Police Brutality: How Do We Solve It?
Never before since the
Civil Rights era have demonstrations relating to racism, prejudice, and
discrimination within the United States been on the scale that the George Floyd
protests are on. These protests have even sparked protests in other countries
across the globe; although those are a bit redundant, as the issue that started
these protests only afflict the United States. At the core of these protests,
at least in their original form, was a plea to once and for all
address and solve police brutality within the United States. Many have debated
and asked, “How exactly do we solve police brutality? What does it require?” Is police brutality a problem we even have known methods to combat and use?
Well, the answer is actually yes, we do, and the solution involves a
combination of community policing, transparency, and demilitarization.
There is no doubt that the police in the United States have
a problem with violence and misconduct. In the United States, the amount of
police homicides per ten million people is about 47.(1) That might
not sound a lot, but it is actually the highest rate of police homicide in the
entire developed world. If you want to broaden the area to the Western World,
the United States would still be number one, or in the top ten, depending on if
you include Latin America. Other sources put the rate at 69 police homicides
per million, with half of said homicides concentrated among African-Americans.(2) Truly and undeniably, there is a problem with policing in the United States.
But
where does this problem find its roots? Why is it that there is a seemingly
institutional blight of police misconduct within the United States? The major
causes are a lack of accountability and militarization.
Accountability
is a major must-have for every institution, government, commerce,
religion, and policing. If you cannot hold the people with authority over you
accountable, what empowers you to rid them of corruption? That is an important
question to ask and apply to why accountability matters among our police. A big
obstacle to accountability lies in the doctrine of qualified immunity.
While
qualified immunity is not inherently bad (as it protects some public officials
from unfounded litigation, permitting them to carry on their duties as the suit
is dealt with), it has become a major obstacle in addressing police brutality
as courts have misused the precedential nature of the American justice system
to manipulate how certain actions are defined as unconstitutional. In the case
of Derek Chauvin,
a court could have simply acquitted him of his charges by stating that kneeling
on someone’s neck is not unconstitutional, disregarding the greater criminality
of the action. The abolition of qualified immunity, or just the reconstruction
of the concept, would be instrumental in expanding the accountability of police
officers.
The
second obstacle to accountability rests in the literal lack of accountability
police officers have on the field. In the case of Freddie Gray’s death, the
investigation following his death was complicated by a lack of evidence that
the officers involved had caused Gray’s fatal injuries, as there was nothing to
prove that Gray was subjected to misconduct while being transported. That lack
of evidence complicated the subsequent trial considerably, and highlighted a
severe fault in the Baltimore Police Department’s conduct.
We
are finally brought to the second issue root of police brutality, which is
militarization. Police officers have increasingly become a nearly paramilitary
force in the United States, with access to heavy arms, armored vehicles, and use
of military tactics becoming much less relegated to the realm of SWAT teams. This
has led to a policing institution that is more overtly aggressive in its
conduct, a circumstance that has led to a high amount of “justifiable” homicides
in recent years. While it is necessary that some police officers use paramilitary
methods for aggressive perpetrators, the fact that such weaponization and
training has extended beyond units such as SWAT teams, or rather instead of
being a federal agency’s responsibility (like the FBI), is problematic and unnecessary.
(I even have anecdotal evidence of this, as I attended a junior police academy
in the summer of 2015, and was “trained” very much like how soldiers are, with drill
sergeant-like figures, regimental orders, intensive physical activity, militaristic
discipline, et cetera.)
Now,
we are getting a bit lengthy here, so I will begin to bring everything
together. With the problem outlined, the sources exposed, we now must ask: how do
we solve everything? Well, certainly, I can tell you the answer does not
lie in depolicing or any radical solutions like that, which is a measure 84%
of Americans oppose.(3) Let us take this one at a time like we did with first outlining the causes of
the problem.
Accountability,
two roots: abuse of qualified immunity, and lack of transparency on duty. For
the former, the solution simply rests in either reforming the doctrine to be
less dependent on or manipulative of precedential justice, or rather a complete
abolition of the doctrine and making officials fully accountable for their
actions. On duty, transparency can be expanded with one simple method:
surveillance, commonly achieved through body cams. When discussing a lack of
transparency as an issue, I highlighted the case of Freddie Gray, where a lack
of evidence of misconduct occurring in a police van complicated an
investigation. Are cameras effective though? The evidence seems to say yes. A study
conducted in 2016 showed that, in areas where police wore body cameras,
use-of-force rates decreased nearly 40%;(4) in Baltimore, where
Freddie Gray’s death occurred, body cameras were instituted later the same
year, and since then the uses-of-force and numbers of complaints have decreased
20% and 50% respectively.(5)
And how do we demilitarize police, resolving the issue of aggressive tactics within officials officially referred to as “peace officers”? In my research, community policing, deescalation, and police science training seems to be the most effective. Community policing involves restructuring large, bureaucratic policing systems into segmented, streamlined bureaus that operate on a community basis; deescalation operates as a preventative measure towards using force; and police science uses empiricism and methodical research to determine the best policing strategies, and can proliferate non-violent tactics within a department. One agency that has taken comprehensive steps to implement reforms and community policing within their jurisdiction is the Austin Police Department, which implemented a community policing policy in 2016.(6) Since then, Austin has seen a slight decrease in its crime rates, an increase in community support for its police officers, with the only matters complicating community policing being a lack of time for officers to properly engage with civilians and to balance responsibilities.
Enacting such reforms would not be difficult, in fact. Per research conducted by the Pew Research Center, support for reform among police themselves is quite high.(7) 66% of officers support body cameras, a good half of officers say body cameras would improve officer conduct, 85% say that police science education is important for officers, and 88% show some confidence in the concepts of community policing. The legislative action shown in recent weeks by federal and state officials also shows that our policy-makers are, too, in line with police reform and are likely willing to push for community policing (however, there is no hard evidence for this).
So, there you have it. The issue with policing in the United States, a crisis fanned by a lack of accountability and excess of militarism, has three solutions that can be, and have been, enforced: body-worn cameras and other personal surveillance for transparency, a redefinition or reconstruction of legal immunity, and community policing. Where these measures have been enforced, officer misconduct and crime have decreased. Where these measures have been enforced, approval of policing has increased. Evidence shows that these reforms are and can be conducive, far more than radical measures conceptualized in recent weeks (such as Defund the Police) could ever be. If and when we bring these methods together and put them in play on a large-scale within our country, we will see change, the change people have fought for over decades.
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