Due to recent incidents such as failure to indict officers responsible for the death of Michael Brown and Eric Gartner, policing has come into close scrutiny lately. There have been a myriad of protests calling for an upheaval of the police system. Some of the problems regarding policing practices that have been brought to the surface are unreasonable and unnecessary use of force, police training, and racial profiling.
The problem with police training is that while at the academy the concept of officer safety is heavily emphasized. These officers in training are shown painful videos of officers beaten, gunned down, and killed due to moments of hesitation. They are shown demonstrations of situations such as someone pulling a gun when reaching behind car door, or turning around abruptly and shooting, or someone armed with a knife attacking an officer, all before the officer has a chance to remove his gun from his holster. Such training instills such fear into police officers that many are in a sense wired to shoot before the threat is fully realized.
The problem with unnecessary use of force can be demonstrated by the case of Eric Gartner who was killed due to a chokehold by a police officer even though he was unarmed and posed no immediate threat other than swatting his arms. This problem stems from the fear that many police officers have that was described earlier which leads to rash reactions. These police officers which are heavily armed and plenty of times will react to situations with excessive force instead of using other methods to handle the situation. Such cases contribute to ever growing rift between police and civilians.
The main problem with policies such as stop and frisk is that such practices create a sense of mistrust between police officers and the communities that they protect. In 1994 Mayor Giuliani and the NYPD adopted policies that promote aggressive enforcement of minor offenses. Each year thousands of New Yorkers are wrongfully stopped and searched. Many of these citizens stopped are sexually or physically assaulted by officers. In 2011 there were 684,000 stops and 90% of those stops did not result in arrests and those that did resulted in low level arrests. This policy is not only flawed in that it does not aid in reducing crime, it is also a form of racial profiling as a majority of those stopped are of color. Policies such as stop and frisk systematically target low-income communities of color, young people, LGBT, and immigrants. In 2011 53% of stops made were performed on blacks, 34% of stops were made on Hispanics. In Park Slope 79% of stop and frisk stops were performed on Black/Hispanics. Such policies make us all less safe by creating an environment of fear instead of trust.
In order for an effective reform on the current system of policing to occur it is imperative to understand these problems and the roots of these issues. New policies need to be implemented which will work towards a partnership between communities and the police in order to prevent crime together.
Sources:
http://changethenypd.org/issue
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/12/police-gun-shooting-training-ferguson/383681/
http://www.psmag.com/politics-and-law/problems-police-sanctions-eric-holder-cops-cleveland-firearms-crime-97137
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/katrina-vanden-heuvel-the-moral-and-political-case-for-criminal-justice-reform/2014/11/17/3eedc60c-6e7a-11e4-8808-afaa1e3a33ef_story.html
Hey Christina, I agree with all of the points you made about reforming policing in New York City. I also spoke about the stop and frisk policy set up by Mayor Bloomberg, and the resulting tension and racial profiling caused by its execution. I looked specifically at the number of illegal weapons obtained by police officers during these searches, and found that in total only 1 in every 1000 person stopped by the police was actually carrying an illegal weapon per 10-month period. After reading your statistics, I realize the policy is even less effective than I originally believed. As for the unequal percentages of stops per neighborhood, it is just sad how many of the stops being performed were on minorities. This selective policing however is difficult to monitor since police officers are usually left to their own devices while on patrol. I wonder if any real reform can be made to this law, or if it should just be thrown out altogether.
Another one of your points that I found very important to look into was the quality of police training and how what an officer sees in his early days of training can affect his psyche while on duty. I agree with you that police training should really be reviewed and reformed, for a number of reasons and perhaps some of the most important times in an officer’s career to look into are his early days.
The issues you mentioned definitely show some severe defects in our policing system. I found your take on police training to be quite interesting. I do agree that showing police academy students these videos of violent actions taken against officers does in fact instill fear into the soon-to-be cops, but don’t you think it is necessary? If an officer is not aware of the multitude of potential life-threatening situations that can arise on duty, how are they supposed to react in a manner that will both protect them, and cause little to no harm to the suspect? Policing is a dangerous and sometime life-threatening job, especially in NYC, so officers must be aware of what can possibly occur. The problems you mentioned with the Stop and Frisk program are interesting. I like how you connected the program with the ever growing sense of mistrust between citizens and the police that are there to protect them. I feel this would be an intriguing topic to look further into. Mistrust causes officers not to do their job properly, and citizens to not call for help of police. If this situation could be improved, I feel our whole law enforcement system might be a little more efficient, and our streets a bit safer.
In the problems you provided in this post, I definitely agree with the statement that police training is a problem. However, I agree with Damien’s comment on how it can be a necessity for policemen to be trained to prepare for all possible life-threatening situations. Yes, it does seem cruel to train them by beating them down and physically hurting them, but they do need to be trained for anything and everything. I believe that as long as the life of an officer is not threatened, these trainings should continue. However, to lessen the danger and for safety, maybe someone should be there to check on the training once in a while. Supervisors can be present to make sure they are not overdoing the training.
Also, your idea on unnecessary use of power is definitely agreeable. However, it is understandable that police officers sometimes overuse their power because they are not aware of the degree of danger they are in. But to prevent this unnecessary use of power, police officers should be trained to approach with caution. It seems that they are trained to attack if they feel possible danger. It would be more efficient if they were more educated in cautiously approaching possible-criminals, rather than rashly acting out.
Your statement on the problem of disproportionate amount of minorities is extremely interesting. You stated that racial bias is evident and I believe that it’s unavoidable. Racial profiling is definitely a problem to be addressed but we cannot put fewer minorities in jail just because they are minorities. The statistics show us that there are more blacks than whites that are being incarcerated and I feel that we should focus on why more blacks are being caught in action. This might be due to the amount of police in one neighborhood over another or that blacks are being judged in stricter manner. To possibly solve this matter, we could have a system where the race of the defendant remains hidden.
Additionally, I strongly agree on your point of the difficulty ex-convicts have while reentering the community. I also believe that our country lacks a system where ex-convicts have a second chance to redeem themselves and work for the country. To solve this matter, I believe that the government should create a training program for these ex-convicts to learn certain skills so that they may enter the society once again. Also, employment should not only depend on whether they have criminal record or not, but depending on what crimes they committed and the time they spend training and redeeming themselves.