Race, Ethnicity, Class, and Crime in the Media Fall 2020

You Need to Trust Police Officers :  Defunding The Police Won’t Fix The Problem. 

Aaron Hoda 

Indiana University of Pennsylvania 

Police officers are the most controversial topic in today’s culture as well as the police brutality that may be present. However, I will explain how police can build better trust in the community as well as the complexities associated with this issue. It is very evident that some neighborhoods are looked over and ghettos produce more crime and injustice than the community needs. However, in the grand scope of things there will always be communities with violence, and brutality. Throughout this post, I will be discussing what methods police need to use to have better trust with the community as well as the general population trusting police to do their job. 

The podcast I will be referring and paraphrasing is called Criminal (In)-Justice and will discuss the topic of police trust. In the death of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor the demonstrations of protests are evident everywhere in the world. The trust with police is broken due to the media coverage of these demonstrations, and false narratives that “all police officers” are bad. Training, education, and better equipment can only go so far in preventing tragedies that spark riots and aim to destroy cities and not be on the side of reason. If police do not have trust with the community, then in theory the police are seen as an illegitimate means to enforce the law. Listen to that statement; the fact that people are now believing in a defunding of the police movement is not practical. 

If you defund the police, who is going to stop criminals? Defunding the police has such a disgusting and terrifying message behind it. The first message of defunding the police is to simply relocate money, and resources however police staff is effectively reduced. The other message that radical rioters and looters have is the mentality to abolish police all together through the defunding of the police movement. The argument here is that social workers are “technically” more qualified to de-escalate situations involving criminals with mental illness.  

The other alternative is to have the social worker go with police officers to handle these domestic violence calls or active shooter calls. Furthermore, if you are going to have these social workers come, they are going to need training for protecting themselves against gunfire or even assault. Social workers are not the answer to the problem and I personally know two social workers, and had explicitly told me they would “never hop in a police car to a domestic violence call”. Why? This is because they are not trained for that type of situation where there are too many dangerous variables at play. 

Community trust is what must be sought out to maintain faith in our criminal justice system. Mike Davis (director of public safety) at North Eastern University argues that every encounter with police is a chance to build trust (Harris,2020). This can involve arrests, or even in a domestic violence call. Before I speak on what interventions and programs may help build trust in police, I will be discussing how communities are affected by the racial divide that plagues them. This racial divide can be in part from the media that shoves down our throats with stories of black men being murdered by white people and police officers killing unarmed black men. According to (Davis, 2018) black men are more likely to hear experiences that have happened to other black men than actually experience the actual encounter. 

Hypothetically, when all you hear about on the news is a black man being gunned down by white supremacists or police officers, you most likely will hate the police and the system they enforce. So right off the bat, the trust for young blacks and police is broken and the animosity is through the roof when blacks have an encounter with police. You can also argue that implicit bias occurs which essentially means we as people have stereotypes or attitudes that affect our behavior. The author of Policing The Black Man by Angela Davis presents the argument that implicit bias is why some people don’t trust the police and why police don’t trust blacks (Davis,2018). It is not exactly clear if you can prove this type of thinking but this may be why police officers shoot unarmed black men. However it is possible to inquire if an officer has been exposed to multiple different types of black stereotypes that affect his/her judgement. This type of animosity blacks and other radical people have then call for the unthinkable which is defunding the police. 

Community trust is not a tough issue to solve however it is well known that people have already not trusted the police from their childhood. This stems primarily from how blacks were experiencing all the encounters with police even when they were not physically there (Davis,2018). The issue mainly lies with blacks and they seem to not be on board with trusting the police. Mike Davis who is interviewed on this podcast I am talking about argues that some blacks don’t have a positive role model in their life. Some blacks could have no parents or grandparents and grow up in foster homes without any positive influences on their life to deter themselves from the negative energy directed at police officers (Harris,2020). Mike Davis also illustrates how his vehicle back in his childhood was associated with illegal racing and would be pulled over due to this thinking. This could be said for blacks driving suspicious vehicles or acting a certain way to indicate they commit a crime. 

There is also a struggle to recruit blacks into law enforcement jobs due to the fact of the way the police showcase themselves in the community. I believe that police officers must be fair and try to be as understanding as possible when dealing with situations within a black community. It is clear there are blacks who wish to serve the community but fall short due to the misrepresentation of law enforcement in the media and how police are seen since youth. The D.A.R.E program is a great example of showcasing how police operate and how they try to prevent kids from going into criminal activities. The program was proven to be ineffective, but from personal experience the officer that came to my classroom, who was named Officer Winsock was a role model. I also remember in high school, a motivational speaker who was a former police officer came to speak to the school about his experiences and the nature of some of these crime-ridden communities. These programs may require funding, but are an excellent alternative than doing nothing at all. I recommend this podcast to anyone wanting a deeper explanation as to why some blacks have hate toward the police as well as other factors that disconnect police from the community. 

This podcast helped show me some different issues and possible explanations for why police officers may act a certain way; as well as why people are so reluctant in trusting the police. I agree with a lot of the information spoken about on this podcast episode, however the police movement needs more attention. This is because the methods presented by the rioters and looters in some demonstrations are not practical/ideal to build trust. 

References 

Davis, A. J. (2018). Policing the Black man: Arrest, prosecution, and imprisonment. New York: Vintage Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

Harris, D. (2020, November 17). #128 How Can Police Build Trust? Retrieved from http://www.criminalinjusticepodcast.com/blog/2020/11/17/128-how-can-police-build-trust