Student is disturbed by police brutality

 Police Brutality has been on my mind for quite a long time. Minority groups are being targeted the most when it comes to these issues, and yet America finds it as an issue within’ the group and not the police. After watching Frontline: Policing the Police 2020, 

I can’t stop thinking about how this really has been going on for a lifetime and not just as a 2020 thing. I knew discrimination existed towards the minority groups because it’s been going on everyday and even if it’s not being seen, it’s happening somewhere, whether it’s in America or another country, it’s happening. It got a lot more serious this year because of George Floyd, but no matter what, there is still no justice. 

Can we go back in time for a minute? I know this doesn’t have anything to do with police, but if we look at the Emmitt Till case, the two men who beat him, they didn’t get sentenced to life; they didn’t get charged; and yet later, we find out that the woman died? That’s injustice right there. [Carolyn Bryant Donham, who made a false accusation against Emmitt Till, did not die (she could still be alive, for all I know)]

If we look at Rodney King, he got beat by police officers and why? If we look at Oscar Grant, where is his justice? We have so many people in this world who deal with police brutality, and I honestly could name them, but it’ll take up my whole paper. I have a friend who died because of Police Brutality. His story didn’t make it worldwide, but my city was truly hurt when this occurred, living in Peoria, we would never think such a thing would happen and it did. 

I honestly didn’t know Newark, New Jersey was dealing with such a tremendous Police Brutality, and when something was finally going to be done to stop it, Donald Trump said “no.” He really said that Police Officers should not be careful when putting “criminals” in the car and then the people dressed in military clothes in the background clapping proudly. That is definitely not okay and if they think it’s okay, it’s because they’ll never know how it feels to be a minority in those types of situations. I know this is supposed to be Police Brutality, but I’m just expressing how I feel overall about these types of situations. 

I don’t think this will ever end just because our country is being led by a President who doesn’t really care about anyone, except for those that are on his level. The election is giving me hope that Joe Biden hopefully does find a way to stop these Police Brutalities, but if Trump wins again, there most likely won’t be any changes and it will end up getting worse. 

I have had conversations with friends and students in law enforcement, and family members who have been in law enforcement, and with criminologists who are friends.  I think that we are devoting a lot of resources to a system of justice and police and corrections that should be protecting us and making us safe, but it is not really doing this effectively or efficiently.  I am not sure that reforms will be able to solve the problem. I think my cousin George Ives addressed this well over a hundred years ago when he pointed to the fact that too few people really want to understand why crime occurs and then create systems to prevent crime.  Most people are happier to create and sustain a system devoted to finding persons who commit crime and then punishing them. This is a devastating decision, because we could save far more money and lives by putting more resources into preventing crime, rather than putting so much into the system we have now.  And yet, I do not know how we will make the transition. 

I agree with your perception that there is a widespread and deep problem of police and prosecutors being unfair. It is worth acknowledging that there are many good people in law enforcement who are well-intentioned and doing the best they can, but making that observation does not really help move us toward a solution to the problem at hand; that our overall policing and prosecution and corrections system is failing us. 

It is probably also just hair-splitting to point out that many abuses by police that are attributed to racism are probably more centrally caused by brutality and a general disregard for the rights of citizens in the police officers.  That is, many police may be just as likely, or perhaps even more likely, to kill white Americans than African-Americans. This is argued by some who say that there are far more police interactions with African-Americans, largely because police mainly interact with poor persons, and African-Americans have a higher poverty rate (18.8% compared to 9.1% for white Americans). I think this argument as been rebutted by Ulrich Schimmack and Rickard Carlsson’s analysis of fatal use of force against non-suicidal young men who are not mentally ill (lots of fatal use of force by police against white Americans involves police killing older guys who are suicidal or suffering from serious mental illness). They have confirmed that police officers are more likely to shoot younger Black men who are non-suicidal and not suffering from a mental illness. And yet, there are some serious debates about how much we can attribute police use of force to racism and how much we can attribute to the sort of bad policing and police brutality that we could all be subject to, regardless of our race. I know there are many studies where criminal attributes and crime attributes have been controlled, and these show that judges and juries and prosecutors all give out harsher sentences to Black Americans compared to white Americans. It is difficult to argue against those facts.  But, if we are facing two serious problems: widespread bad policing and widespread prejudices in law enforcement workers and prosecutors, then do we really need to argue much about which is worse or which problem needs to be addressed first?  Both problems are serious, and both need to be addressed immediately.

For psychological reasons, I do not think Donald Trump would have been interested in transforming our law-enforcement system.  His father instilled so much anger in him, that the retribution and punishment model of approaching the world seems highly central to his core values. Biden may be different, but I wonder at this ability, or the ability of his Vice President, to bring together an alliance of criminologists, law enforcement professionals, mayors, and leadership in the Department of Justice to give us the revolution in our approach to crime that could significantly improve the situation.  I fear we are stuck with incremental reforms that are unlikely to make substantial changes.