Following the killing of George Floyd pundits, politicians, and social justice warriors have been calling for a dismantling or defunding of the police. However, what that means varies depending who you talk to, their knowledge of policing, and where they believe the problems in policing exist. There are roughly 800,000 law enforcement officers in the U.S. having hundreds of thousands of contacts with citizens everyday where no one is injured. A little over 1000 people are killed a year by police (who also suffer the loss of a couple hundred officers a year as well) and only around 100 unarmed citizens (of all races) are included in that number While Blacks accounted for only 25 unarmed citizen deaths in 2019, anecdotal incidents like the George Floyd case where the police were clearly in the wrong, while making up a very small fraction of all police encounters, engender anger that policing is a racist institution and that police brutality is out of control.
Despite much criminal justice research demonstrating there is no systemic racism in policing, or other CJ institutions for that matter, social commentators driven by conformity toward this “broken police” narrative, are calling to end biased policing by implementing extreme measures. Deep cuts in personnel will reduce police presence on the street making citizens more at ease with less police in their neighborhoods. Eliminating preventive/self-directed patrol will keep officers from “harassing” citizens through investigative field stops and stop and frisks and officers will only need to respond to dispatch calls. Eliminating an armed police response will force officers to use de-escalation and people skills to handle situations rather than force. Mandating that the use of force only be used when a risk of serious bodily injury or death is present will keep officers from using force against unarmed citizens who are non-compliant, thus preventing suspect injury or death. While these might sound good to a citizenry that has convinced itself that all police are brutal racists and that we need to scrap the current state of policing and start with something new, the reality of policing is different.
Most of the commentators offering up these ill-conceived ideas seem to lack knowledge about policing in general or the current state of policing. For example the desire to decrease the member of sworn officers may require legislative action. The Minneapolis city charter mandates a ratio of officer to citizen and to change it would require a vote by the people. However research has indicated that a visible police officer presence can make the public feel safe. That presence is enhanced by officers’ self-directed patrol and that patrol does provide opportunities for positive interactions with citizens, which is essential in improving police/public relations. The idea that an armed response can be eliminated from policing is to not understand policing in America. Gun rights in this country mean that criminals do have access to guns and we cannot have the police at a such a disadvantage when called upon to protect the lives of victims, bystanders, and themselves. Calls for service and fields stops can be dynamic, and volatile, situations that may quickly evolve from a “standard” stop to a fight for an officer’s life and officers should not handcuffed by a lack of force options. Attempting to require officers to utilize force in only the most serious circumstances in public encounters limits officers’ ability to gain subject compliance when verbal attempts at compliance have failed. Officers need to have their authority submitted to if they are to be seen as legitimate institution and the ability to gain compliance, despite the subject’s refusal and resistance, is necessary to ensure law and order. One area of policing that has been under reform for decades is the use of force and the means of applying that force. The idea of a continuum of force has led to the development of non-lethal or less than lethal force options beyond the classic night stick to include pepper spray, tasers, non-lethal rounds. Departments are also refining their use of force policies in regards to allowed techniques, and appropriateness of armed response. These policies are also supplemented by more realistic training exercises for officers in use of force encounters.
We need to remember that policing is in a constant state of reform. It is a sociopolitical institution that provides for a great amount of authority over citizens and rightly it has been under scrutiny for decades. As problems become evident in a police department that scrutiny results in departments operating under consent decrees to address these problems, and many of the largest U.S. cities have. at one point or another, operated under a consent decree in order to force police reform. Many departments, large and small, have also implemented citizen review boards to serve as a form of watchdog agency that ensures that the public is represented when police officer behavior is called in to question.
But reform doesn’t always come following inappropriate officer or department behavior. Academics and police management have focused on change within the institution of policing in a variety of ways. Morphing form the Problem Oriented Policing of decades ago Community Oriented Policing (COP) has been viewed as an important change in how policing should be viewed. It provides officers a means to interact more closely with the community, which allows them to develop innovative, non-conventional solutions to problems rather than a strictly law enforcement response. This increases understanding and cooperation between the police and the public, promotes a diversity of ideas, and involves an increased participation of other city agencies in addressing issues and problems. Changing attitudes and the way public interactions are conducted by officers is the goal of Procedural Justice (PJ) reforms. An important internal structure in policing for over ten years, procedural justice seeks to incorporate, fairness, empathy, respect, and two-way communication in all police/citizen encounters.
Other current innovations in policing that have sought to moderate a law enforcement approach to police encounters include the use of Community Service Officers (CSOs) and Crisis Intervention Teams (CITs). Community Service Officers are not sworn officers, are more casually dressed, and are unarmed. They provide a number of policing services that do not require the response of a sworn law enforcement officer such as taking theft and missing property reports, retrieval of abandoned property, animal at large calls, etc. These officers serve as representatives of the local police department and their interactions with the public tend to be non-confrontational and rely on service and assistance to members of the public. While some critics unwisely suggest putting all mental health related issues solely into the hands of social services, Crisis Intervention Teams provide a more comprehensive response to homeless, substance abuse, mental health, and domestic issues and problems. These teams are typically made up of multi-agency members and may include, a nurse, a mental health professional, a social worker, and a plainclothes officer, who not only provides for police authority and response but also to insure the security of the other team members in case the subject becomes aggressive or the situation turns violent, as can often be the case in dealing with emotionally disturbed individuals. These multi-disciplinary teams are better equipped to address the varied needs, and manage the risks, of these segments of the population.
Police reform in a broader scope continues to be addressed by the larger concepts of COP and procedural justice and more and more departments are orienting themselves to these concepts but it doesn’t mean we solved the problems in policing. However, the messages that should be conveyed about the real problems in policing are wrapped up in the false narrative of “the police are racist”. While many departments have adhered to the COP and PJ concepts, there is certainly work to be done in policing that may not need a broad prescription but rather with policies focused on the particular needs of a department, adapting programs and policies that address what may be lacking or needing support within the individual departments or their communities. For example, some departments could benefit from a high functioning early warning systems for officers, which might have picked out Derek Chauvin before he killed Floyd, or requiring in-service training that goes beyond law enforcement skills and includes communication skills and group social interaction. Other programs can also work toward improving public relations and outreach towards both children and adults, like preventing gun violence, after school programs, participation in neighborhood and community social events, promoting personal and online safety, and crime prevention awareness. While some departments and communities could benefit from the inclusion of these programs and features, many communities and departments have already incorporated these into their social structure. Too often critics standing on the sidelines, judging the police by anecdotal evidence, fail to see that in the vast majority of communities the narrative of an authoritarian force hell-bent on suppressing minorities rings hollow. Rather the police are but one of a number of sociopolitical institutions that have been working together and striving for peaceful, safe communities. But it is within these communities as well as the more troubled ones that vigilance needs to be maintained against problematic officers and divisive attitudes, and that is assisted by supporting policing programs, not defunding the police.
Departments need to be examined and see what can be done to bring them up to speed in some areas. While the policing literature has been talking about change and innovation in policing for decades, some departments may still just simply be behind the times. Municipal governments and departments themselves should take an outside view of the department and assess how current they are within the forward movement of policing and implement change; for example, adopting or more strongly reinforcing the COP and PJ concepts, reexamine their use of force policies, or whatever is pertinent and appropriate to their circumstances, not just take a blanket approach to a problem that might need very specific answers. Its important to fix those problems, not just simply dismantle the police, essentially throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Police reform is best accomplished on a local level, specific to the problems and issues of the particular community, not as an overly broad mandate that could potentially waste resources on non-problematic areas. In the departments that are still lagging behind the curve, and there are a number of them, we have to consider that reform and change are not so easily implemented because of political and societal realities. At that local level, there may be a variety of roadblocks that exist to implementing change. Cities need to hire chiefs who are progressive in their policing style and methods and are willing to adopt to the best practices that have been supported by research evidence; something that the cities’ elected officials must actually be willing to do. Even if you have buy-in from a chief on incorporating more PJ in the patrol officers’ interactions, you need that officer buy-in as well, and that comes from good middle management within the department. If that is weak, sergeants and officers will just continue along with policing as usual and will be slow to adopt or resist change. City budgets, rather than defunding the police, are needed to maintain funding for departments so that the departments can continue to support a wide array of officer training programs, community support and outreach, crime prevention programs, as well as provide for the ability to attract high quality officers by providing attractive pay scales. In defunding the police, it is likely these areas would receive budget cuts before any kind of cuts in hours or layoffs of personnel would occur. Now in times of economic downturn, as cities may have to slash budgets, the implementation and support of these programs may fall away, and without that support, needed reform is more difficult to implement. Calls to limit police presence on the streets may receive applause from some quarters of the community but other community members, particularly the business community may strongly object to a decrease in police presence, especially following the wave of violence and destruction that swept across cities during the protesters’ calls to implement justice by reducing police authority and presence. Others in the communities, such as in Fargo, my hometown, saw protesting and rioting against a police force that has actually had strong community ties and strong community support. Many here saw the protestors’ reaction to the local police as misguided, and in turn the overall idea of police reform that the protestors push for loses their support. Without strong, influential community support to push for reform cities will quickly lose the will to do the hard work to implement change in social institutions. The community may also reject some new forms of policing, and the public often sends conflicting messages about its expectations of the police. Fargo PD spoke of dispatch trying to send the casually dressed, unarmed CSOs to take crime reports but citizens often objected to the approach, wanting “a real cop” instead.
So if there is a desire to cause positive change or reform in a city’s police department, a knee jerk reaction of slashing budgets, implementing new policies to address non-issues and dismantling the police structure without a clear plan for replacement is a recipe for disaster as police morale drops, cities with already high levels of calls for service will suffer response time delays, and beneficial programs and training lose their funding. Rather, the correct response needed is a careful assessment of the department in question. Determining weakness or problems in the department, whether in the command structure or with officers, examining the acceptance and progress of policing models like COP and PJ, assessing the current state of new officer, and in-service, training with an eye toward improvements, utilizing improved use of force training and the existence of officer accountability structures, incorporating technical improvements like the use of bodycams, and establishing a diversity of community related programs. City and police officials meeting with community leaders on concerns and issues should precede a joint effort by these groups to determine what problems exist, if any, and the best approach to solving problems, which may utilize a variety of efforts, resources, agencies, and groups. This ensures the process is focused and based on need while resources aren’t wasted on misdirected blanket efforts. This process will not as likely involve defunding as it will redirecting funding within the department and providing increased funding as deficiencies in training, recruitment practices, and community programs are discovered. Police reform is an important ongoing issue but true effective reform calls for a close examination of problems and a willingness to fund solutions, not for soundbite driven reactions.