In this solution entry I plan to address the outstanding issue that is police training, and more specifically how police react to potentially dangerous situations involving unruly civilians. As we have all seen and has been well publicized, Eric Garner was choked to death by NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo who clearly overstepped his bounds. Officer Pantaleo overreacted to the situation at hand and implemented a chokehold that is not part of the NYPD training courses. I believe Officer Pantaleo was overly excited and, I would assume, forgot his training and what it entailed with regard to subduing a suspect. While police brutality and excessive force is a serious problem among NYPD officers and their interactions with criminals, I believe there is a way to decrease the number of violent police crimes in NYC.
While police officers certainly do take many classes and are put through many physical tests, I would like to see NYPD officers enroll in psychology or behavioral classes that would expand their knowledge to better understand how criminals think and how they are likely to react to police intervention. I believe these types of courses would instill a deeper level of understanding in our city’s police officers and would ultimately keep the tension to a minimum and hopefully avoid another Eric Garner type case.
In addition to these behavioral analysis classes, I believe NYPD officers would benefit from training directed by former officers who have been through it all and seen it all with regard to conduct in the streets. Just as we as civilians are taught to learn from our elders who have ‘foreseen our future’, I believe NYPD officers can stand to benefit from the same premise. Certainly these older, former officers have learned a thing or two in their experiences in law enforcement and can possibly teach our new officers how to correctly react to a potentially fatal confrontation. Ideally, I hope NYPD officers would adopt a more thoughtful, pragmatic approach in their apprehension or confrontation of suspects. Hopefully this shift toward a proactive mindset and away from a “rush of blood”, reactive mindset will prevent future murders of civilians at the hands of the police and reduce police brutality.
A second solution I have applies to my third problem, which addresses the incarceration rate of teenage repeat offenders. After learning that 86% of youth offenders were arrested again within 3 years of original release and 41% were arrested for a new offense independent of their original offense, I started thinking. I also learned that in some European countries teenage offenders have the opportunity to get jobs in factories following their release from jail. For example, some factories in the Netherlands have accepted formerly incarcerated youths into the textile and skateboard industries. After our Milk Not Jails presentation we found out that only three formerly incarcerated people were employed by the organization. While this is a good start I would like to see more programs like the ones in play in the Netherlands arise in the United States. I would fully support non-violent teenage offenders being offered menial, low-paying jobs upon their release from prison. Simple work in factories can help our nation’s troubled youth transform themselves into flourishing members of society and become functional members of society.
http://www.justicepolicy.org/images/upload/06-11_rep_dangersofdetention_jj.pdf
http://www.criminaljustice.ny.gov/opca/ati_description.htm
Similar to your posts, I discussed the problem of improper police training. Although I discussed this issue in regards to fire arms training, mental training such has the behavioral analysis classes you discussed are just as important. Many of the unfortunate incidents we hear about on the news involve police officers who are in difficult positions and do not how to properly react. Basic instinct tells a person to defend themselves when they are in a dangerous situation but police officers are in a variety dangerous situations throughout their careers. I do not believe that police officers who harm innocent civilians meant to do so. I think that they were simply not prepared to handle what was happening and responded in the way they thought was appropriate. More training programs simulating specific encounters could help to prevent future incidents. These would include situations involving takedowns of large people and the assessing of possible threats as well as how to deal with the mentally handicapped.