Crime and race
Jeffrey Poland
10/9/20
Dr. Engstrom
Race, Police, and the pandemic
I watched a documentary called Race, Police, and the Pandemic. This documentary explained some of the race relations between police and the black community today. The man speaking in the documentary talked about what effected the relations how the police are treated and how the community views the departments that guard their communities. How Covid, education, and even healthcare has been affecting how black people are treated in the community, and how in some ways we could fix these issues. One of the issues is how the communities and how blacks are treated could affect how they act and grow up in the community. The community is all built around institutions and this could influence how these young men and women are brought up. If they are brought up with a bad education system that does not care about them this could lead them down a dark path. In some of the places the man in the documentary speaking has visited he said that some of the protests were not about police as much. It was about the reform for the local schools and institutions that provide education, healthcare, and housing to the local people. The school’s go to thing for students that got in trouble was to just suspend them. “Jayden, an African American Junior in High School in Antioch, California, had been bullied since the fifth grade” (Edelman, pg. 117). Bullying in class could also lead to lash outs and aggressive behavior. This could lead to them not showing up to school and going out during the day when they should be in school and do things, they should not be doing instead of being in the classroom. The police in these protests were just one of the things they wanted a change to in the communities they lived in because it could be more than the police effecting the crime and actions of these young individuals.
The police could also have a big effect on the community and how they act and take up cases could also negatively affect police race relations. In the documentary they talked about a 17-year-old boy who was shot and killed by a police officer in Chicago, the boy’s name was Laquan McDonald. This boy was shot and killed a Chicago police officer while on duty. For a year there was an investigation and the police officers gave their statements and it seemed they were justified in the act. According to footage of the incident that came out a year later told a different story. The Police had lied about their statements about what had really happened during the incident and the administration and the police department tried to cover it up. This is the definition of a corrupt system of police and administration and it needs to be fixed. “There were more problems with the police union than the chief” (Race, Police, and the pandemic). Some might think the problem starts with the police chief about reform but it is not, it is usually the police union that has a push back with reform for corrupt departments. The police chief in Chicago wanted reform for for use of deadly force specifically after this shooting but there was push back from the Police union.
Fortunately, there has been instances where a police department has had a bounce from an incident and improved a lot. The Los Angeles Police department had an incident in the 90’s where one of the police beat a man and was caught on video. After this case there was a big reform in the department. The department did a consent decree which helped improve the institution in the following years. They got higher respect from the communities from the actions they took after the program was launched. When there was a call with a mentally ill person a social worker was sent out with the officer to the scene. This was done because the officer was not well equipped enough to handle it and a person who is trained in handling this can take down the situation a few notches better than an officer with a gun and handcuffs. This relates to today’s society where they want to “defund the police”. They mean send social workers into a scene rather than a police officer who is not well trained in handling mentally ill people like a social worker is.
I believe the more time we put into the communities with these issues has a chance to improve. If we can just fix the institutions that control these communities and improve the education, healthcare, housing, and especially the police department. Schools need to stop immediately sending kids on suspension if they do something wrong so they can do things they shouldn’t be doing in the streets. Extend healthcare out to those who need it and especially reform the departments. Send out social workers that can help the community and make a difference. All these things can come together and make a big change in something that has been going on for one hundred plus years.
References
Edelman, P. B. (2017). Not a crime to be poor: the criminalization of poverty in America. The New Press.
Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtedrSReKFo
October 25, 2020 @ 11:22 pm
I really think you did a great job on your discussion and you made some valid points on how people that are brought up in a bad education system will turn to crime as an alternative. That’s a very good point you made because if people are not taught the right way, they could go down the wrong path as you stated and then eventually turn to crime. In your conclusion you stated a bunch of things that need to be looked at in this world and I agree with you because in today’s world, there’s so much violence. From people saying that police should be defunded to sending out social workers. I did agree with the point you made entirely when you had said police don’t know how to work with mentally ill people. That really isn’t there job but I believe bringing in social workers could help protect from violence. The world needs change and we need to do something about all the violence that goes on in this world.