Problems 1
Policing is an important process required by any functioning civilized state and is based upon the simple premise of enforcing laws made by legislators. However, due to human error and the rules governing these officers, their role is not as black and white as it appears it should. One such problem is the implementation of quotas upon policemen. This system requires officers to meet expectations of a minimum number of arrests, tickets, etc. While requiring officers to hand out a certain number of tickets each month may seem mostly harmless, implementation of this policy in regards to arrests and stop-and-frisks in New York City is detrimental to the community that police officers are supposed to protect. It encourages officers to search and detain people on minimal suspicions, which may even be constituted by the color of their skin. In NYC, during the first seven months of Police commissioner William Bratton’s post, 86% of people of a total 137,039 charged with misdemeanor crimes were people of color. In addition, many of these people charged were not seen as a threat by the justice system, having their cases dismissed or being charged with minor sanctions. Although the use of quotas has been made illegal for the NYPD, these numbers reinforce the sentiment that they are still prevalent as officers are being judged on their “production.” Unfortunately, the results of this system have helped create distrust between communities and the officers that protect them.
Another problem in policing is that many officers are not properly trained to do their job. This appears in multiple ways, one being how to handle mentally sick people. In 2009, Indhira Reyes contacted a social worker for an ambulance in order to gain help for her brother, Gamalier Reyes, who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. When police arrived as first-responders, they beat the man to the point that he would need reconstructive surgery for a skull fracture and claimed that Reyes needed to be subdued. The problem is not that police officers wish to hurt people but they become frightened and act irrationally when confronted with a situation they are not prepared for. Poor training also becomes apparent when offices discharge their weapon and miss their target. On September 14, 2013, a man in Times Square was acting irrationally, walking into traffic and mock shooting at arriving police officers. The two responding police officers fired three shots, missing the target with all three but hitting two women behind him. Whether or not the policemen were justified in shooting at their target, the execution of the action was terrible and this ability, or lack thereof, does not warrant these officers’ right to wield a firearm.
A third current problem in policing is the distrust that many have towards them. Police officers are meant to be protectors of the community but this becomes close to impossible when its citizens do not count them upon them. This is a problem stemming from all of the others but may be the most important to fix. For example, stop and frisk policies alienate officers from the people of the community making them less inclined to cooperate with police in the future. This cooperation is important in proactive policing, the popular strategy of showing officers in numbers integrated in and around the community to prevent future crimes rather than responding to a crime after it’s already been committed. This becomes much harder when civilians are not willing to accept policemen into their community and hinders a precinct’s job to lower crime rates.
References
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/jul/14/police-mental-health-training
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/02/nypd-quotas_n_5916596.html
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2010/12/nypd_internal_m.php
Problem 1
Three issues in policing include bias-based policing, school to prison pipeline, and stop-and-frisk practices. Bias-based policing is a very serious issue that is a cause of great concern to communities, especially in New York City. By bias-based policing, I intend to discuss the police’s heavy-handed enforcement of minor offenses and violation. According to the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), there have been dramatic increases in the number of summons issued for low-level offenses in the past several years. These offenses have included disorderly conduct, riding bicycles on the sidewalk, marijuana possession and violations of the open container law. In 2008 alone, 500,000 such summons were issued citywide. Consequently, offenses as petty as riding a bike on the sidewalk can have serious collateral consequences – including deportation, loss of job, loss of public housing or benefits, and interruptions in education. Such broken windows policing is an oppression to the community as a whole and is also disproportionately affecting communities of color, low-income communities, immigrant communities and LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) communities.
The School to Prison Pipeline (STPP) is a system of policies that pushes students out of school and into the criminal justice system. Zero tolerance policies at schools involve suspension, expulsion, and arrests to handle disciplinary problems such as bringing cell phones and ipods to school, smoking cigarettes, and skipping class. In the process, criminal charges have been brought against youth in schools for violations that would never be considered criminal if committed by an adult. Consequently, students who might easily be disciplined by a visit to the principal’s office end up in jail cells. Even worse, a child who has been suspended is more likely to fall behind in school, drop out of high school, commit a crime, and become incarcerated as an adult. Such school disciplinary, juvenile, and criminal records work against disadvantaged students when they apply for colleges, scholarships, jobs, and selective high schools and, in many places, can prevent students and their families from living in public housing. Also alarming is that the best demographic indicators of children who will be suspended are not the type or severity of the crime, but the color of their skin, their special education status, the school they go to, and whether or not they have been suspended before. If that wasn’t bad enough, in 2004, the federal government spent $60 million to hire police forces for schools and $19.5 million on school safety equipment such as metal detectors. Schools should invest in education, not the far more costly corrections system.
Stop-and-frisk policies are demonstrably ineffective, involve racial profiling, and corrode trust between the police and communities. Stop-and-frisk policies are intended for eradicating crime but since their implementation, they cannot be said to have decreased crime, cut the number of murders, found more guns, or even to involve reasonable suspicion. That statistics show that these policies are discriminatory are only bolstered by Adrian Schoolcraft’s extensive recordings of stop-and-frisk abuse. Also, targeting mostly innocent people corrodes trust.
Sources:
http://samples.jbpub.com/9780763771386/Ross_71386_CH09_131_148.pdf
http://changethenypd.org/issue
http://www.nyclu.org/issues/due-process-and-justice/police-accountability-and-criminal-justice-reform-campaigns
http://www.nyclu.org/content/bias-based-policing
http://www.nyclu.org/schooltoprison
http://www.nyclu.org/issues/racial-justice/stop-and-frisk-practices
http://www.nyclu.org/node/1598
http://www.nyclu.org/content/nyclu-campaign
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop-and-frisk_in_New_York_City
