive I have
had people claim police brutality because an officer tugged on the trunk lid of
the complainant’s car or approached the complainant’s car from the passenger
side. Both are perfectly acceptable,
defensive practices by police. If you
want have a heart-stopping experience in a training exercise, approach a car
not knowing that a trainer is in the trunk of the car who pops out and fires a
blank as you walk past the trunk. I have
a whole list of how police officers are murdered when they approach stopped
vehicles.
“What about the positive recognitions police get?” you
ask. There is a universal saying among
police that goes like this: A single “ah, sh--!” wipes out an entire page of
“atta boys.” Thanks in part to the media
today, it’s true.
In the meantime, the entertainment industry paints an
unrealistic ideal of policing and frequently glorifies conduct that would get a
police officer fired and prosecuted. “Go
ahead punk. Make my day!” Young police officers see that type of conduct
and perceives it as what the community wants as they cheer for the officer who
steps over the line. It’s called mixed
messages. There isn’t a police officer
out there with a little experience who hasn’t thought that he or she would like
to dispense a little curbside justice just once. I once had a county court judge who privately
told me that the worst scene in “Dirty Harry” was when Inspector Callahan
tossed his badge into the pond.
Dissatisfaction with the job has led to officers prematurely
resigning their commissions. Negative
perceptions of police have discouraged otherwise qualified applicants from
applying for police positions. Police
departments across the country are begging for people to apply for police
positions. Consequently, police
departments are lowering their hiring standards. While there are still good police applicants,
this lowering of standards for admission to the ranks of police departments has
led to continued and even enhanced complaints against officers.
·
Additionally, the lowering of standards has led
to the abandonment of encouraging officers with higher education to apply for
police positions and to discourage present officers from attaining higher
education. This is in spite of the fact
that officers with at least some college education draw fewer citizen
complaints, use less sick leave, and tend to be better community problem-solvers. (The use of sick leave is an indicator of
stress-coping mechanisms used by police.)
·
Lowering of standards not only applies to the discouragement
of higher education, but also affects areas of physical fitness,
emotional/mental fitness, background fitness, and intellectual fitness.
·
Isolated incidents of police misconduct,
brutality, or racism painted all police officers as unworthy of trust.
·
The real threat of domestic and international
terrorism has led to the militarization of police. The reality of the Alfred Murrah Building,
the first World Trade Center attack, and the 9/11 attacks, and various assaults
on military bases and civilian sites has pushed police departments to be ready
to respond to serious threats at a moment’s notice. This militarization of police has further led
to the negative perceptions of police.
·
Recent utilization of police to enforce physical
distancing during the COVID-19 has muddied the waters of police responsibility
both in the eyes of the public and the police.
Use of police to enforce, cite, and begin prosecution of people for
violation of what is seen as personal liberty serves only to alienate the
public from the police.
IV.
The country is moving in the direction of a national police
force. Eventually, the public will have
to decide if they want to maintain local control of policing or if they want to
turn it over to the federal government.
This prediction was made over 30 years ago by former FBI Behavioral
Science Unit leader and University of Virginia Professor William Tafoya. A national police force will simply
exacerbate the fiasco of the megalopolis police departments. In contrast, these major cities and their
police departments should be broken up into smaller towns and villages that
would be more responsive to local needs, the same way that independent school
districts serve local communities. Continuous
use of police precincts for communities is insufficient as there are still
layers above precinct commanders. Of
course, no one will buy into this proposal as mayors of large cities will balk
at giving up their power and there will be associated costs to breaking up
large cities and their services into smaller geopolitical service areas. Implementing this approach would also require
close communication and coordinating with neighboring agencies.
Law enforcement agencies need to hold the line on hiring qualifications
for sworn police positions.
Problem Oriented Policing and Community Policing need to be
fully implemented and embraced, both by police and communities.
Whereas police abuse of members of minority communities in
the past most likely was due to racism, today’s officer comes from a much
different generation and mindset.
Today’s officer was raised on the concept of judging a person by the
content of character not skin color.
Again, that is not to say that racism does not exist within the ranks of
law enforcement, but it is not the most likely cause of abuses we see.
Policing is a stressful job.
Whereas police are killed in the line of duty at a rate of about 170
officers a year, you can double that number of officers who die from suicide on
an annual basis. The average age for a
police officer dying from a heart attack is 47.1 years of age. The average age for a first heart attack for
a male in the general population is 65.
The Harvard School of Public Health estimates that a police officer is
30 to 70 times more likely to die from a heart attack than the general
population. Half the police officers who
die from a heart attack die several hours or even two or three days following
an emotionally disturbing call. Their
study also shows that officers are as much as 51 times more likely to die from
a heart attack during a pursuit.
It has been difficult for a few reasons to get psychological
or emotional help to police, yet stresses build in police officers. Suicide, divorce, and alcoholism are typical
coping mechanisms for police. It would
not be at all surprising to see police lashing out at people they perceive as
being the cause of their stress. Keep in
mind that police aren’t called to watch over garden parties, but deal with a
whole host of ugliness day in and day out.
The only time a police officer sees a professional mental health person
is at screening during the application process, following an officer involved
shooting, and occasionally following an especially gruesome crime scene. Yet stress is the result of a gradual buildup
of negative as well as positive experiences.
Inappropriate police action, brutality, comes at the end of the rope,
most likely when someone displays “contempt of cop.” If you want to reduce the possibility that a
police officer will engage in explosive behavior, succumb to suicide, divorce,
or alcoholism, or won’t see a situation for what it really is, then send every
officer at least once a year to a mental health professional for evaluation
and/or treatment.
Disbanding police departments or handing over certain
services to other agencies, social service agencies in particular, is a
non-starter. Police already receive tons
of training in responding to, recognizing, and intervening in mental health
crises. Mentally or emotionally
disturbed individuals frequently become violent and unless social workers are
armed, they will become the victims.
Police departments in most communities are already the only
24/7 agency to respond to non-emergency and emergency calls. Fracturing police department responsibilities
will simply increase the number of other agencies that will have to go 24/7.
If you want to focus on crime then you should focus on the
family unit. There should be no absentee
fathers. Absentee fathers, regardless of
race, is a recipe for disaster. Yes,
there are many families that do just fine without a father figure in the
family, but those are the exceptions.
The other real culprit is poverty, not race. If there is one thing that will help reduce
street crime it is the reduction of poverty.
President Lyndon Johnson had the right idea but the wrong approach. You don’t simply dole out resources for
nothing in return and expect positive results.
Understand that government cannot, and should not, solve
everybody’s problems. In addition,
solving the problem we now face with the rift between communities and the
police will not be resolved overnight or over the period of a year or two. You don’t turn a tractor-trailer rig 90
degrees traveling at 70 mph on a dime.
Don’t assume that because a police officer did something
that on the surface appears to be wrong that he or she actually did something
wrong. Even cell phone videos don’t tell
the entire truth. I remember the
magician on television who made a building disappear simply by moving the
camera angle. When police began wearing
body cameras, they were cautioned that their body cameras would not tell the
whole story.
Police will enforce the laws we want enforced. If you want to reduce interactions between
police and the public, eliminate the laws that lead to those interactions. Some facts need to be remembered. (1) Crimes are defined by those in
power. (2) Those in power will define
crime in a light that is favorable to them.
(3) Street crimes are much easier to solve than white collar
crimes. (4) White collar crimes are
committed by those who have access to money and power. (5) Street crimes are committed by those not
in power, but present a sense of power to those who commit them. (6) Street crimes typically have immediate,
visible consequences. (7) There are a
disproportionate number of blacks charged with street crimes compared to whites
who are charged with street crimes. (8)
White collar crimes tend to be committed more by whites than blacks.
America is going to have to decide exactly what she wants
out of our correctional system: revenge, restitution, or reform. Likewise, America is going to have to
determine what to do about its addiction problem, not just to substances, but
also gambling, pornography, domestic abuse, violent media, and so on. Frankly, our correctional system contributes
to recidivism.
The criminal justice war on drugs has been a failure. We need to understand why. The medical war on drugs has been a
failure. We need to understand why. The social war on drugs has been a
failure. We need to understand why.
Conclusion
As noted earlier, the problem we now have is complicated and
complex. There are no quick fixes, but
my fear is that we will create some Presidential or Congressional Blue Ribbon
Commission that will come up (with good intentions) with quick fixes that have
nothing to do with the underlying causes.
A thousand-page document will be created that will make the commission
feel good, that a handful of scholars will read, and thankfully will sit on
shelves collecting dust, never to be implemented. A critique will follow by those scholars who
read it. Least of all, I hope we don’t
continue to have knee-jerk reactions like executive orders.
But if there is a commission, I want to be on it or at least
contribute to it.
