Three New Books Discuss How to Confront and Reform Racist Policing

I suppose it's better to have career criminals out on the streets continuing to victimize society? We lived through that. It was called the seventies.

We need a much closer look at class and police enforcement as well as race. We need that not to dismiss the problems of racism but to make clear that reform of how police are trained and changes in the ways many communities encourage them to act can benefit all Americans.

I have cops and crooks in my family who were born and bred black and poor on the South Side of Chicago. My cop family have never forgotten who they were and where they came from in serving and protecting the innocent civilian majority. My crook family members have received the justice they deserve.

The two worst and the two best cops of my years were all black. While my black gangster godfather was by far my most meaningful and feared protector. Prison is the carefully carved colored exception to the 13th Amendment's abolition of slavery and involuntary servitude.

A blue badged uniformed licensed to deprive blacks of their life, liberty and pursuit of happiness no matter the color of the cop is the problem. Color is not a biological DNA genetic evolutionary fit human race species marker.

As long as large numbers of American voters retain racist attitudes that cause them to support politicians with racist policies, no reform can be safe. Fixing our institutions is not enough. We have to fix us. And we have to do it in the face of our unwillingness to admit that we have a problem. In other words, we're very much like addicts. Racism addicts.

Change comes hard. often close to impossible even with enlightened police and prosecutors in place as the systemic and historic approach to policing minorities has no accountability in place. As a crisis manager, i was brought in by the University of Cincinnati, after a campus police officer killed an unarmed African American man, Sam Dubose, in an off campus police stop. We undertook a complete review of the killing as it was on the officer's camera. It clearly showed that the officer was not justified, and it was a murder. Nevertheless, after two deadlocked trials, the murder case against Officer Tensing was dismissed just the other day. Not too different from all the other police involved killings of Black men in recent years. If there is no accountability, there is no change. Fast forward to Brooklyn and the scores wrongful conviction cases at the hands of the former Brooklyn DA, and NYPD officer Louis Scarcella. To this day, although 7 Scarcella cases have been overturned and hearings in many of these cases continue, the DA and NYPD fail to hold Scarcella, nor the Assistant DA's assigned to his cases, responsible. No responsibility, no justice. Prosecutors, police and most importantly, the judiciary must begin to hold those responsible for wrongdoing liable.

"Policing the black man"? What about "the black woman"? Only men commit crimes? This kind of misandry should not get publicity in the NYT.

We must have justice in our Police Departments. But we also must learn to create sound families. In other words, enough single parenting, which leads to no good end.

Mandate that any cash settlements come out of the police retirement fund.

Problem solved, budda bing - budda boom.

To differing degrees, all these books offer useful insights into this systemic and ugly problem with the promise of this nation to treat all with justice and fairness. To argue that the results we get presently are simply the fair outcomes of a system that focuses on offenders and if only they would stop offending...is nonsense.

Law enforcement resources are distributed and applied through the administrative and policy decisions of command authority typically drawn from the ranks they supervise. The mantra tends to be that the police know best what's needed...more of the same? Yet we're also a nation that supposedly exerts civilian control over the military and paramilitary forces that serve the public. It is the failure of politicians to exert this control that permits abusive, ineffective and racist policing practices to continue, rather than to be challenged as contemptible.

What to do? The proposal to quit using the law as a means of internal exile, i.e. burdening former offenders with various strictures that make it more likely for them to fail, most of all the imposition of job sanctions in various ways that make an honest living next to impossible, is a pertinent one. Offenders are part of and will remain part of society. Every effort should be made to make remaining a part of society easier, rather than more difficult. The costs to us of the present atavistic system all are too high to give in to the political hubris of beating up on the downtrodden.

Fifty years ago Dr. Martin Luther King said that we need a revolution of cultural values in the US. In my understanding these books and essays address exactly that. Fifty years later it still hasn't happened, how long do people of color wait peacefully for these changes? There is NO excuse for police, of any race, to continue to kill unarmed people. "First they came for the Jews.........."

Poverty is associated with higher crime rates regardless of race. Martin Luther King rightly associated economic justice with social justice. Today we have vastly higher economic inequality than when I grew up and less opportunity to raise yourself up by your bootstraps. I live in Albuquerque, a city of about a million, where whites are a minority, blacks are an even smaller minority, and the rest are mostly Hispanic. There's lots of poverty and lots of crime, especially crime associated with drugs. Our police kill more people per year in Albuquerque than the NYPD kills in NYC and are operating under an agreement with the Dept. of Justice. They are equal opportunity offenders. The dead are mostly homeless and/or mentally ill plus druggies and include whites (notably the 19 year old daughter of a judge). Albuquerque pays millions in wrongful death settlements.

My point is that it's not just racism that drives harsh policing. It's the self serving belief that the poor and unsuccessful are morally deficient and contemptible and are to blame for their problems. We are a more cruel society than the one I grew up in. CItizens aren't viewed as assets, education isn't seen as a public investment anymore. We've lost the idea of the Public Good and are short term thinkers that monetize everything. It doesn't end well. Civilization is a long game.

"Cops routinely hurt and humiliate black people because that is what they are paid to do,” Butler writes. “The police, as policy, treat African-Americans with contempt.”

What a lie and slander against the police in this country!

Several months ago, friend of mine who teaches with me and who is African American recounted with some humor about having been stopped at sunset in Rowlett, a largely white, fairly affluent suburb of Dallas. She was stopped in front of her house after running over a median several miles back. She said that the officer was polite and asked if she had been drinking. She replied no and explained (also politely) that her night vision had recently begun failing and that she had not seen the median and then had driven much slower, prompting the officer to follow her. He was clearly satisfied that she was not under the influence of alcohol or drugs and told her to be careful. So far so good; however, the important part of this story is what happened as the police officer questioned her. A second patrol car pulled up, lights flashing, and then a minute later a third patrol car pulled up, lights flashing. I don't know about others but when I see three police cars with lights ablaze, I immediately suspect that there must be a serious crime being investigated. When I mentioned this and how embarrassing it must have been in front of her neighbors, she admitted it was. I doubt that the officers gave a second thought to the embarrassment they were causing and I don't believe that was their intention. It was, however, the result. They simply heard "black female suspect possible DUI" and charged to the scene, without thinking of the possible damage to her reputation.

I lived in Germany for 3 decades, but also in Brazil, Canada and England. When i finally settled in the US 5 years ago, I worked for a retired Afro-American lawyer for a couple of months. He had worked as a lawyer here in CA for over 50 years including some high profile cases. I will never forgot what he said about the injustices in this system. He said America does not have a justice system, it has a CRIMINAL PROCEDURE SYSTEM. That is on the point! When you read a book like 'Just Mercy' it becomes so obviously clear that it all comes down to the question of money, on how much you are protected from this monster of called a justice system, where white supremacy is still upheld unless you have the educational and financial background. But even that would not protect you in some states in the south if you are seen as a direct threat to their notion of white supremacy.
The mentally ill, the very poor, the uneducated - they are all easy targets for this system of abhorring injustice, in the secret name of the profit - mass incarceration - and concealed racism.
And most abhorring of all, this system has put so many people to death posthumously proven innocent - I cannot comprehend the hate of the American society must feel towards its citizens - who are of course all poor and majority black - that we still have this abomination of death penalty still in place.

When someone as vile, and adept as channeling and spewing racism, as Donald Trump can ride a mere 78,000 uncast votes in Wisconsin (Milwaukee), Michigan (Detroit), and Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh and Philadelphia) to the presidency, the answer to the problem is staring the public in the face. Apathy plus suppression got us Trump. Determined voting at all levels of government can rid us of Trump and Trumpism.

In other words, as President Obama exhorted the American people in vain throughout 2016, "Don't boo, vote! Trump can't hear your boos. He can hear your votes."

Today the NYT reported that two black police officers are being charged with assault after the mentally ill man they were trying to take into custody died from their actions. The man was at least partially Native American, but appeared white.

From this can we assume the police are racist against white people? There are lots anecdotes alleging racism against blacks, but statistics don't show blacks being arrested or killed by police at rates in excess of their involvement in crime. Blacks account for half of all murders (the crime where we have the most complete data) so shouldn't we expect blacks to be half of those killed by police, half of those in jail, etc?

The biggest problem with the justice system is recidivism. Period.

When will we get to a place where we can stop discussing people's behavior and start discussing people's needs? The law, the justice system, none of it can address the root issue--people not having what they need. Let's reform the justice system so it can hurt people less, so it can be less racist in its operations and assumptions, but eventually we will be confronted with the reality that people don't have what they need.

During my 29 years as a San Francisco police officer, I saw overt racism diminish hugely. But having had African American partners along the way, I also saw how they (like me) could sometimes "lose it" given the continual chaos, conflict, and pain that officers encounter.

I believe that if a police department was made up entirely of oppressed minorities, those officers would have the occasional "breakdowns" that show up as excessive force and insensitivity.

I may have been naive, but I once asked a Zen Buddhist Priest and Scholar what he thought about the "right livelihood" tenant of Buddhist Practice and how it related to being a cop.

He struggled with it and mused over the tremendous opportunities the job offers for service, but ended up shaking his head finally and said something like, "It would be really tough to do that job--the gun, having to lock people up."

My take--after years of sometimes succeeding and sometimes failing to be a good cop, is that the job is SO difficult, that officers need to be supported constantly with good training, community support, and attention to keeping them as ready as they possibly can be, to do the right thing.

The many good bosses I had, the very decent partners, and the support of the Community helped me hugely. Some off-duty practice of staying intact helps as well--be it fitness training, family involvement, or spiritual practice.

As that Zen Priest said, "What an opportunity." And yes, it's sometimes really hard.

Here we go again slamming the police, the New York Times never misses an opportunity to do so.

The fact is, the vast majority of these people that are either shot or taken into custody are breaking the law. It's that simple, I have yet to be arrested or even harassed by a cop for doing nothing wrong.

Stop driving with broken equipment, outstanding warrants, selling drug paraphernalia, I bet it would stop many of these accusations instantly.

You cant expect the police to correct 400 years of racial conflict. No police officer I know intentionally treats people of color differently. Are there exceptions, maybe, but statistically insignificant I am sure and no more than in any other profession. Institutional police racism is not a major problem. What these books and so many other commentaries like them fail to recognize is that the police enforce the law. Period. They don't make it and they don't create the social problems they are meant to address. How can the police then be held accountable if certain parts of the population commit disproportionate amounts of crime. That is fact. Sad as it may be, black men do commit more of many crimes that result in more frequent encounters with the police. That is indisputable fact. Given that, if the police were truly virulently racist there would be carnage on the streets, hundreds of black men daily would be gunned down by the police. That does not happen, fact. In fact, so few black men are wrongly killed by the police that the statistics show a remarkable restraint by police in these encounters. Look, can police of a better job of tactical training in all encounters, sure. But calling any and all deadly encounters with black men racism is just the wrong conclusion and the wrong focus.

We truly need a system of restorative justice in our country. The first step is to provide care for the victims of crimes -- to understand the help they need does not come from locking the perpetrators up for decades. Then we can find the political will to understand that the perpetrators must be rehabilitated, not caged. We cannot end the vicious cycle of crime and punishment without caring for all in our society. And we can start by cutting our prison population in half -- release the elderly. Those over 50 have a recidivism rate in the low single digits but remain incarcerated because they committed a violent crime decades ago. The money we save can start us on the way to a restorative system.