In the year 2020 the United States finds itself at a critical juncture. Protests in cities from Los Angeles to Washington DC around the misuse of police power have exposed a fracture in society. Some perceive police officers to be pillars of safety and order; others perceive them to be the epitome of corruption and abuse. The truth of the matter is that neither entirely encapsulates what policing is today as well as how it has come to be so.
"It is only through cooperation that we can dissolve these boundaries and find a way to make us all feel safe and realize the fundamental truth that we are all created equal."
To thoroughly discern both fact from fiction as well as the necessary functions of police from the extraneous, one must understand how policing has developed in the United States. With an understanding of the origins of policing in the United States, one can identify the key issues with how policing in New Jersey can be improved so as to best serve the public and provide a safe environment for both officers and civilians. This feature article will examine: the historical context of policing, how violent crime plays a role in officer response and training, as well as how policy in other jurisdictions has improved safety during officer-civilian interactions.
The United States as a country demonstrates today, as it has before, an interesting dichotomy. There has always been a significant difference between those living in rapidly urbanizing cities and those living in ruralities. This difference can be observed in everything from voting patterns to even policing.
The impetus and growth of modern day policing has two origins; slave patrols in the south and rural America, and citizens' arrests and private policing units in the cities. It is with the former that the true depravities of policing in the United States originate and persist. In the South and rural America citizens were hired as night watches, slave patrols, and Indian Constables meant to control minority populations through fear and intimidation. States like Virginia established hundreds of statutes specifically addressing the control, capture, and life of enslaved people in those states. These statutes, among others, provided archetypal police forces the legal recourse to terrorize the lives of Native Americans, African Americans, and other minority groups. In 1702 South Carolina became one of the first states to enact Slave Patrol legislation which used white-on-black violence to subjugate unrelenting slaves as well as ‘supplement’ poor mastership. In the years that followed almost all Southern colonies had enacted some form of slave patrol legislation. These patrols were given carte blanche to enforce their brutal hierarchy. Slave patrollers were able to enter plantations and slave quarters without a warrant, they were able to enforce curfews, and even engage in the patrol of urban areas, though they were often accompanied by their urban counterparts. Slave Patrols proved in the South to be the model for how policing would function as many of their responsibilities and powers were transferred to formal Southern policing units after the abolition of slavery. In a paper analyzing violence and aggression by police officers, Gene Grabiner wrote about how law enforcement in much of Southern and rural America owes itself to early Slave Patrols. In the paper Grabiner references Turner, Giacopassi and Vandiver in stating that “The literature clearly establishes that a legally sanctioned law enforcement system existed in America before the civil war for the express purpose of controlling the slave population and protecting the interests of slave owners. The similarities between the slave patrols and modern American policing are too salient to dismiss or ignore.”
Indeed some of the earliest formal policing units started in Southern cities using similar tactics and under similar legal protections to slave patrollers. While this was characteristic of Southern policing, the ways in which policing started and grew in cities like Boston, New York, and Philadelphia are fundamentally different from that of cities like St. Louis.
In rapidly growing cities like Boston, Philadelphia, and New York, policing grew out of a need to control the drunk and disorderly as well as secure stolen and missing property. Robert Liebman and Michael Polen in their paper, “Perspectives on Policing in Nineteenth-Century America.”, assert that the rapid growth of cities provided greater anonymity, and rising immigration intensified intergroup tensions. While ethno-racial tensions began to mount in the early 19th century, the dominant need for organized policing groups was still social in nature. These groups were meant to instill a level of social control that was no longer feasible by traditional means. Liebman and Polen write, “the old patterns of deference to one’s betters and social control by informal mechanisms such as gossip no longer prevailed.” Boston was the first city in the United States to establish a formal police force. In the subsequent years New York, Chicago, Albany, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Cincinnati, and others established their own formal policing units similar to that of Boston. Gary Potter, a professor of Justice Studies at Eastern Kentucky University wrote about how Boston’s police force was archetypal of modern forces. Potter wrote that
“these "modern police" organizations shared similar characteristics: (1) they were publicly supported and bureaucratic in form; (2) police officers were full-time employees, not community volunteers or case-by-case fee retainers; (3) departments had permanent and fixed rules and procedures, and employment as a police officers was continuous; (4) police departments were accountable to a central governmental authority.”( “The History of Policing in the United States, Part 1.”)
These functions outlined by Potter demonstrate how policing in America’s cities still operate under similar, but expanded functions to those of the past. It is important to understand how officers engaged in their duties in the past to shape how they might be more effective in the future.
Originating from slave patrols and the need to institute social control to influence ethno-racial tensions, policing in the United States is inextricably linked with race and violence. Therefore one must appropriately appreciate these origins to understand the modern conundrum. The National Center for Biotechnology Information examined several studies over a 7 year period, from 2005-2012, and across 16 states related to police homicides. The study found that police homicides, whether justified or not, contributed to 0.24/100,000 homicides and were subject to influence by several factors, the most potent of which being location and race. In identifying what problems, if any, may rest with police officers, or the institutions themselves, one must discern which variables have the greatest impact.
According to Catherine Barber and the National Center for Biotechnology Information, “The annual rate of police homicide (0.24/100 000) varied 5-fold by state and 8-fold by race/ethnicity.” These results demonstrate that the most influential factor influencing officer-involved homicides is not the venue, but the race of those involved. The term officer-involved homicides does not condone wrongdoing, however it is a legal term which refers to either the just or unjust killing of a civilian at the hands of a police officer. In the year 2020, Black Americans are 3 times more likely to be killed by a police officer than their white counterparts.
While location is a factor which affects the likelihood of police-related homicides, race is a constant amplifier across the nation. From Rodney King and the LAPD to Freddie Gray and the Baltimore Police Department across time, and geographic distance, the abuses of police officers are not only visible but palpable to the Black and Brown community. Baltimore alone has paid out more than $5.7 million to settle over 100 lawsuits between 2011 and 20162. These lawsuits alleged excessive and abusive use of force by police officers on civilians, most of whom are people of color. Pew Research group found that while rates of incarceration among individuals of color are decreasing, that Black Americans are still 5.6 times more likely to end up in Prison than their white counterparts. Hispanic Americans are almost 3 times as likely to be arrested more than their white counterparts. While these statistics are indicative of more than just the methods and execution of policing in communities of color, they do highlight how these communities may interact with and perceive police presence.
As a result of inflated incarceration rates these communities are perceived as ‘hotspots’ of crime by outsiders and officers alike. Leslie Kennedy wrote in her paper “the evolution of modern policing”, that “what officers do in hot spots has great importance, because policing tactics have the potential of alienating communities in need, regardless of their real or perceived crime prevention utility.” Officers have a genuine responsibility to uphold the law and are afforded certain protections in the pursuit of these goals. It is in the execution of these objectives that many officers and departments fall short of justice.
In order to understand where policing in America can improve, and more importantly, how to go about that process we must reconcile our past. That process of reconciliation should neither demonize officers who, for the most part, valiantly protect their communities nor absolve bystanders within departments for what should amount to a blatant disregard for public safety. At the end of the day, bad cops are bad for all of us and that includes other police officers. To radically improve the way policing in America works we have to work with police unions and engage with them on a human level to minimize the differences between us. We have to express the fundamental truth that it does not matter who’s black, latinx, white, or asian.
It does not matter who’s a cop and who is a civilian, we all want to go home to our families. It is only through cooperation that we can dissolve these boundaries and find a way to make us all feel safe and realize the fundamental truth that we are all created equal.
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